I was curious how much difference changing headlights from Halogen to LED would make in range/charging time so I went through the math:
Halogen bulb power 60W (source Walmart replacement bulbs)
LED bulb power 20W (specs on Amazon)
(60-20) X 2 = 80W
Typical long drive = 600 miles / 75 mph = 8 hr (assuming all night time driving, not including charge times)
80 W X 8 hr = 640 Whr
Kia Niro EV typical consumption 250 Whr/mile
640/250 = 2.6 miles of range gained
Additional charge time required: Est charge rate at 80% SOC = 25 KW = 88 mph est charge rate/60 = 1.5 miles/min
2.6 miles / 1.5 miles/min = 1.73 min or 104 sec extra charging time over the 8 hr trip.
The above makes assumptions about Whr/mile which may be much higher at 75 mph and/or with heat or AC on. And the charge rate may be higher than 25 KW especially if charging at less than 80% SOC. But as an order of magnitude exercise I think it tells us what we need to know: Changing to LED headlight bulbs will make a very small, hard to notice difference in the range or charge time. I am all about efficiency and cool tech, so I really like the idea of making this change. But from a cost or efficiency standpoint it may not be worth doing.
I didn't attempt to go through the numbers for the side lights/tail lights/license plate lights but since they are all much lower wattage bulbs I expect that the total difference for all of them would be much less than for the headlight bulbs.
