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Lexus demos no wing mirrors


colin79666
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This has been talked about for years now but hasn't come out. I think the refresh time and delay of the camera/screen makes it greatly inferior to a mirror but I guess at some point technology improves and will be cheap enough to make it work economically. I wonder how much mpg improvement and noise reduction it will actual make though?

Early prototypes I've seen had virtually no visible camera bulge, similar to the little aerodynamic bump you can see in the video, rather than quite a large stalk.

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As above - cameras for the mirrors have been shown on countless concept cars and have never taken off. I think one important issue is screen contrast in bright sunlight, whereas mirror is not impacted, secondly actual detail of the screen - human eye over mirror is many times more precise then camera over screen (even with today's technology). Then there are practical issues, e.g. if you have drop of dirt on the mirror you still have 99% of visibility, same drop of dirt on the camera and you likely will have it out of focus and dirt covering maybe 30% of camera view.. Finally, talking about focus - your eye naturally focuses on what you care, so you can look to the mirror and focus your attention for that car far away in third lane, or onto to car right behind you, you can move your head a little to see completely different perspective... with camera it is just fixed and focuses mildly on everything, but not sharply on anything in particular you want to see.

For some time they will stay just fictional, concept ideas... I guess maybe with self driving cars they will become more realistic option.

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44 minutes ago, Comedian said:

Will need some serious consideration to moisture and frost. It does look good but they are solving problems that don't exist again.

 

Not to mention it'll probably be a lot more expensive if some man in a van decides to plough it down whilst driving. 

I believe Audi actually debuted the technology first but they didn't put it into production as fast as Lexus did 

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It does look as though the rain and frost problem has been dealt with. If you look at the shots of falling rain on the "mirror/camera" it goes to an infrared shot showing the camera is heated in much the same way as ordinary mirrors are but would require much less current to keep the small area of lens dry.

A very small wash jet could also be incorporated.

John.

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It does look as though the rain and frost problem has been dealt with. If you look at the shots of falling rain on the "mirror/camera" it goes to an infrared shot showing the camera is heated in much the same way as ordinary mirrors are but would require much less current to keep the small area of lens dry.
A very small wash jet could also be incorporated.
John.
Shame they didn't do that on reversing cameras already - but yes agree with your observation. I didn't watch that far. I'd already decided it was not worth having.

Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk

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  • 2 weeks later...

One thing is concept model for the roads, quite different mass produced and accepted product. The technology itself is not that sophisticated - I can get components and fit it myself for probably $200-250 (and I am talking high-end components here). The question to answer - does this $250 giver me any advantage over simply using mirrors and clear answer is NO... no advantage - I would even probably need to keep mirrors. The way e-tron does it on door cards is much nicer looking then standard rectangular screens previously seen, but from practicality perspective it is no different... still useless. 

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