skip to content

LED lighting, can it provide better MPG?

Created June 25, 2006, at 8:01 pm by Anonymous

Any auto / electronics experts out there...

Does replacing all of a vehicle's lamps with LED's (light emitting diodes) provide a measurable effect in raising MPG?

Also, do HID (High Intensity Discharge) headlamps place a greater load on the alternator that standard halogen headlamps, thus lowering MPG?

Thanks for any input

Anonymous

5 years ago

One of those conversion factors we should all remember is that 747 watts = one horsepower. My recollection is that regular automobile headlights typically run about 75 to 100 watts. So if you turn your headlights off, you save 200 watts, or less than a third of a horsepower. Replacing your headlights with lower-wattage LEDs would have such a minor effect on your MPGs that you couldn't measure it outside a lab and wouldn't notice it on the road.

By the way, there are engineering details and other problems with LED headlights - see the article in Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlight - it talks about LEDs about two-thirds of the way down.

Anonymous

5 years ago

Thanks for the input

What about the HID vs. Halogen lamps though?

Anonymous

5 years ago

Watts are watts - your generator / battery doesn't know or care whether the light is a HID or a Halogen lamp. In either case a few hundred watts is a small fraction of one horsepower and will have an insignificant effect on your mileage.

Anonymous

5 years ago

Thanks. I heard somewhere that you need a ballast to start HID lamps, and I was just interested (since the Toyota Prius has all of the packages, the top most having HID lamps).

But anyways, thanks for the input. I thought of replacing all of my HCH's brake and turn signal lights with LEDs, but you helped to show that it would have been a waste of money.

Joel from Indiana

3 years ago

LEDs won't show significant gains in fuel economy but that doesn't make them a waste of money.

LED lights have a significantly longer life than the incandescent bulbs in most vehicles. In many cases, they'll last beyond the life of the vehicle.

They also illuminate more quickly. Approximately 2 tenths of a second. At 65 mph, that extra time allows the following driver to stop over 18 feet shorter.

Chris Mack - LED Lighting

49 weeks ago

As far as LED lighting is concerned it's early days. Any money you pay out you will not get back in terms of savings, however you will get a brighter, cleaner, crisper light, and that can be payment enough.

Post a new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.