How LED retrofit lights can still drive sales
Lumileds UK Business Manager, Richard Armstrong, explains why LED retrofit lights – despite their ineligibility for modern cars – could still represent a lucrative opportunity.
Halogen bulbs remain the most common type on the market, especially for headlamps, but LED lights are increasingly the OE choice. For a long time, there have been LED retrofit lights – which are a direct halogen replacement – available to purchase.
These bring with them all the advantages LED lighting has to offer – longer life, greater brightness and increased durability – but UK legislation still lags way behind technology in the case of vehicle lighting.
Our regulations are all based around bulbs with filaments and, of course, LEDs don’t have them! For modern cars in the UK, retrofit LEDs – though not illegal to buy or sell – are currently only legal for off-road and competition use. Despite this, sales of retrofit LEDs are on the increase!
For a while, some MOT stations were even turning a blind eye to cars fitted with them, providing the alignment was correct and the bulbs fulfilled the basic MOT performance criteria.
Since 2021, however, MOT stations have standing instructions that any vehicle turning up for an MOT with retrofit LEDs must be failed, irrespective of any other issues, and it is an offence to drive with retrofit LEDs on UK road.
However, as the regulations state that “existing halogen headlamp units on vehicles first used on or after 1 April 1986 must not be converted to be used with high intensity discharge (HID) or light emitting diode (LED) bulbs” pre-1986 cars are not subject to these regulations.
Increasing classic car popularity indicates opportunity
Classic cars, which continue to increase year-on-year, represent a significant and growing sales opportunity. The Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs’ 2020 survey revealed upwards of a million vehicles of this age on our roads, the vast majority of which could, amongst many other sales opportunities, potentially benefit from having LED retrofit lights.
Philips’ lighting has been renowned in the automotive industry for more than a century. Almost every major innovation in automotive lighting over the last 60 years has come courtesy of its lights: first with halogen lighting, followed by high-performance halogen bulbs, HID Xenon lighting, long-life halogen and, indeed, LED lighting itself.
Lumileds, which is responsible for manufacturing and distributing Philips automotive lighting products around the world, has various ranges of LED Philips retrofit headlamp bulbs that could be suitable for historic vehicles.
This now includes the innovative Philips LED Ultinon Classic range, which is designed to mimic the look and feel of the original halogen bulb, with a 3,500 Kelvin warmth like classic lighting, but offers substantially better lighting performance than a standard bulb – +80% – as well as a lifetime that is several times longer than the equivalent halogen bulb.
Philips Ultinon Classic lights are available as H4, H7 and H11 equivalents. LEDs are also available for interior and positioning applications, and the bulbs are ‘plug-in-and-play’, so upgrading to a safer, better-performing lighting set-up could scarcely be easier.
This means owners of classic cars, many of whom want to keep the look of their cherished automobiles as close as possible to how they looked in period, can now enjoy all of the benefits of an LED through a product designed to suit their specific needs.
Philips OE products are fitted to one in three new cars sold in Europe, and they are all are designed and developed following strict quality control processes – including applicable ISO norms – leading to standards. Its aftermarket products are manufactured with the same processes and materials as their OE counterparts, on the same production lines, so quality is assured.
