If the driving experience during the day largely depends on power, then the driving experience at night is closely related to the headlights.
Although manufacturers promote them in various ways, there are only two mainstream types of headlight structures – the reflective bowl type and the lens type.
The structure of the reflector bowl for low light often requires a large-sized lamp cavity
The reflective bowl structure projects the light from the light source onto the road surface in the desired shape through a reflective structure. The front material of the reflective bowl is similar to that of a mirror, so the reflection efficiency is extremely high and the brightness loss is small. This is beneficial for extending the illumination distance. Therefore, for halogen light source vehicles with insufficient brightness, the reflective bowl structure is particularly suitable. Most vehicle models also adopt reflective bowl-type high beams to increase the illumination distance of the high beams.
The Mercedes-Benz GLC also adopts a high beam reflector bowl structure
However, one drawback of the reflective bowl is that its headlights do not look exquisite enough and lack a high sense of class. Secondly, the uniformity of the light distribution is not good enough. As a low beam light, it often cannot evenly illuminate the road surface. Therefore, the reflective bowl-shaped structure is often not used as a low beam light.
Lens projector
Compared with the reflector bowl type, the lens type structure is much more advanced. The lens type headlight also has a reflector bowl inside, but with a glass lens structure added. After adding the glass lens, on the one hand, the light concentration is better, and the upper tangent line of the low beam is clearer. On the other hand, the light irradiation is more uniform. However, due to the problem of light transmittance of the glass lens, Therefore, the illumination distance is often not as simple and straightforward as that of the reflector bowl type. Thus, the lens type is often used as a low beam lamp.
Simply put, low-end cars prefer the reflector bowl type, while high-end cars favor the lens type. High beams are more commonly reflector bowl type, while low beams are more suitable for lens type.