At the Busan Auto Show in South Korea on July 14, Hyundai Motor released the new car IONIQ 6 based on the E-GMP pure electric modular platform. It is worth noting that the new car inherits the design concept of the Prophecy concept car in design. It not only has smooth body lines, but also cancels the traditional rearview mirror and uses a camera instead.
As a mass-produced model, the configuration of electronic rearview mirrors makes IONIQ 6 look futuristic, and it also triggered another discussion among car fans about this "black technology". It can be expected that even if this car enters the Chinese market, it will most likely have to be modified to traditional rearview mirrors - previously, BAIC Rubik's Cube was also equipped with electronic rearview mirrors in the early stage, but the mass-produced model was eventually changed back to traditional rearview mirrors. glass.
BAIC Rubik's Cube concept car
BAIC Rubik's Cube production car
There are many parts on a car. If the car parts are arranged according to the ratio of price and importance, the rearview mirror should be at the top of the ranking. A seemingly ordinary mirror is so important for observing the situation around the car when it is driving that most countries have laws that prohibit cars without rearview mirrors from being allowed on the road.
As automobile manufacturing becomes more and more intelligent, electronic and digital, many automobile designs have also undergone tremendous reforms. For example, traditional door handles have gradually given way to hidden door handles. And traditional rearview mirrors also seem to have the momentum to usher in innovation - in fact, this trend began to sprout five years ago. At the Shanghai Auto Show that year, Citroen Cxperience, Nissan Vmotion 2.0, Chevrolet CHEVROLET-FNR, these sci-fi-looking concept cars all canceled traditional rearview mirrors and replaced them with cameras.
When will the cars around us be able to use electronic rearview mirrors?
Born for safety, rearview mirrors are small, but very important.
Why do cars have rearview mirrors? The answer couldn't be simpler - to provide the driver with a better view of the rear. The human visual field is only about 60 degrees. When we concentrate on driving a car and focus on the more important front, it is difficult to observe the sides and rear outside the sight range at the same time.
Since the beginning of the invention of automobiles, how to give drivers a better field of vision has always been something engineers have been thinking about. Before the invention of the fixed rearview mirrors we use today, car drivers once brought their own mirrors to facilitate viewing behind them while driving. Of course, this practice now seems very unsafe.
There is usually a mirror in a woman's bag. The person who first proposed the concept of car rearview mirror was Dorothy Levy, one of the earliest female racing drivers in the world and once known as "the fastest woman in the world". She wrote in her book "Women and Cars" proposed that a mirror should be placed on the front of the car to observe the situation behind the car.
The first person to propose the concept of rearview mirrors and "the fastest woman in the world" Dorothy Levy
The first car equipped with fixed rearview mirrors appeared in the 1911 Indy 500 car race in the United States. Engineers from Marmon Company And racing grenade Harang cleverly used a mirror to make a simple rearview mirror, and won the final championship. It is said that he was inspired by horse-drawn carriages.
In 1911, American Ray Harang installed the first fixed rearview mirror.
The first registered patented car rearview mirror was born in 1921. Since then, rearview mirrors have also undergone many technological innovations. Many of the new car rearview mirrors we see now are no longer just simple lenses. For example, the double-curvature mirror technology can eliminate blind spots when turning and expand the field of vision; while the anti-glare technology can reduce the impact of the strong light of rear vehicles on the driver's vision when driving at night.
Despite this, due to the physical limitations of the body structure and the position of the rearview mirror, blind areas of vision behind and directly behind the car are always unavoidable. Sometimes, it even blocks side views.In recent years, the blind spot monitoring reminder function integrated into the rearview mirror and the increasingly common reversing image function seem to have made up for this shortcoming.
However, the wind resistance and other problems caused by the rearview mirror cannot be compensated after all. The protruding exterior mirrors on the left and right sides bring resistance when driving at high speeds. Technically speaking, the shape of the rearview mirror affects the vehicle's drag coefficient in a range of roughly 0.01-0.03.
From concept cars to mass-produced cars, is the lifespan of traditional rearview mirrors counting down?
Perhaps it is due to the inherent shortcomings of the rearview mirror. In recent years, a new design trend has begun to become popular in concept cars from major automakers—the elimination of rearview mirrors.
