As the auto show season begins in January, Ford Motor Co. plans to aim some of the spotlight on headlamp technologies it believes can improve visibility, lower replacement cost, and reduce glare. The two new technologies, high-intensity discharge (HID) and light-emitting diode (LED), will be demonstrated on three concept cars, one at the Los Angeles Auto Show that opens to the public Jan. 5, and two at the North American International Auto Show, which opens in Detroit Jan. 12. HID lamps have two main components: a light source, and a fiber optic array that distributes the light. Ford is experimenting with clustering groups of LEDs to produce enough light to make them useful in headlamps. “The big advantage is reduced power consumption,” said Mahendra Dassanayake, Ford senior technical specialist in optical electronics. Like HID lighting, LED head-lamps would produce less glare to oncoming drivers because each LED in the cluster could be precisely aimed.