The 2010 Prius: Standard vs LED Headlights

I get a few emails every week from prospective Prius owners asking my opinion about package combination's, which Prius model to pick, accessories, etc. The question I probably receive the most is "Are the LED headlights worth getting the "Advanced Technology" package?" I typically ask a few questions about the future Prius owner's need for other features in the AT package and almost always end up saying "No", because, well, I don't think the AT package is worth the price just to get the LEDs.

It's been hard for me to compare the halogen headlights with the LEDs because on paper the LEDs output fewer lumens than HIDs or Halogen lights. This should lead to decreased light output. But the combination of two projector beams provides much more light than the standard Prius halogen lights, as you can see in the below photos. I'll let Paradox, a moderator for the 2010 Prius forums do the rest of the talking for me:

As promised in the LED Headlamp comparison thread, I went out a few minutes ago and took pictures of my Dads Prius III Halogen headlights and then took a picture of my Prius V's LED headlights. Now I had to take the pictures about 5 minutes apart, but this was the best I could do. I live in NYC and there are street lights everywhere so I had to go to a facility my job has a little away from the house where there are very few lights...

I don't know squat about taking pictures but had some advice about settings so I set up my camera as recommended. The pics were taken in Manual, with ISO400, white balance set to daylight, no flash and an exposure time of 1 second. I also locked the exposure as described in the other thread.

First we have the Halogen headlights:



And next we have the LED Headlights:



I think the difference is amazing when compared like this. I had never driven my dads car at night since he bought it. All my cars since 2000 have had HID's in them (except 2001 and half of 2002 when I had a Camaro SS) so I was taken back by how yellow the beam is. It's amazing how one can get so used to the white light of HID/LED's.

The biggest difference naturally is the white light emmitted by the LED's as well as how the light is distributed much wider close to the car. It also looks to me as if the LED's have a bit of a wider spread at a distance. It's almost like the Halogens light up more straight down the middle and the LED's distribute the light evenly across the whole road without a brighter area detected left right or center.

I'm sure there will still be much debate the pro's and con's of halogen vs LED but hey, that's what makes this all so much fun!

Full discussion thread here