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A headlamp is a lamp, usually attached to the front of a vehicle such as a car, with the purpose of illuminating the road ahead during periods of low visibility, such as darkness or precipitation. Headlamp performance has steadily improved throughout the automobile age, spurred by the great disparity between daytime and nighttime traffic fatalities: the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration states that nearly half of all traffic-related fatalities occur in the dark, despite only 25% of traffic travelling during darkness.

While it is common for the term headlight to be used interchangeably in informal discussion, headlamp is the technically correct term for the device itself, while headlight properly refers to the beam of light produced and distributed by the device.

A headlamp can also be mounted on a bicycle (with a battery or small electrical generator), and most other vehicles from airplanes to trains tend to have headlamps of their own.

Additionally automotive night vision systems work to supplement headlamps.

History of automotive headlamps

Mechanics

The earliest headlamps were fueled by acetylene or oil and were introduced in the late 1880s. Acetylene lamps were popular because the flame was resistant to wind and rain. The first electric headlamps were introduced in 1898 on the Columbia Electric Car from the Electric Vehicle Company of Hartford, Connecticut, and were optional. Two factors limited the widespread use of electric headlamps: the short life of filaments in the harsh automotive environment, and the difficulty of producing dynamos small enough, yet powerful enough to produce sufficient current. "Prest-O-Lite" acetylene lights were offered by a number of manufacturers as standard equipment for 1904, and Peerless made electrical headlamps standard in 1908. In 1912, Cadillac integrated their vehicle's Delco electrical ignition and lighting system, creating the modern vehicle electrical system.

"Dipping" (low beam) headlamps were introduced in 1915 by the Guide Lamp Company, but the 1917 Cadillac system allowed the light to be dipped with a lever inside the car rather than requiring the driver to stop and get out. The 1924 Bilux bulb was the first modern unit, having the light for both low (dipped) and high (main) beams of a headlamp emitting from a single bulb. A similar design was introduced in 1925 by Guide Lamp called the "Duplo". In 1927, the foot-operated dimmer switch was introduced and became standard for much of the century. The last vehicle with a foot-operated dimmer switch was the 1991 Ford F-Series. Foglamps were new for 1938 Cadillacs, and their 1954 "Autronic Eye" system automated the switch between high and low beams.

The standardised 7 in (178 mm) round sealed beam headlamp was introduced in 1940, and was soon required for all vehicles sold in the United States. Britain, Australia and other Commonwealth countries, as well as Japan, also made extensive use of 7 in. sealed beams. With some exceptions from Volvo and Saab, this headlamp size format was never widely accepted in continental Europe, leading to different front-end designs for each side of the Atlantic for decades.

The first halogen headlamp for vehicle use was introduced in 1962 by a consortium of European bulb and headlamp makers. Halogen technology increases the efficacy (light output for given power consumption) of an incandescent light bulb and eliminates blackening of the bulb glass with usage. These were prohibited in the US, where non-halogen sealed beam lamps were required until 1978. Starting that year, sealed beams became available with halogen bulbs inside. These halogen sealed beams remain available, 25 years after replaceable-bulb headlamps returned to the US in 1983.

High-intensity discharge systems were introduced in 1991's BMW 7-series. European and Japanese markets began to prefer HID headlamps, with as much as 50% market share in those markets, but they found slow adoption in North America. 1996's Lincoln Mark VIII was an early American effort at HIDs, and was the only car with DC HIDs.

Design & style

Beyond the engineering, performance and regulatory-compliance aspects of headlamps, there is the consideration of the various ways they are designed and arranged on a motor vehicle. Headlamps were round for many years, because that is the easiest shape for parabolic reflector manufacture.

Headlamp styling outside of the United States, pre-1983

There was no requirement in Europe for headlamps of standardised size or shape. Automakers were free to design their lamps to whatever shapes and sizes they wished, as long as the lamps met the engineering and performance requirements contained in the applicable European safety standards. That design freedom permitted the development of rectangular headlamps, first used in 1961.

Developed by Cibié for the Citroën Ami 6 and by Hella for the German Ford Taunus, they were prohibited in the United States where round lamps were required until 1975. Another early headlamp styling concept involved conventional round lamps faired into the car's bodywork with aerodynamic glass covers, such as those on the 1961 Jaguar E-Type.

Headlamp styling in the United States, 1940–1983

In 1940, a consortium of state motor vehicle administrators standardised upon a system of two 7 in (178 mm) round sealed beam headlamps on all vehicles — the only system allowed for 17 years. A system of four round lamps, rather than two — one high/low and one high-beam 5 + 3 ⁄ 4  in (146 mm) sealed beam on each side — was introduced in 1957 by Cadillac, Chrysler and Nash on some of their car models in states that permitted the new system, and other American marques followed suit when all states permitted quad lamps in 1958. These lamps had some photometric advantages, particularly on high beam, but the primary advantage was the styling novelty permitted by the use of two small rather than one large lamp per side of the vehicle. The freedom was not absolute, however. Auto stylists such as Virgil Exner carried out design studies with the low beams in their conventional outboard location, and the high beams vertically stacked at the centreline of the car. No such designs reached volume production. Most cars had their headlights in pairs side by side on each side of the car. Some Oldsmobiles had a parking light in the middle of each pair.

Also popular was an arrangement in which the two headlamps on each side were stacked, low beams above high beams. Nash used this arrangement in the 1957 model year. Pontiac used this design starting in the 1963 model year; American Motors, Ford, Cadillac and Chrysler followed two years later. Also in the 1965 model year, the Buick Riviera had concealable stacked headlamps. The Mercedes-Benz W100, W108, W111, and W112 models sold in America used this arrangement because their home-market composite lamps were illegal in the US. The British firm Alvis and the French firm Facel Vega also used this setup for some of their cars, as did Nissan in Japan.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lincoln, Buick, and Chrysler arranged the headlamps diagonally by placing the low-beam lamps outboard and above the high-beam lamps. Certain British cars used a less extreme diagonal arrangement, with the inboard high-beam lamps placed only slightly lower than the outboard low-beam units. The 1965 Gordon-Keeble, Triumph Vitesse and Bentley S3 Continental used such an arrangement.

In 1968 when Federal auto equipment and safety regulations were initiated, the requirement for two large or four small round sealed beams was codified, thus freezing headlamp design for many years. At the same time, the new regulations prohibited any decorative or protective element in front of the headlamps whenever the headlamps are switched on. Glass-covered headlamps, used on e.g. the Jaguar E-Type, pre-1968 VW Beetle, 1965 Chrysler and Imperial models, Porsche 356, Citroën DS and Ferrari Daytona were no longer permitted and vehicles had to be imported with uncovered headlamps for the US market. This change meant that vehicles designed for good aerodynamic performance could not achieve it for the US market.

When Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 was amended in the early 1970s to permit rectangular headlamps, these were placed in horizontally-arrayed or vertically-stacked pairs. By 1979, the majority of new cars in the US market were equipped with rectangular lamps. Again, the US permitted only two standardised sizes of rectangular sealed-beam lamp: A system of two 200 by 142 mm (7.9 by 5.6 in) high/low beam units

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