Cadillac As early as 1999, Cadillac launched a concept car called Evoq, which did not have a traditional rearview mirror design; after that, Volkswagen XL1 stole the limelight because it was one of the few wireless cars to be mass-produced. A new car with traditional rearview mirrors, of course, this car is more geared towards the collector market because, in addition to being expensive, it is not allowed on the road in most countries.
In 2013, Tesla Model Being able to compromise, the mass-produced Model X finally adopted traditional exterior rearview mirrors.
At the United Nations World Vehicle Regulations Coordination Forum held in Geneva, Switzerland, in June 2015, the international standard for automobile rearview mirrors was revised. It stipulates that starting from June 2016, various rearview mirrors can be replaced with camera/monitor systems; Japan is going faster: On June 18, 2016, Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism issued a statement that in-car LCD screens will be used to replace the car’s rearview mirrors. The bill on exterior rearview mirrors has passed review.
It is undeniable that replacing rearview mirrors with cameras does have its advantages in addition to its stylish appearance.
In order to fully grasp the situation around the vehicle, the driver needs to frequently turn his head to observe the information in each reflector , which will increase the driver's burden. When using a camera instead of a reflector, the camera can be installed anywhere on the car body and transmit the real-time road conditions collected by the camera back to the central control display, making it easier for the driver to observe and avoiding frequent head turning movements. The
camera can use a wide angle to shoot, and the display can be placed closer to the driver for easier observation. After using the camera, image processing technology can be applied to automatically enhance the dark scenes when driving at night, and automatically reduce the brightness of dazzling light sources such as car lights to improve driving comfort. Image combination technology can even be used to enhance with The current location information of the vehicle is displayed in way.
Electronic rearview mirror: high cost, many problems
As mentioned earlier, after the evolution of traditional rearview mirrors in the past century, especially after the emergence of the blind spot monitoring and reminder function, the blind spot of sight has been greatly reduced.
On the other hand, the design of eliminating the rearview mirror may not be more reliable than the traditional rearview mirror - the rearview imaging system with the camera as the main component faces problems such as picture clarity, low-light imaging, high-contrast scenes, imaging lag, etc. Technical challenges. At this point, traditional rearview mirrors that rely on optical reflection principles still have obvious advantages.
More importantly, the stability of the electronic system is an issue. In engineering design, one of the most basic principles is to minimize complex equipment - all equipment has the possibility of failure, and the more complex the system, the higher the possibility of failure. The
camera system is subject to the vehicle's electrical system. Once a power outage occurs, it may completely fail, which is unacceptable for car safety. In contrast, traditional reflectors are simple in construction and will rarely fail during the life of the car. Even if it is broken, it can continue to be used without complete failure.
In addition, compared with the reflector, the advantage of the camera is its small appearance. However, because of its small size, the area of the viewfinder lens is smaller. Once mud spots or even raindrops are attached to the surface of the lens, the blocking effect on the picture will become very large. . Imagine that when you are reversing in the basement of a narrow community, a fly suddenly stops on the camera...
In addition, there are also issues of production and use costs. Adding high-definition cameras is expensive. Moreover, this is an easily damaged external device . Once damaged in an accident, the maintenance cost will definitely be high.
The only advantage of electronic rearview mirrors seems to be to reduce wind resistance, but for family cars, this does not seem to be the core issue. Mercedes-Benz has achieved a wind resistance of 0.22 for family cars, which is almost a data that is difficult to reduce. You know, for cars traveling at high speeds, wind resistance is directly proportional to downforce, and downforce is related to handling. Wind resistance cannot be reduced indefinitely, and the benefits of reducing wind resistance brought by electronic rearview mirrors do not seem to be proportional to the cost.
In addition, electronic rearview mirrors can easily cause visual fatigue - when driving, drivers need to switch to a close-up display while their eyes are focusing on the road at a distance. Such frequent switching will not only cause eye fatigue, but also affect myopia. The driver is also quite unfriendly.
At present, electronic rearview mirrors still have some problems in practical applications. This should be the most important reason why our country does not yet allow mass-produced cars to adopt this configuration. Of course, with the continuous development of technology, we may also see this technology applied to our "grocery carts" in the future.
