is HID available on Elise?

I can almost guarantee you what you find "distracting" are "xenon" or "H4 HID" type lights. They are NOT HIDs. Just replacement bulbs that produce a poor color spectrum, that happens to center more towards 6500k. A true HID has no filiment, and produces fairly natural light centered at 6500K with a good CRI.

You WILL notice them being different due to the massive amount of yellow light in normal halogens. (5000k center with too much yellow.) Our eyes are good at finding "different" stuff, but I think now after years of hids existing, people are used to it.

That being said, I have driven in the miata, and I dont remember it having "projectors" it has a standard reflector system in the popup lamps. I don't think the new one has changed? Projection lights ARE a bit better, but they still have drawbacks as compared to the HIDs. I strongly suggest you go take a drive in a car that has HID lights, go to a nice windy country road at night. You will immediately understand why they are so much better, with the best being the audi/porsche bi-xenons. Though they are a bit gimicky and would start to add weight. A standard hid setup shouldnt add any more weight over a stock system than the ballast... (probably 2lbs, yes I know it needs a motor to raise and lower it, but with the motor the assembly is probably the same as a standard heavy glass light enclosure)


(when talking about reflectors I am talking about the silver reflector in the light housing itself. Not the turn signals. DOT has requirements for all USA reflectors which must have a set pattern. HIDs also have a set pattern requirement, but it actually makes sense and is fairly well designed.

Projector lights are a different beast, and fall squarely inbetween hid and halogen, but for the cost HID beats projectors by a mile.

Scot

scot said:

I can almost guarantee you what you find "distracting" are "xenon" or "H4 HID" type lights.

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Nope, I'm talking about the flickering bright bluish headlights on Audis and to a lesser extent, BMWs.

That being said, I have driven in the miata, and I dont remember it having "projectors" it has a standard reflector system in the popup lamps.

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The older Miatas have flip-up headlights with fairly generic lamps. The '99-00 have integrated headlights with normal reflectors. The '01 and later Miatas have projector style headlights. There is a sharp cutoff of the beam above the centerline of the lights.

Consumer Reports reviewed headlights a few months ago, comparing cars with all different types. A halogen incandescent projector system was rated the best for illumination (the Mazda Protege), above all the HID systems tested. Some of the HID systems were rated very poorly, but many did well.

There really shouldn't be any difference between HIDs and incandescent projectors in terms of illumination pattern, since the optics are essentially the same. The only difference is the light source, which just affects the color spectrum. The law may allow higher light output from HIDs than from incandescents, but I don't think so.