Your electric car can go six miles further on its battery if you use LED headlights.

That&'s the conclusion drawn by an automotive engineer with Osram Sylvania, according to Autoblog Green. Electric and electric-hybrid car ranges are impacted by external factors like temperature, whether you&'re running the air conditioning or heater and how often you brake.

Alleviating range concerns of electric car owners and prospective buyers is a big issue in spurring electric vehicle adoptions. Companies like Ecotality, NRG Energy and Coulomb are rolling out public and private electric car chargers across the nation. The partially-electric Chevrolet Volt comes with a digital meter on its console that turns green the &''greener&'' you drive &8212' that is, the less you brake or accelerate hard.

Because LEDs are more energy efficient, replacing traditional headlights with LEDS would go a long way for plug-in hybrids like the Toyota Plug-In Prius 2012, with just 13 miles of range, or the Chevrolet Volt, with 25 to 50 miles (both cars switch to hybrid or gas mode after exhausting the battery). The average all-electric car gets about 100 miles of range.

LEDs are already an option in some cars, like the Toyota Prius (a non-electric hybrid).

[Image via Flickr/Dr. Keats]

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Companies: Chevrolet, Coulomb, ECOtality, NRG Energy, Osram Sylvania, Toyota

Companies: Chevrolet, Coulomb, ECOtality, NRG Energy, Osram Sylvania, Toyota

Iris Kuo is the VentureBeat's lead GreenBeat writer. She has reported for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, Houston Chronicle, the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Dallas public radio. Iris attended the University of Texas at Dallas and lives in Houston. Follow Iris on Twitter @thestatuskuo (and yes, that's how you pronounce her last name).

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