Originally Posted by
Fabrik8
Aim and shroud the LEDs properly and it should work well. Aim and shroud them improperly and it will attract a lot of negative attention. LEDs are perfect for this type of application, but only if done properly. There is a reason they're used to backlight LCD displays..
For the record though, the dispersion pattern on those LEDs looks like shit, but that's because the license plate lighting wasn't designed for LEDs, and those LED bulb replacements aren't designed properly either. You should be able to find better products that do the same thing; there are LED cluster replacements for most of the common accessory bulb sizes and many of them have very good dispersion patterns. Keep looking.
Ive seen those, both socket and wedge bulb led drop in replacements. Cool thing is they light up faster, and use less power, the way led technology is rapidly advancing the last couple years it wont be more then 2010 before led-based headlights reach midlevel car offerings(the technology literally keeps leapfrogging itself, Ive got leds from this quarter last year that are only 1/3 as efficient as whats available now, with leds having very little drop off in output intensity over their lifetime(which is almost infinite, you really never need to replace an led), you'd never need to worry about bulbs burning out again, its just a question of whether or not photon reflection/diffusion designs can catch up fast enough to get more applications to market.