All the electronic safety wizardry on today’s cars will not help if you can’t see the road ahead – which is why Philips’ X-treme Power takes our top accessory prize, as it sets a new benchmark for headlamp bulbs. When we tested it alongside both standard and high-performance bulbs, it put them all, literally, in the shade. Based on the light 75 and 50 metres ahead of the driver, the best beam rating the rest could manage was 107, but the new X-treme hit 146 – a massive difference easily seen on the light-tunnel wall. As with all high-performance bulbs, Philips has taken the tolerances allowed by the regulations and pushed them to the limit, not only burning the filament harder, but also reducing the glass envelope to increase gas pressure and deliver more light.