zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Tech
/
Lexus Beat Audi by Bringing Wing Mirror Cameras to Market First
Lexus Beat Audi by Bringing Wing Mirror Cameras to Market First-February 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:10:36

The will keep that , but otherwise it’s shaping up to look like an alright car. And Lexus claims that it has the world’s first, production-ready Digital Outer Mirrors. But only in Japan. Blame America’s outdated regulations for this one.

Now, this isn’t a totally new idea. Audi has explored it before with the and the had them, but the ones on the Lexus are supposedly the first ones to make it to production on a Real Car.

The car will have small cameras in the place of traditional wing mirrors that transmit the images onto five-inch display monitors, located at the base of the A-pillars. So, you theoretically wouldn’t have to look anywhere different.

Lexus says that one of the advantages of its digital system is that the cameras are shaped so that rain and snow won’t block the lens and obscure the driver’s view. What’s more:

The system automatically enhances the corresponding area―left, right or behind―when the turn signals are activated, or when the transmission is put into reverse. The view of areas around the car can be manually enhanced by the driver to obtain complete peripheral awareness of the area around the vehicle.

By reducing the size of the wing mirrors with the cameras, visibility through the front windows should be largely improved. Wind noise into the cabin should also be decreased.

I’d imagine these wing mirrors to function similarly to . That took a little getting used to, and I found that if I got snow or dirt on the car, the lens got blocked. Hopefully that won’t happen with the Lexus.

And yes, this is in Japan only. Probably because they don’t pass regulation here. Yet. American car safety regulations are always slower to adapt than other markets. And as the The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ publication noted back in 2014, while rearview backup cameras are now mandatory, the jury seems out on how best to get drivers to adapt:

But, the real challenge according to Fitch is trying to determine where to place the display in the vehicle so that there’s a seamless transition from driving a vehicle with a display and then without it. He doesn’t want drivers to depend on displays and forget how to drive vehicles without cameras.

Reimer, too, is concerned about reeducating drivers who learned to drive with traditional mirrors.

“Just sticking a camera in there and not educating people how the best effective way for them to use that information is an issue we still need to conquer,” he says. “We’re capable of changing the technology faster than we are capable of changing the driver today.”

Maybe someday. But for now, only in Japan.

(h/t to .)

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Tech
Automaker Of Safe Cars Recalls All The Cars Because The Safety Tech Might Not Work
Automaker Of Safe Cars Recalls All The Cars Because The Safety Tech Might Not Work
Swedish automaker Volvo has issued a recall of every single 2019 and 2020 vehicle is has built thus far. That amounts to a total of 121,605 vehicles on the road today with a software incompatibility possibly causing the automatic emergency braking system to function improperly. Every single S60, V60,...
Feb 15, 2026
Skateboards Are More Challenging Than They Seem
Skateboards Are More Challenging Than They Seem
People have been talking about the skateboard for a long time. The idea makes sense on the surface: load all the powertrain, suspension, and other important bits in a flat skateboard-like package so you can drop several different bodies on top. A truck, sedan, and van all being carried...
Feb 15, 2026
The C8 Corvette's Tachometer Changes After The Car's Broken In
The C8 Corvette's Tachometer Changes After The Car's Broken In
Freshly minted motors need to be broken in gently so all their fast-moving components seat properly. The uses its fully digital gauge cluster to remind you of that, which is kind of neat. This YouTube clip from a Jeremy Welborn popped up in the via member Todd W., showing how...
Feb 15, 2026
Mitsubishi Makes A $373 Toaster For Extreme Bread Enthusiasts
Mitsubishi Makes A $373 Toaster For Extreme Bread Enthusiasts
The 2020 lineup of Mitsubishi Motors’ cars is not uh, designed for connoisseurs of the automobile, per se. But apparently Mitsubishi Electric has a very different market when it comes to kitchen appliances. In fact, it appears that it offers the supercar of toasters. Just to be clear: Mitsubishi...
Feb 15, 2026
Discovery's Diesel Dorks Ordered To Pay $850,000 Fine For Rolling Lots Of Coal
Discovery's Diesel Dorks Ordered To Pay $850,000 Fine For Rolling Lots Of Coal
The —a collective nickname for Discovery Channel’s truck-obsessed super polluter television show, David “Heavy D” Sparks, Joshua Stuart, Keaton Hoskins, and David “Diesel Dave” Kiley—have been ordered by a Utah judge to pay over $850,000 in fines for . In the process of building trucks for customers at various...
Feb 15, 2026
I Think The 2021 Chevy Trailblazer Has The Smallest Engine-To-Overall-Car Size Ratio Of Any Car You Can Buy In America UPDATED
I Think The 2021 Chevy Trailblazer Has The Smallest Engine-To-Overall-Car Size Ratio Of Any Car You Can Buy In America UPDATED
I want to start this out by saying that I do not think what I am about to discuss is necessarily a bad thing. I’m all for cars with small engines, , and I realize that this sort of thing is not all that uncommon in Europe and Asia...
Feb 15, 2026
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved