A headlamp is a lamp connected to the front of a vehicle to illuminate the street forward. Headlamps are also often referred to as headlights, however in essentially the most exact utilization, headlamp is the time period for the device itself and headlight is the time period for the beam of mild produced and distributed by the gadget. Headlamp efficiency has steadily improved throughout the car age, spurred by the great disparity between daytime and nighttime visitors fatalities: the US National Highway Traffic Security Administration states that almost half of all site visitors-related fatalities happen at midnight, regardless of solely 25% of visitors travelling throughout darkness. Other autos, comparable to trains and aircraft, are required to have headlamps. Bicycle headlamps are sometimes used on bicycles, and are required in some jurisdictions. They are often powered by a battery or a small generator like a bottle or hub dynamo. The first horseless carriages used carriage lamps, which proved unsuitable for journey at pace.

The earliest lights used candles as the most common sort of gasoline. The earliest headlamps, fuelled by combustible gasoline equivalent to acetylene gasoline or oil, operated from the late 1880s. Acetylene gas lamps had been popular in 1900s because the flame is resistant to wind and rain. Thick concave mirrors combined with magnifying lenses projected the acetylene flame gentle. Various automotive manufacturers offered Prest-O-Lite calcium carbide acetylene gas generator cylinder with gasoline feed pipes for lights as commonplace gear for 1904 vehicles. The first electric headlamps had been introduced in 1898 on the Columbia Electric Automobile from the Electric Vehicle Company of Hartford, Connecticut, and have been optionally available. Two elements restricted the widespread use of electric headlamps: the short life of filaments in the tough automotive environment, and the difficulty of producing dynamos small enough, but powerful sufficient to produce adequate present. Peerless made electric headlamps standard in 1908. A Birmingham, England firm called Pockley Vehicle Electric Lighting Syndicate marketed the world's first electric automotive-lights as a complete set in 1908, which consisted of headlamps, sidelamps, EcoLight energy and tail lights that have been powered by an eight-volt battery.

In 1912 Cadillac built-in their car's Delco electrical ignition and lighting system, EcoLight LED forming the modern car electrical system. The Guide Lamp Firm introduced "dipping" (low-beam) headlamps in 1915, but the 1917 Cadillac system allowed the sunshine to be dipped using a lever inside the car moderately than requiring the driver to stop and get out. The 1924 Bilux bulb was the first trendy unit, having the light for both low (dipped) and high (main) beams of a headlamp emitting from a single bulb. The same design was introduced in 1925 by Guide Lamp referred to as the "Duplo". In 1927 the foot-operated dimmer swap or dip change was launched and became normal for much of the century. 1933-1934 Packards featured tri-beam headlamps, the bulbs having three filaments. From highest to lowest, the beams were called "country passing", "nation driving" and "metropolis driving". The 1934 Nash also used a three-beam system, EcoLight LED although in this case with bulbs of the typical two-filament sort, and the intermediate beam combined low beam on the driver's aspect with excessive beam on the passenger's facet, in order to maximise the view of the roadside whereas minimizing glare towards oncoming site visitors.

1952 "Autronic Eye" system automated the number of excessive and low beams. Directional lighting, utilizing a change and electromagnetically shifted reflector to illuminate the curbside solely, was launched in the rare, one-yr-solely 1935 Tatra. Steering-linked lighting was featured on the 1947 Tucker Torpedo's middle-mounted headlight and was later popularized by the Citroën DS. This made it doable to turn the sunshine within the course of journey when the steering wheel turned. The standardized 7-inch (178 mm) spherical sealed-beam headlamp, one per side, was required for all vehicles bought within the United States from 1940, just about freezing usable lighting technology in place till the 1970s for People. In 1957 the law changed to permit smaller 5.75-inch (146 mm) round sealed beams, two per side of the vehicle, and in 1974 rectangular sealed beams have been permitted as effectively. Britain, Australia, EcoLight LED and another Commonwealth countries, in addition to Japan and Sweden, additionally made extensive use of 7-inch sealed beams, though they weren't mandated as they have been within the United States.