In 1911, a racing driver named Ray Harroun suddenly installed a reversing mirror for his Marmon car, and the world's first reversing mirror appeared.
And today, 120 years later, this great invention may be retiring from the stage of history!
Ray Harroun mounts reversing mirrors on the car
Recently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a Federal Gazette notice on whether a camera can replace a reversing mirror and made a public call for comments.
The proposal is now in its final stages and will be submitted to the U.S. Office of Public and Budget Management (OMB) for review and approval.
The removal of steering wheel regulations in the United States a few days ago is also this process, so replacing the reversing mirror with a camera may be a "historic step".
The reason for this "decision against ancestors" is that the camera can provide a more complete side and rear picture than the traditional reversing mirror, with smaller blind spots and safer driving.
In addition, the camera reversing mirror is smaller in size, and it is more conducive to reducing wind resistance, which has many advantages!
Camera reversing mirror effect
Is the camera reliable to replace the reversing mirror?
Thinking of cameras replacing traditional reversing mirrors, everyone must have a bunch of questions in their heads. For example, what if you are used to the traditional lens reversing mirror? Will it look dizzy? How to maintain? What is the effect of night vision?
In-car cameras have been popular in the market since 2003, and their functions and performance have now reached the vehicle standard level. Vehicle-grade cameras are different from ordinary consumer cameras, and their seismic G value needs to reach 3-8G to be mass-produced, and the life expectancy is longer than that of consumers.
As for the problem of environmental interference, the camera reversing mirror generally has a heating function, which can de-icing and de-fog on demand, so that the lens can also output a stable picture in a colder environment.
What about low-light environments such as night? This requires the use of dot matrix infrared photosensitive camera, the environment of sufficient lighting through the ISP algorithm to make the picture brighter than the mirror in the picture, when there is no light at all, rely on infrared sensitivity, the effect is better than the human eye.
In short, in fact, in those environments where everyone thinks that the camera is unreliable, the performance of the camera may be better than that of the physical reversing mirror.
As for motion sickness and discomfort, you can first try the GAODE map AR navigation in the mobile phone, open the AR navigation to walk a few steps, and see if the halo is not dizzy. If you get dizzy during driving, it is very likely that the screen refresh is not done well, making you feel very uncomfortable.
And about the adaptation, this is slowly coming, after all, Tesla has to cancel the gear shift lever, but also made a single pedal mode, the owner of the adaptation does not also feel very fragrant.
Actually a big problem will be in the cost. The camera working environment on both sides of the car is complex and complex, the imaging requirements are extremely high, in addition, if infrared is added, whether it will affect other vehicles is also a problem that needs to be solved, and the overall technical requirements are high, and the cost is certainly not low.
And this set of things, not only two cameras, but also matched with two screens, linked wiring harnesses, and chips that process ISPs and imaging, which are all costs.
But fortunately, with the development of assisted driving, there are more and more cameras on the car, maybe these two high-quality cameras, the output information can be used for auxiliary driving decision-making at the same time, and the calculation is directly completed by the chip of the cockpit, so that the camera is used instead of the rearview mirror, and the actual cost is lower.
The only thing to worry about is that without the rearview mirrors, where will the turn signals on both sides of the ears be placed in the future?
Camera reversing mirrors are the trend of the times
Environmental protection has always been the concept of new energy vehicles. Although the camera's "small size" helps to reduce wind resistance seems insignificant.
But! The wind resistance of ordinary mirror reversing mirrors to the car is a solid "drag leg", which can almost increase the wind resistance by 6%!
When Audi launched the electric vehicle e-tron concept car in 2019, it replaced the traditional reversing mirror with a camera. The official test results show that after using a lighter camera, the vehicle's wind resistance coefficient was reduced from the original 0.28 to 0.27, increasing the cruising range of 6.4km.
Audi e-tron
It can be seen that when the wind resistance of the car is reduced, it can also play a fuel-saving and energy-saving effect! In today's increasingly "take-off" of oil prices, the camera instead of the rearview mirror is even more exciting!
At present, countries that have clearly stipulated the abolition of traditional reversing mirrors include India and Japan. India was forced to cancel the reversing mirrors in order to avoid scratching because of the large number of people, cars and narrow roads.
Japan has also legislated to eliminate reversing mirrors, allowing cars to replace traditional reversing mirrors with cameras, and the earliest to taste was the Lexus ES, which helped owners see the road behind them through two cameras and two 5-inch screens designed in the A-pillar.
In our country, the camera reversing mirror is still not allowed in the regulations, and the concept car can be engaged, but the car on the road is not ALLOWED. At the same time, before the regulation officially came into effect, U.S. automakers were not allowed to produce vehicles without reversing mirrors.
Therefore, if the United States wants vehicles to only install camera reversing mirrors to become compliant and legal, then it is very important whether NHTSA's proposal is approved or not.
The United States has always been the "weather vane" of the world's automotive industry. For example, NHTSA has just announced the cancellation of the steering wheel, and the production of driverless cars has begun to "rub their fists" for mass production. So if the cancellation of the reversing mirror is really allowed by law, then the world's car manufacturers should be very active in "responding to the call"?
Even Keith Foote, vice president of engineering at Magna, the largest auto parts dealer in North America, came out to speak, arguing that although the camera reversing mirror has not yet become popular and is developing very slowly, it must be the "general trend" of the future automotive industry.
Therefore, once NHTSA in the United States issues this new regulation, it must be a major breakthrough in the development of the automotive industry! (Hmmm...) Perhaps it is also another "breakthrough" of the second subject exam, reversing into the warehouse! ）
Are car owners looking forward to it?