logized wrote:

The downside is if they should fail early for any reason, then you lose all
your expected energy savings in the cost of replacements.

I noticed a year or so ago that the new buses round here were using
clusters of LEDs for their tail/brake/indicator lights, very good I
thought.

But I have noticed over the past few months that about 1/3 of the
individual LEDs have already blown, seems these ultra bright LEDs are
being pushed too hard, negating the reliability (and corresponding lack
of required maintenance) which was presumably a major factor used to
justify their use? I assume the reduced power consumption compared to
filament lamps is a relatively minor factor given that the alternator is
sucking it's power from the dirty great diesel lump on a bus?

I don't think I've ever seen properly driven LEDs "burn out" anywhere
else, of course the ones from Birkett's I play^H^H^H^Hexperimented with
years ago without using current limiting resistors were a different matter!