Leaving Headlights On and EV Range?

Regular halogen headlights are 55 Watts each.

The LED headlights are more efficient. If I recall, they are 35-40 Watts each.

 

a drop in the ev range bucket.

 

If you have an OBDII device, you can log the PHV battery amp. The amp drawn includes the load of the power inverter and all the accessories and may be able to figure out the difference between the lights on/off.

I have monitored it before and it didn't make a difference to tell in realtime. However, with data logging and creating charts with average values, you may be able to detect the difference in amp drawn.

 

I can confirm that one, on my base, I never saw any impact on my range, and I did plenty of testing.

 

Are you not using daytime running lights? If so, then AUTO mode will always have at least DRL on which satisfies the requirement, IMO.

 

Let's say it takes you 20 minutes to use up your whole EV range of 2.7 kwh. during that time if you were using 120 watts for lights it would be 40 watt-hours. That's 40 out of 2700 or 1.5%. No big deal so don't worry about it.

(But I still have all my lights off except when needed or required by law)

Mike

 

Whenever I don't have my halogen headlights on, I always have my DRL LED light on. It is where the fog light is and I like to be seen with it on.

 

DRL does not satisfy the headlights-with-windshield-wiper law, at least in California (can't speak to other states' laws). One reason is that the other lights, such as the taillights, are not on with the DRL. Our local newspaper traffic reporter pointed this out recently.

And as an aside, none of this applies to Canada, where the DRL is part of the headlights, and cannot be turned off.

 

I wonder how many tons of Carbon Dioxide are generated in the US every year by daytime driving lights? I bet it is significant.

 

I don't know if this is true but I also drive with DRL's with parking lights in the rain so that the whole car is illuminated. I plan to feign ignorance should I be pulled over. The intent of the law is so you are more visible and the DRL's do that.

 

I replaced my bulbs with LED' s 20W /each
They don't light up the road much (if at all) but are visible and save energy on my "V".

 

If you assume 100M cars driving one hour each during daylight and 100 watts, that is about 10M kwh (10B wh).

Roughly 500 - 1000 grams of CO2 per kwh, depending on the fuel source (800 for oil, 500 for NG to PIP, 900 for coal, 8 for nuclear, 4 for hydro...plus charging losses). So, going with oil it is 8000 metric tons/day (1 ton = 1M grams) or ~3M tons/yr. In 2008 the US emitted 5461M tons. Hmm. 3M tons seems high. Maybe a math error somewhere.

Mike

 

Where did reporter get that from? While I agree taillights increase visibility, the actual vehicle code only requires two lighted headlamps:

V C Section 24400 Headlamps on Motor Vehicles

 

Normally, DRL runs at about 1/3 power of normal headlights.

My DRL is LED bulbs so it should be about 20 watts. I believe there is safety in the ability to see and also be seen (easily). I can live with 20 watts for that safety feature.

 

Right, and apparently, DRLs are not "headlamps". "Headlamp" does not equal "light bulb". The legal definition(in some federal standard, I believe) involves, along with other things, casting a focused beam a certain distance with a certain intensity, which DRLs don't satisfy. Sorry, I can't come up with citations at right now.