Camera mirrors, one more aberration

In addition to the ineffable touch pads, always more disproportionate and which have proven their nuisance, cars are beginning to adopt other equally useless equipment. I’m talking about rear-view cameras. Yes, it’s true, a mirror placed outside the car is too simple. Why not replace it with a complex optical system, coupled with high-definition screens, to get people talking in the office? To play “I have the most hi-tech”?

Very nice, the painting of the Honda e. But even there, we see that the steering wheel hides the left rear view screen.

Because, apart from that, I don’t really see what this gadget is for. Worse, it has such drawbacks that a somewhat sane mind would have sent it back to the Museum of Stupid Inventions. I realized this in use, on board a Honda e. My hand is partially obstructing my view of the left rear view camera.

Ah, that’s safety: it’s impossible to instantly have a left rear view mirror, in the Honda e as in other cars equipped with rear view cameras.

So to control this side I first have to move my hand and then look at the camera, which in an emergency maneuver wastes precious time. I would add that it is completely counter-intuitive to look at the dashboard to see what is happening behind the car. In addition, moving the gaze slightly towards an exterior mirror saves a few tenths of a second to perform a possible direct control of what is happening on the left, often hidden in a blind spot. With the camera, it’s exactly the opposite, we lose time there too.

An Audi Q8 e-tron fitted with arm-mounted rear-view cameras. They therefore do not save much in terms of external space…

Finally, apart from the fact that a mirror does not break down, unlike a complex electronic device, an exterior mirror also serves to protect the bodywork, encouraging other users of the wheel, two-wheelers in particular, not to overdo it. brush against her. In short, I see only disadvantages to these rear view cameras. Come on, yes, they should allow you to earn a few Cx micro-points. There are also interior mirrors which are in fact screens also coupled to a camera. I can’t get used to them, but at least we can turn them off and get back to a natural image.

Frankly, even on the Honda e, these damn cameras spoil the aesthetics more than anything else…

What will the next step be? No more glazing, we replace everything with screens? Some think about it, when it is totally absurd. If we have to switch to the electric car, we might as well design a simple and light one, rid of these energy-consuming gadgets…