Why Do Many Veteran Drivers Still Believe Halogen Headlights Are the Best?

Even today, a lot of experienced drivers firmly believe that halogen headlights are the best headlights. This mindset is very similar to how some people still say the old iPhone 4 was the best phone ever made.

Part of that comes from design and era memories, part from nostalgia, and part from the fact that halogen headlights were, in many ways, actually not bad at all. To understand why, we need to look at history, driving experience, and technology.

1. Halogen: The Starting Point for Most People's Headlight Experience

According to studies such as "Study of High-Power LED Applied to Automotive Headlamps", presented at the Cross-Strait Lighting Technology and Marketing Seminar, the timeline of automotive headlights looks roughly like this:

• 1970s: Halogen lamps replaced traditional incandescent bulbs and began to be widely used in automotive headlamps.
• 1990s: HID (xenon) headlamps started to develop and appear on more vehicles.
• Around 2007: LED began to be used as a true automotive headlamp light source.

In other words, for a very long time, "driving at night" basically meant "using halogen headlights". Most of the early driving memories, long-distance night trips, and a sense of security on dark roads were all built around halogen light.

Even as new technologies arrived, halogen still held a huge share of the market. Industry analyses of the automotive lighting sector show that in 2016 the penetration rate of halogen headlamps was still around 60%, more than half of the total. That means for many drivers, the headlights they saw and used most often were still halogen.

As long as halogen headlights did not feel "terrible" in real use, it was easy for drivers to develop a strong emotional attachment. It's just like the old Nokia phones: even after being replaced by smartphones, people still miss them, and some enthusiasts will even buy a modern Nokia smartphone just for nostalgia.

And in fact, halogen headlights are indeed somewhat like Nokia: not the most advanced anymore, but far from useless. Even when we compare them with HID and LED, halogen still has some real advantages in certain aspects.

2. Not Just Nostalgia: Real Advantages of Halogen Headlights

Many veteran drivers like halogen not only because they are used to it, but also because halogen still has a few very practical strengths. Below are three of the main ones.

2.1. Lower Purchase Price and Maintenance Cost

If we look at typical market prices for front headlamp bulbs:

• Halogen bulb: about $28–$35 per bulb
• HID (xenon) bulb: about $56–$70 per bulb
• LED headlamp module: about $140–$210 per unit

Headlight bulbs are consumables. At some point, they will fail and need replacement. In most cases, the replacement cost is borne by the car owner.

For many budget-conscious drivers, this makes a big difference: if a halogen bulb fails, spending tens of dollars to replace it is acceptable, and in some older cars, the cost of a complete headlamp assembly can also be relatively low. But if a modern HID or LED headlamp fails, the replacement cost can be several times higher, which makes people hesitate.

From this perspective, halogen headlights are cheap to buy and cheap to fix, which is a very real advantage for veteran drivers who are sensitive to long-term maintenance costs.

2.2. Better Penetration in Rain and Fog

Another reason many veteran drivers prefer halogen is the feeling that it's "safer in bad weather". This isn't just a psychological impression; there is physics behind it.

Based on Rayleigh and Mie scattering principles, when light passes through rain, fog, or snow:

• Higher color temperature (whiter or bluer) light is scattered more strongly.
• The stronger the scattering, the more likely you are to see a bright "white wall" in front of you instead of the road.

Typical color temperatures for automotive lights are:

• Halogen: around 3000 K (warm yellow)
• Standard LED headlamp: usually around 5500 K (white)
• Some LED systems: around 4300 K (neutral white) or higher

Because halogen light is warmer and more yellow, it tends to maintain better penetration in rain and fog. Drivers can more easily distinguish road markings, puddles, and obstacles on wet roads.

You can verify this by looking at most vehicles' front fog lamps: many are still yellowish rather than pure white, exactly for this reason.

2.3. Less Eye Fatigue for Some Drivers

Some people say: "LED headlights are very bright and clear, but after driving for a long time at night, my eyes feel more tired."

Research such as "The Effects of Light Source Color Temperature on Brain Rhythm and Learning Efficiency" in civil, architectural, and environmental engineering journals has found that:

• Under different color temperatures and illuminance levels, brainwave indicators show significant differences.
• Higher color temperature and higher illuminance can increase brain arousal and sensitivity.
• However, in high color temperature + high illuminance conditions, fatigue also appears more easily.

Many LED headlamps use high color temperature and high brightness, which can make the road appear clearer and give a feeling of sharpness in the short term, but may cause some people to feel tired more quickly over long night drives.

In contrast, halogen headlamps have lower color temperature and lower illuminance, which can feel softer to the eyes at night. For certain drivers, this is perceived as "more comfortable and less tiring".

3. Psychology: First In, Last Out

There is also a psychological factor: a portion of veteran drivers have only ever used halogen headlights for most of their driving life. They may never have spent much time with HID or high-quality LED systems.

In that case, it's natural to think: "The headlights I've always used are definitely the best."

Research on sequence effects in learning and social evaluation (such as the work of Wang Lan at Sichuan Normal University) shows that:

• The order in which information appears affects how people understand and judge it.
• The information that appears first usually has a stronger influence than information that appears later (the primacy effect).

Applied to headlights:

• Halogen is the first real headlight many drivers ever used, and it worked well enough.
• Later, they may see articles, videos, and photos of xenon, LED, and matrix headlights, but these are "later information".
• Deep down, their default answer has already formed: "Halogen is good, halogen is reliable."

Once this impression is formed, it is not easy to change with a few technical arguments.

4. From Technology and Market Trends: Halogen Is No Longer the "Best"

Emotionally and historically, halogen is a classic. But if we look at technology and industry trends, halogen is no longer the best-performing solution overall.

Papers such as "Development Trends of Automotive Lighting" in the Journal of Lighting Engineering point out that:

• From entry-level cars to premium models, there is a common trend: the use of LED and its market share are steadily increasing.
• This is because LED offers: no start-up delay, environmental friendliness, energy saving, long life, good low-temperature performance, high thermal resistance, and high color purity.
• LEDs have become the inevitable replacement for tungsten and halogen lamps in automotive lighting.

Market data from major research institutions also show that:

• By 2020, the penetration rate of LED headlamps on global passenger vehicles had already exceeded 50%.
• On electric vehicles, the penetration rate of LED headlamps is even higher, reaching around 85% in some analyses.

In practical terms, many mainstream family cars in the "ten-thousand-dollar-plus" range today:

• Only the very base trims are still equipped with halogen headlamps.
• Mid to high trims have almost fully switched to LED headlamps.

Considering safety, energy efficiency, lifespan, design freedom, and advanced functions (such as matrix beams, adaptive high/low beam, cornering lights, etc.), LED clearly has the upper hand compared to halogen.

5. So, Is Halogen Really the Best Headlight?

To sum up, many veteran drivers still regard halogen as the "best headlight" mainly because:

• Their first cars used halogen headlamps, and those early experiences carry nostalgia.
• Halogen headlamps are cheap to buy and replace, so maintenance feels stress-free.
• In rain and fog, the warm yellow light can indeed offer better penetration.
• For some people, halogen is more comfortable and less tiring on long night drives.
• Primacy effect and habit make the first-used solution feel like the best solution.

From a purely emotional and partial experience point of view, calling halogen "the best" is understandable.

But from a broader technical and market perspective: halogen is classic and still usable, but no longer the overall best. LED headlights now offer more advantages in performance, efficiency, and functionality, and the replacement of halogen by LED is basically just a matter of time.