I have seen a few posts suggesting that it's ok to leave the Prius headlights always on. Although I got used to this feature in my previous car, leaving the Prius' lights on should drain the battery faster, especially during city driving, and thus reduce mpgs due to more recent ICE use to charge the battery.
Having them on is such a great safety feature though. I know of 1 accident I could have avoided if my lights were on. The difference can't be THAT much. Maybe on the high end 1 mpg. Not worth it for me. I'm cheap but not THAT cheap. Alpha
My mpg's have gone up by 2-3 fairly consistently since I started turning of the headlights during the day. On a bright sunny day I don't feel like it's much of a safety issues but I do have to remember to turn the lights on for rainy or hazy conditions. I'm no expert on electrical systems but when I look in the owner's manual at the fuses used to support the headlights vs A/C I have to assume the lights draw a good bit of juice.
I like how you don't have to turn them off every night - it doesn't have that annoying beeping that my other car has.
i wish they had just gone with an automatic sensor system... then we would have to worry less. however there is much to be said by having them on for safety reasons. i suppose the ICE/mileage issue is mainly for short trips around town. probably not much difference at speed, when the ice is on all the time anyway...
i never saw an advantage to having headlights on in the daylight while driving around town. i do feel that in the desert or other long stretches of highway, having headlights on makes a car easier to see especially in bright sunlight.
Up here in Canada it's a law that all new cars must be equipped with daytime running lights. It really does make cars more visible. That said, our Prius packages are all halogen bulbs rather than HIDs, so the bulbs are so cheap to replace that it's not really an issue to have them on all the time.
I would like to see a modification made, from Toyota, Coastal Dave or some other enterprising entrepreneur that would enable the fog lights to be turned on independent of the HID headlights so that they could be used as daytime running lights.
I would think that you'd be able to see fog lights in bright daylight at least as well as some of the current OEM daytime running lights out there.
yep u got a point... which brings me back to mine... i dont think they do much in town and on very bright days out on a two lane road, i think they are most effective but i question whether they would be bright enough all the time.
Have u noticed that some of the GM vans, Olds and Buicks use extra bright orange lens parking lights as their DRLs? I would imagine that the DOT or NHTSA specify somewhere that DRLs have to put out candlepower to at least some level and not exceding another level. I have no idea what the candlepower rating of the Prius foglights by themselves are but perhaps the bulbs/lenses can be modified to meet any federal standards for DRLs.
Doesn't seem like fogs for DRL's would be too difficult if you could find what triggers the DRL circuit and add a relay there but direct toward fogs vs. regular lights.
Hey Coastal Dave! If you're out there reading this thread, do you think there is some chance that you might consider doing a mod on the fog lights?
