With the rapid development of online car-hailing platforms, the way of traveling by standing on the side of the road and waiting for a taxi seems to have become a thing of the past. Online car-hailing not only saves a lot of time for everyone's travel, but also when you are lucky, you can also receive coupons thrown by the platform, which is more affordable than traditional travel methods.
But many friends have found a problem: usually they are fine, why do they get motion sickness as soon as they book a car online? Is it that the drivers are not very skilled and unstable in driving?
Image courtesy of Pixabay
Let's talk about the first conclusion first: the ease of motion sickness in online car-hailing is not a psychological effect of people, but the widespread use of new energy electric vehicles in this industry will increase the probability of motion sickness. If autonomous driving is involved, then the incidence of motion sickness increases by 17.24% compared to conventional vehicles.
As for the reason for this phenomenon, we have to start with why people get motion sickness.
Why do people get motion sickness?
Motion sickness is a medical term used for motion sickness, which refers to a series of uncomfortable reactions that occur when the human body is exposed to a stimulating sports environment (whether you are in a car, a boat or a plane), such as dizziness, tiredness, cold sweats, stomach upset, nausea and vomiting, hyperventilation, etc.
Although everyone has a clear understanding of the symptoms of motion sickness, there has been no clear answer to its causes. Just as science explains the extinction of the dinosaurs, there are only a few hypotheses to explain the physiological mechanism of motion sickness.
One of the most widely adopted is the sensory conflict hypothesis: when sensory systems perceive contradictory motor information; Motion sickness can occur when there is a contradiction between the actual incoming sensory information such as vision, kinesthetic, and positional sensation and the sensory information expected by the human body based on past experience.
Let's translate it into understandable words: First, the human senses are a sophisticated system. People's ability to see, hear, balance, and perceive the position and movement of their limbs has evolved to cooperate with each other, allowing humans to cope with complex environments.
When a person runs, the brain coordinates all kinds of senses, and calculates the command with ease - eyes, I received your visual signal, and the flowers and plants around me are left behind and cannot be seen; Ears, I have received your auditory signals, and the sound of the whirring wind is in my ears; Skeletal muscles, I received a nerve signal from you, you are working hard, and you are already a little tired. Combined, these signals tell your brain that you're running fast.
There is no significant difference between the way modern humans work today and the Stone Age humans millions of years ago, but the development of the Industrial Revolution in a hundred years has brought too many new things to mankind.
When people are riding in cars and boats, some people's brains are already squeaking: you don't move your hands and feet, you sit in place, why do the eyes looking out of the window send a signal that the scenery is moving, why! Wow, how does the balance perception of the inner ear still tell me that there is shaking! It's impossible! The brain can't process the information, and there is a dizziness. The poor man began to suffer from motion sickness.
Image courtesy of Pixabay
This is also why many people are not so prone to motion sickness when driving by themselves, because the driver holds the steering wheel and steps on the accelerator to actively grasp the car, and every action generated by the body is informing the brain: we are moving, we are really moving!
As long as the brain can perceive the correlation between people's movements and movements, and predict the change of direction and acceleration and deceleration, it can get by and feel that everything is harmonious, and people are not prone to motion sickness.
Why is it better to take a tram than to sit on a petrol car?
Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, electric vehicles are better than blue in making the brain have the illusion that I am not moving. Again, this is made up of multiple factors.
1
Electric vehicles accelerate and decelerate faster
The acceleration performance of 0~100km/h has always been an important indicator to measure whether a vehicle is a good car. In this matter, it is not a problem for a 200,000-priced electric car to beat a 4 million fuel-powered supercar at 100 kilometers of acceleration.
This comparison itself has a smack of running compared to a champion swimmer, because the engines of pure electric vehicles can output maximum torque (a measure of the power output of a car) with each step, while traditional internal combustion engines rely on the gearbox (whether manual or automatic) to gradually increase the output of rotational force.
Most electric vehicles have a kinetic energy recovery system when braking, with the purpose of saving electricity and energy. However, the kinetic energy recovery system of a large number of models is very abruptly involved, and passengers in the car will feel a sense of dragging, which will aggravate the discomfort.
This kind of performance determines that electric vehicles accelerate and brake faster and more suddenly, and people who are closer to one foot of the accelerator and one foot of the brake are familiar with driving skills, and the sense of sensory mismatch created for the brain is also stronger.
2
Electric cars run quieter
The sound of an electric engine is much lighter and less vibrational than that of a traditional combustion engine. As a result, passengers have no prediction of when the vehicle will start to accelerate, and there is no white noise to distract them.
In fact, the problem of motion sickness caused by too quiet is also found in some luxury cars with particularly good sound insulation, and as a result, the troubles of the rich have been spread by technological progress.
In addition to electric vehicles, there are now a variety of virtual reality entertainment devices that distract the senses and make people dizzy. For example, it's rare to hear of anyone getting sick on a bike, but it's not uncommon for people to get sick on a spinning bike with VR glasses, and the longer they're exposed to the virtual environment, the worse it gets.
Image courtesy of Pixabay
Games can still be played sparingly or avoid playing certain genres, but the number of new energy vehicles in the country has exceeded 10 million since 2022. In the face of the general trend, car companies are also trying to improve comfort. For example, measures such as increasing the range of visibility in the vehicle, optimizing the braking system and kinetic energy recovery, developing seats with cushioning performance, and improving the algorithm for autonomous driving.
And there are a few tips for reducing motion sickness when traveling as a passenger: either look out the window more, or close your eyes and refresh yourself; Sit in the front row with a better view, and don't sit on it if there is a seat facing backwards; Don't play with your phone, don't play with your phone, and don't play with your phone!
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[3] Chai Lining, Hua Chengcheng, Zhou Zhanfeng, Analysis of VR-induced motion sickness based on entropy power spectrum of EEG samples[J]. Electronic Measurement Technology, Oct. 2022, 45(20)
[4] Gao Zhenhai, Jin Lixin, Gao Fei, et al. A review of research on motion sickness in autonomous vehicles[J]. Automotive Technology, 2022(8): 1-9
Source: Shanghai Science and Technology Museum