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posted by
Fnord666
on Thursday January 02 2020, @04:15AM
from the What-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.
from the What-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.
Mirrors have been an integral part of motor vehicles for over a century. The low tech solution has solved the major visibility issues involved with driving and now car makers think they can do one better using cameras instead of mirrors. This may be an improvement in large trucks where visibility using mirrors can be poor to the point that obstacles directly in front and behind the vehicle cannot be seen but for cars it may prove to be a theft opportunity.
Best not to mount a mirror, or indeed a camera, directly in the line of fire of a neighboring car door in the parking lot. Maybe someone should tell them about the practicalities of life?
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Cameras to Replace Mirrors on Cars and Trucks
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @04:30AM (11 children)
Less drag, better control over positioning, less prone to (physically) break, less area to heat. So long as the electronics are working, they're pretty much just better.
The drawback is needing to mount the display somewhere - which is potentially a big drawback. Normally if you are looking in the mirror you should also look out the side window to see other possible collision hazards. If the display isn't in a position where it's natural to see along with the side window, drivers could easily overlook one or the other.
For commercial vehicles, which have serious blind spots, the advantage isn't necessarily the positioning of the camera but the ability to have *more* cameras. There's no real reason a commercial vehicle couldn't have one camera on the front fender (that could face both front and back), another (or a regular mirror) in the traditional side view position, and a third on the corner of the trailer. Commercial drivers would be happy for any additional visibility they can get.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday January 02 2020, @04:44AM (2 children)
Less drag, better control over positioning, less prone to (physically) break, less area to heat. So long as the electronics are working, they're pretty much just better.
The drawback is needing to mount the display somewhere [...]
[...] and less room inside and less visibility to the back and quarters and so on.
The other drawback is that these cameras are connected to more or less always-on systems based on infrequently updated, non-user serviceable firmware which is connected to the net in multiple ways. That drawback is on top of whatever else may be written into both the EULA or mandatory support contract. Thus it is a big problem for privacy.
Privacy aside, it is just another way for them to increase the cost of the cars, restrict servicing to the (paid) authorized dealers, and shorten the life of the car to the support period for the firmware. That last poing has big follow-on effects: Many countries in Africa depend on used cars from Western Europe, and many of the rest of the African countries depend on very, very used cars from Western Europe via those original importers. With the stream of used cars drying up, they'll be forced to buy the cheapest ones directly from China. Many countries there are already in hock to China so forcing that arrangement will be relatively easy for China. That will be a problem in many ways for both Western Europe and the western car producers. Like the vile politician Bill Gates has said about operating systems, "As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade [archive.is]", except instead of stealing we are talking about importing very used cars. Politically, for Western Europe and the US, it is better for Africa to have used western cars than have more to do with China.
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @03:25PM
If you shift your eye from the windshield to a mirror, your focal point is still at (approximately) infinity. If you shift your eye from the windshield to a video monitor, your focal point shifts from infinity to a meter or so. This is a significant matter, especially for our increasingly aging population.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday January 02 2020, @06:57PM
In a sane world, when that day came you'd rip out that crap and fit some aftermarket mirrors. In an insane world that'll be illegal and will invalidate your insurance. Which world do we live in?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by julian on Thursday January 02 2020, @04:49AM
VW made a concept car called the XL1 [wikipedia.org] meant to be able to travel 100km on 1 liter of (diesel) fuel. They had to do everything possible to make it as aerodynamic as possible. So the side mirrors had to go. The screens for the mirrors are placed in the doors, forward of the arm rests. Tesla already has cameras that are flushmounted so there's nothing to break off. They could take off the side mirrors at any time and start putting side screens in, or just have the video feed in the center display show the side view feeds. That might be weird to get used to but I think it would probably work if they could get it approved by regulators.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @07:58AM
From the article: "contributing about 2.5 kilometres to its 436 kilometre".
I'd say this is more important than increasing range by 0.6%:
Other stuff will probably swamp that tiny range increase - like driving style, how much air conditioning or heating is used in the car, tyre inflation levels[1] and tyre alignment.
[1] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/maintain.jsp [fueleconomy.gov]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Thursday January 02 2020, @10:10AM (3 children)
Why do you need to look out the side window if you have no blind spots any more?
The end game is to have cameras all over the car, projected over the inside surface so that you can see through all of the car from the inside. You can theoretically provide strictly superior visibility. The question is whether it can be implemented reliably and cheaply, and can people get used to driving with it.
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(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday January 02 2020, @11:43AM (1 child)
So car interiors will be bare spheres painted matt white? That sounds cosy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:44PM
That's unlikely, you'd still want to have windows that you can look through in case the camera system breaks while driving. Even with AI control over the car, you'd still want to be able to see what's around you in case you need to operate manually. It's one of the reasons why jets still have pilot controls despite them being capable of handling the entire flight without manual intervention of the pilot. You still want to be able to override the computer if there's a problem with the system in the rare case where the system sensors are broken in a way that the pilot's physical senses aren't.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday January 06 2020, @04:30PM
Because electronics break.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:13PM (1 child)
Citation Needed.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @09:06PM
Cameras don't need to stick out at the doors becoming a spot that's easier to hit. If you're going to break a camera by smashing into it with your car, you're also going to break the rest of the car.