I'd need to borrow an LED'd Macan for the night . . . !

 

I'm having dinner with friends who have a 2016 Cayenne Turbo S, which probably has LED headlights. I'll see what they look like.

 

My C63s Benz has LED lights, certainly an improvement over Xenons, not the same jump as going from Halogen to Xenon.

Given the choice, there's no doubt I'd go LED.

 

My C63s Benz has LED lights, certainly an improvement over Xenons, not the same jump as going from Halogen to Xenon.

Turned out our friends have a 2014 Cayenne Turbo S, and did not have LED headlights (or at least he did not think it did), so I was not able to see what LEDs look like at night. However, on the way to their house we passed a Cayenne Turbo WITH LED headlights, and he followed me for a few miles (yeah, yeah, the Touareg TDI was really flying . . . flying I tell you! ). Interesting look, and no glare. I guess I'll have to test a Macan at night with HID and with LED to see the difference.

I am interested if the consensus is that LED headlight technology has "matured" to the point that is justifies a $1,900 investment over HID.

 

If I recall aright, Xenons were a thousand or so dollars/pounds/whatever more than halogens when they were first introduced.

Given the BIG difference they made, it was worth it, but now you can retrofit [albeit not with self levelling headlights and washers] for less than a tenth of that.

As one gets older, your eyes definitely need more white light on a dark, black road, and that need increases even more in the rain.

The extra $2K presumably also includes some clever stuff like shaping the beam to suit oncoming traffic and so on, so perhaps there's more to it all than just a price hike although, given that LED headlights are already being fitted to quite cheap cars like SEATs here in Europe, I still have a strong feeling that a lot of that $2K is net margin!

 

LED definitely has a longevity over HID's.

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If you get the Macan GTS, the LEDs are $500.


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If you get the Macan GTS, the LEDs are $500.


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Your sentence missed out the penultimate word... "only"!

:laugh:

 

One thing to consider is the maintainability.

With HIDs you just change the bulbs once the current ones start to dim by age.

For LEDs, you can either change some separate module containing the LED components if one of them gets broken (good design) or then you might even need to change the whole headlight assembly (bad design regarding maintainability).

I read from a local automotive magazine that the new Tiguan has interchangeable LED modules. Not sure about the Porsche, though.

Just my 0.02$ and something probably worth considering.

 

I had to get one of these LED modules changed on my f150 ( which also has led headlamps), though it was a warranty item the cost of a new module is $250. From what i recall this was the cost of a xenon bulb back in 2000 or so when xenons started to become available...so its comparable. The led modules however are expected to last a couple of decades vs a few years for xenon bulbs.

The LED setups typically have dynamic light shaping and auto beam brightness, so they do have advantages over xenon.

Big seller for me is that led for me personally seem to light up wet roads at night very well, i sometimes struggle with xenons. Again this is just me so ymmv.

 

2017 Audi Q7 starting with Premium Plus (mid-level) configuration has so called Vision option which includes LED-only lights.

 

At the VW presentation today in Detroit, it sounded like the new Atlas and the new Tiguan were going to come standard with LED headlights.

 

Only thing I can really see here is less drain on the system. HID use 35W per side. LED's maybe couple watts each plus no heat or little heat (still need to be cooled as they do emit some heat at the base). HID's last around 2,000hrs before they start to fade and change color, LED's up to 14,000hrs. Compact size also. Typically a warmer light than HID, depends on manufac. though. Osram standard is 4200 K and Philips can be 4800K+ Osram is know for more yellow hue and Philips more blue for example. But LED's can be tuned to be just as bright as HID but with a lower Kelvin temp. Cool stuff

 

Only thing I can really see here is less drain on the system. HID use 35W per side. LED's maybe couple watts each plus no heat or little heat (still need to be cooled as they do emit some heat at the base).

LEDs convert only about 15% of the electricity they receive into light. The rest is converted into heat.

This is quite a bit better than xenon bulbs, which only convert about 5% of the electricity into light. Or incandescents which are down around 2%-3%. Fluorescent bulbs are up around 12%-15%, but LED has the advantage of not having a bulb - they're a solid chunk of material. (For completeness, a candle converts about 0.04% of the energy in the wax into light. So that Earth Day tradition of turning off the electric lights and using candles actually burns several times more energy than just using the electric lights, while only providing about 1/100th the light.)

Typically a warmer light than HID, depends on manufac. though. Osram standard is 4200 K and Philips can be 4800K+ Osram is know for more yellow hue and Philips more blue for example. But LED's can be tuned to be just as bright as HID but with a lower Kelvin temp. Cool stuff

All LEDs (and fluorescent bulbs) are far blue/ultraviolet. They make different colors by using phosphors which absorb the UV light and emit a different color light. Quite a few different phosphors have been developed, the combination of which can give you pretty much every color temperature of light you could want. The better ones also have a high CRI (color rendering index). Basically instead of putting out a few frequency spikes of light (just enough to trigger the red, green, and blue cone sensors in your eye), they try to put out a broad swath of frequencies which better imitate sunlight or incandescent light.

 

Do you get upgraded insulation, (insulation that is not soy based) on the wiring in the headlight assemblies with LED lights?

 

We got the LEDs with our GLC, it's quite a bit brighter than my '15. Although I have 34,000 miles on my HIDs and may be due for replacements. I don't think I would pay $2k alone for the upgrade, for that money it needs to be bundled with some other options. Bundle and Porsche dont belong in the same conversation, lol.

 

One major issue with LED lighting is cold climates and snow. With traditional incandescent lighting, the extra heat will melt snow off taillight lenses. Just try and follow a white vehicle with LED taillights on snow covered roads. You can't see anything but white.