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njsisme t1_iudape6 wrote

Many new cars have this now too. Seems a bit silly to me. Mirrors work just fine.

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tokynambu t1_iue8pg5 wrote

My car has them (Honda e).

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I was sceptical, but actually they have a load of benefits. You don't need to adjust them between drivers. The car is narrower. You can overlay distance cues. You can incorporate the images into an all-around "aerial" view. You can adjust the brightness. The passenger can see behind before opening the passenger door. In the case of the e, the world's least practical electric car, they also claim an aero benefit of a few percent, but I doubt that's worth the hassle.

None of these are game-changers, and none of them are of themselves reasons to do it. But the downsides --- they smear differently, and arguably worse, when it's dark and wet, they're a bit noisy in twilight --- are small compared to a lot of small benefits.

I'm much less convinced by central mirror as camera, because switching focus from infinity to a few inches from your eyes is hard, and harder the older you are. I have the central mirror as a mirror, rather than the camera. But door mirrors replaced by cameras? On balance, I'm impressed.

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