Before It Disappears - One Last Look in the Rearview Mirror

Rearview mirrors have been around for more than a hundred years, but few people are aware that the first rearview mirror fitted to a car played a pivotal role in delivering a race win! Ray Harroun won the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, mostly thanks to him fitting a mirror to his Marmon Wasp while all the other competitors had to drag around a “riding mechanic” to tell them when cars were close behind or coming up alongside them.

Now, a little over a century later, the mirror faces extinction. As cameras get cheaper and more cars are fitted with higher levels of ADAS that require them to map the environment, it’s only a matter of time before the reflective device follows the cigarette lighter into extinction.

It’s not only manufacturers that are looking at replacing the mirror: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have advised the automotive industry that backup cameras will have to be fitted to most new vehicles by May 2018. This obviously doesn’t replace the mirror, but one has to wonder when manufacturers, faced with rising costs on the back of technological advances, will add this age old technology to the delete list.

According to NHTSA, there are nearly 210 “backover” deaths each year, with children accounting for about a third of these deaths. The agency believes rear facing cameras could save between 59 and 69 lives a year.

Could mirrorless cars make the leap from concept to showroom?

At CES 2016, BMW introduced the “i8 Mirrorless” concept, which splices together footage captured by four cameras around the car, and displays it as a single video image on a display where the rearview mirror would normally be. By stitching the footage together, the technology grants the occupants a panoramic, unobstructed view of their surroundings, which increases awareness, safety, and even convenience as the displays never have to be adjusted.

And as for the side mirrors that notoriously leave a blind spot, BMW replaced these with a digital camera system on the i8 concept car, resulting in a more cohesive design which the company believes could see series production in the near future.

In the show car, the traditional struts off the doors remain, but these support cameras instead of mirrors, and the cameras are slimmer and more aerodynamic than traditional mirrors. Philipp Hoffmann, BMW's project manager for Camera Monitor Systems, claims the cameras improve the car's aerodynamics by three percent, leading to about a one percent increase in range.

The side cameras are also covered by Gorilla Glass with an integral heating element to melt snow and ice, making the system more weather-resistant than conventional side mirrors.

In addition, two stereoscopic cameras mounted under the rear hatch glass show what is directly behind the car, also serving as a backup camera for parking.

Instead of an interior rearview mirror, BMW mounted an LCD display at the top of the windshield. Although the display is taller than a typical rearview mirror, its bottom edge is at the same height as that of the standard i8, so forward vision isn’t obstructed.

In practice the system delivers imagery that’s bright and clear, providing better detail than what would be seen in conventional side and rear-view mirrors. Over and above all the other benefits, the side cameras are not hampered by rain. With traditional mirrors, rain on the side windows often makes it impossible to see the side mirrors: In the BMW the view from the cameras on the center display remains clear.

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The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Tesla petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2014 to allow the substitution of side mirrors by cameras, and BMW is currently talking to government officials in Europe, the US and other markets, hoping to finally get the rules modified.

Although it’s highly likely that regulators in these regions will eventually accept the technology in its entirety, interior and side mirrors, in Japan the country's regulators have already passed new rules allowing for the production of mirrorless cars as of June 2017.

However, Gentex, a top producer of auto-dimming mirrors, is betting that rearview mirrors will be around for a while, even as automakers flirt with camera systems that display video images.

Extending the life of the mirror

Gentex manufactures a “hybrid” interior rearview mirror that allows the driver to choose between glancing at a traditional mirror or scanning a video image fed from a single rear-mounted camera.

Much like BMW’s offering, video images from three cameras are stitched together for display in what resembles a traditional interior rearview mirror. The company claims the composite image eliminates blind spots caused by the C-pillars.

Meanwhile in Japan, first tier mirror supplier Ichikoh has created a similar hybrid system named the “Smart Rear View Monitor.” Though the device can be used as a traditional rear-view mirror, when the driver taps a switch it converts to a monitor, projecting images from a camera positioned at the rear of a vehicle.

The company believes that adoption rates of camera-based systems among automakers will be high. Company reps project that within seven years digital rearview mirrors will be found on about 29 percent of all vehicles made for the Japanese market. Side-view mirrors will make a slower exit: by 2023, Ichikoh predicts that just 12 percent of new vehicles will have deleted these.

When it comes to replacing side mirrors with cameras it’s not only legislation in most markets that’s restraining the implementation: Honda Motor Co. introduced a hybrid mirror dubbed LaneWatch in its 2013 Accord, which used a camera fixed to the side mirror to feed a video image to the console screen when the driver indicated a turn.

But some motorists apparently found it distracting, and Honda subsequently replaced this with a conventional blind-spot detection system on some models.

Nevertheless, several manufacturers continue to pursue alternatives that improve motorists’ rear and side vision. Continental AG, for example, has developed side cameras that feed video images to display screens mounted just inside the A-pillar. In theory, this would allow automakers to eliminate the mirrors without upsetting motorists accustomed to glancing at a side mirror.

So although the technology exists to replace the lowly mirror, Gentex’s CFO Steve Downing may be right when he says: "Consumers appreciate evolution rather than revolution."

Hence, for the time being, mirrors will mostly be found exactly where the motorist expects them to be!

Sources:

Gregory Wallace; CNN News; U.S. requires new cars to have backup cameras; March 2014; http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/31/autos/rear-facing-cameras/ David Sedgwick; Automotive News; Gentex reflects on the future of the mirror; February 2017; http://www.autonews.com/article/20170211000100/OEM10/302139999?template=print