A comment in another thread reminded me to start this thread I had been thinking about.

Its been a long time since I've had a car with halogen headlights, it was my 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee. My LS460L has LEDs, my LS460 had HIDs, my GS had HIDs, etc etc. Pacificas and Sedona and 2014 Jeep all had HIDs. Its actually been all the way back to before 2003 since I have had a daily driver that had halogen headlights. My wife's 2004 Prius even had HIDs. This rental Jaguar F Pace I have had for the past month while my LS has been in the shop has Halogen projector headlights, and I am astonished by how terrible they are. How did we used to deal with such terrible lighting from a car?

Bearing in mind, headlights have advanced well beyond what I have. It took a little getting used to, but the LEDs in my 2017 LS are much better than the HIDs in the Pacifica or what I had on other Lexus vehicles. The volume of light is less than HID, and thats what took some getting used to, but the light is crisp and white and now HIDs look kinda yellow by comparison. You have active matrix LEDs, Laser LEDs, and the selective dimming tech we sadly aren't allowed to have here anymore.

Has anybody else gone back to halogens lately and see what I mean?

 

That's how I feel when driving our '15 GS at night (with HIDs) vs our '18 GS at night (with LEDs). The LED headlights on the '18 are worlds better than the HIDs on our '15. I feel as though the HIDs are borderline dangerous at night, especially now that they're bordering on 5/6 years old. Can't even imagine how much worse halogens would be.

 

So much of it is what you get used to also. If you didnt have the car with the LEDs you would probably still feel the HIDs were great. Its a great example of technology moving forward

Driving this F Pace with Halogens after being used to LEDs is shocking. I truly don't know how I drove cars with headlights like this...

 

What's more shocking is that luxury automakers are still equipping "luxury vehicles" with halogen headlights in a day and age where a brand new Corolla, which starts at under $20k, has LED headlights as standard equipment. Corolla has had LED headlights as a standard feature for years now. Crazy.

 

Yep, agreed.

 

The leap from halogens to HIDs was huge. Not a real fan of LEDs in terms of being blinded by them.

 

LEDs are cheap to make. Way cheaper than HIDs.

 

I have adaptive LED's and they're the best headlights I have had thus far. Laser was an option but they're neutered in the USA and thus wasn't wroth the expense for me.

 

Corolla even has adaptive front lighting where it moves as the car is moving on curves etc.

 

I have long thought that Halogen (yellow) bulb headlights should be banned from further usage in new cars. Automakers get away with using them because they're cheap. Some new trucks are in the $50-60k range and STILL have these nasty lights.

In certain settings, like a detail shop, 3500-4100k (halogen) color lighting is good because it allows you to see more paint defects. But coming out the front end of your car, 4500k-6000k is ideal, with the perfect color settling in right at 5000k IMO.

Laser LED's are a whole 'nuther ball of wax. But with LED's as cheap as they are, I thought (long ago) that I would never see a halogen lamp on a new car again. When they put LED projectors on the corolla i was like "that's it, game over". I really don't see how carmakers are still getting away with it.

 

More surprised that your F-Pace didn't have LEDs as standard equipment. In this day and age, for a luxury brand like Jaguar to offer a car that expensive and not have LED headlights standard is appalling.

 

Bear in mind this Jaguar has keyless start, but not keyless entry. It’s totally base. It doesn’t even have any interior courtesy lighting.

 

I don't think being a base model makes it any less acceptable. A base Camry L comes with Bi-LED combination headlights as standard. A base F-Pace costs almost twice as much. It's not like it's an older car than the current Camry either.

 

I don’t disagree, I’m just highlighting all the other features you’d think would be standard that aren’t.

This even has halogen DRLs

 

so i looked up f-pace specs for 2020... had to download the PDF brochure to really get the dirt.
the bottom TWO trim levels have halogens, the base, and so-called "PREMIUM". what a joke