Here are major benefits when using LED in automotive.

Lifetime


As solid-state light sources, LEDs have very long lifetimes and are generally very robust. While incandescent bulbs may have an expected lifetime (to failure) of 1000 hours, LEDs are often quoted of having a lifetime of up to 100,000 hours - more than 11 years.

Low maintenance


The long lifetime of LEDs reduces the need to replace failed lamps, and this can lead to significant savings, particularly in the cost of sending out maintenance crews. This also makes LED fixtures useful for installation in relatively inaccessible locations.

Efficiency

LEDs are high-efficiency light sources. White LEDs with efficacies of 100 lm+/W and up are commercially available, exceeding the performance of incandescent and some fluorescent sources. The directional nature of light produced by LEDs allows the design of luminaires with higher overall efficiency.

Low power consumption


The low power consumption of LEDs leads to significant energy savings that can often drive the installation of LED-based systems, for example traffic signals. National programs to develop effective solid-state lighting industries in the US and Japan have been driven by the potential energy savings associated with using LEDs.

Heat


LEDs don't produce heat in the form of infrared radiation, which makes incandescent bulbs hot to the touch. The absence of IR radiation allows LED fixtures to be positioned in locations where heating from conventional sources would cause a particular problem e.g. illuminating food or textiles.

Small form-factors


LEDs are very small - typical high-brightness LED chips measure 0.3 mm by 0.3 mm, while high-power devices can be 1 mm x 1 mm or larger. There are many examples where the availability of small, high-brightness devices have enabled significant market advancement. The obvious example is in mobile phone handsets, where blue, green and white LEDs are now used in most models to backlight keypads and liquid-crystal display (LCD) screens.

Instantaneous switch-on


LEDs switch on rapidly, even when cold, and this is a particular advantage for certain applications such as vehicle brake lights.

Color


LEDs are available in a broad range of brilliant, saturated colors (although performance varies across the spectrum), and white devices are also available. Modules containing different-colored LEDs (typically red, green and blue, or RGB) can be tuned to a huge range of colors, and easily dimmed. RGB modules provide a much wider gamut of colors than white LEDs or other traditional white light sources, which is a particular advantage in applications such as backlighting liquid-crystal displays (LCDs).

Designability


LEDs open up many new design options, some of which were previously inconceivable.

Environmental


LEDs do not contain mercury and in many cases steps are being taken to replace lead-containing solders (used mainly to fix LEDs to circuit boards) with lead-freematerial, in line with European directives. The energy-efficient nature of LEDs also makes them environmentally friendly.