The lifespan of a product is important, especially in this day and age when people
are trying to save money any way they can. Continuously replacing lights can become
costly for vehicle owners. As lighting design progresses, manufacturers are producing
longer lasting lights to help alleviate those added costs for customers.

At first, high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps were the bright new technology, replacing
halogens because an HID could provide 2,000 hours of light versus the 200 hours of a halogen
bulb.
And now, light-emitting diodes (LEDs)—which have a typical lifespan of 20,000 to 40,000 hours-
re replacing HIDs.

LEDs also offer better efficiency because of low energy consumption. According to Brad VanRiper,
Senior VP of Research nd Development and Chief Technology Officer at Truck-Lite Co. LLC,
Falconer, NY, an LED has a lower current draw than other lighting technologies yet offers the
same amount of light—if not more—as well as a longer lifespan.

VanRiper says that when white LED technology was developed and organizations like the U.S.
Dept. of Energy saw its electricity-saving capabilities, more research money became available
for product development. Most of that research money went towards increasing the umber of
lumens per watt. “If you were to look at a graph of white LED output lumens, it has been up
and to he right almost at an exponential rate,” says VanRiper.

Deanne Moore, CEO of Baja Designs Inc., San Marcos,
CA, says in lighting design, “the holy grail is achieving massive lumens per watt.” The more
lumens per watt a light has,the better its efficiency. Moore notes that lights can take up a lot of
power, especially in an electric vehicle which has only so much power available for accessories.
A halogen can use 100 watts per light while an LED will only use about 35 to 43 watts, says Moore