2012 Prius: What headlights do you recommend?

LEDs biggest flaw is in colder locations where they can't defrost said stop lights. Crews have to be sent out to manually remove frost from lights so you can see the colors.

 

Thanks for the article, very interesting. Though it didn't say say anything about why they are so hot, when they are supposed to be cool.
They are considerably cooler than the other bulbs though. The heat sinc and fans seem to draw any heat away from the bulb.
There must be something that step down the 12volts to whatever the voltage to run the led.

 

Driver. I’m no fan of those, waste of power. The led I run don’t have in lines.

 

So then run off 12 volts? Just the connector that plugs into the OEM bulb?

 

The led that I run doesn’t need drivers or resistors. Each led consumes 1.4A max, so regen won’t kick in during gridlock evening traffic. When I had halogen 55w per bulb, SOC went below 40% 3 times and regen had to kick in each time with avg loss of 3 mpgs per regen cycle in gridlock on average commute. With the ones I have, regen stays away.

 

Read a bunch about bulbs. a guy on the Toyota Tacoma forum did a ton of write-ups on bulbs and lighting test. nothing works better in a halogen projector then a halogen bulb. best performing bulb is the get megalight ultra +130
GE Megalight Ultra +130 H11 Car Headlight Bulbs (Twin) | PowerBulbs
I found a set for around 35$ on eBay. light is brighter then the H9s I put in that were 65w.

PH-1 ?

 

My understanding is that LEDs are more efficient and produce less waste heat than comparable incandescent bulbs, BUT the waste heat is concentrated in the base where the electronic circuitry is located and can damage that if it accumulates. The LED base must transmit heat away mainky by conduction to the surface, where a fan would help the ultimate transfer of the waste heat to the air and away.
The incandescent bulb produces its heat out at the filament end of the bulb. Although the total heat produced is a lot more, it sheds the heat by direct radiation of heat, convection from the bulb surface to the surrounding air, and conduction from the base of the bulb to the socket.
What I KNOW from direct experience of replacing all of my small interior bulbs and license plate bulbs on the Prius with small LEDs, is that after 5 years a couple failed and when I removed them to check, the plastic bases were partially melted and discolored brown at the edges. So I bought a better quality LED bulbs for the interior and will probably opt for LED headlights that have heat sinks and fans.