Xenon HID Headlights

Know what HID headlights are? They're those awesome mostly-white-purplish-bluish headlights on high-end luxury cars. Simply put, xenon high-intensity discharge (HID) headlights deliver superior lighting over long distances than halogen/yellow headlights because their color spectrum index is closer to natural sunlight than halogen. They don't use a filament; they use an arc of electricity flowing through xenon gas between two electrodes. That's why they "flicker" on like a flourescent light, briefly turn red, then get whiter as they warm up. Therefore they last about 4-5 times longer than those halogens. And their light goes farther. If you have xenon headlights, you'll notice that a sign half a mile away or farther lights up brilliantly. This is because there's a small amount of flourescent light in xenon lights, which road signs are designed to reflect. The coolest part about these lights is that usually, cars with these HID lights have a feature that rotates the headlights to follow the curve of the road, or to level the lights. Aim a set of xenon headlights at a wall and you'll see that there's a uniform line of light where the bulb no longer projects any light, where as in halogen, light is all over the place.

Xenon headlights were first introduced in automobiles as an option on the 1991 BMW 7-Series. The American car market's first try at xenon headlights was on the Lincoln Mark VIII. It was the first car to use DC Current in it's HID lights, although the standard is AC.

Here are some pictures:

Xenon Headlight 1

Xenon Headlight 2

Xenon Headlight 3

Xenon Headlight 4-This was our temporary rental car

Xenon Headlight 5

Can anyone guess these cars? Looking at the URLs is cheating!

Fun Fact: All newer airplanes have xenon landing/taxi lights!