The arrival of the automotive headlight LED revolution

After a careful look at the history of the development of the lights, since the German Carl Bentz made the car in 1885, after more than 100 years of evolution, the lights evolved from the first era of chemical lamps to the era of electric lights, in which the electric light stepped from the incandescent lamp to the current one. Mainstream halogen lamps, xenon lamps and LED lamps, as well as laser lamps and OLED lamps for the foreseeable future.

In terms of headlights, halogen headlamps, xenon headlamps, and LED headlights are the main products currently on the market. Among them, the halogen headlamps still occupy a large market share in the domestic low-end models, but have been reduced year by year; LED headlamps have become the new darling of automotive trends, are widely used in the automotive sector.

Halogen headlights are our most common headlights and have been applied to the body since the 1960s. It has been more than half a century since. The principle of halogen headlamps is the same as that of household incandescent bulbs. It is to energize tungsten filaments to make them glow. In order to prevent the rapid loss of tungsten filaments at high temperatures, halogen elements are added to the lamps.

The xenon headlamps began in Europe in the 1990s and its appearance announced the obsolescence of halogen headlamps. It no longer uses tungsten light, but in the quartz tube filled with high-pressure helium gas, with 23000 volts of high-voltage current to stimulate the xenon light, a xenon lamp is similar to the efficacy of sunlight. Since there is no tungsten wire, it has a longer life, and it emits a higher brightness and lowers energy consumption.

The main characteristics of Xenon headlights are the high emission of light, high energy efficiency, relatively high energy density and light intensity, and a much longer service life than halogen lamps. In recent years, in the domestic auto market, the proportion of xenon lamps in mid- to high-end models has begun to decline but it still occupies a dominant position, and the assembly rate of low-end models has increased.

LED headlights to refer to the use of LED (Light Emitting Diode) as the light source of the lights, because the LED has a high brightness, rich color variety, low power consumption, long life characteristics, has been recognized by everyone, is widely used in the automotive field.