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While I agree with you that the issue is far worse with larger vehicles, I do find that backing up in my wife's 2011 camry (without a backup camera) feels signi

While I agree with you that the issue is far worse with larger vehicles, I do find that backing up in my wife's 2011 camry (without a backup camera) feels significantly less safe than I feel backing up my 2017 accord with a backup camera. I'm all for fixing the structural issue you are referring to, but I think the requirement for those cameras is sane in an age where the added cost to the manufacturer is miniscule.

alt227 8mo ago
Its not just the added cost, its the supply chain. Putting cameras into cars requires processors, ram, all manner of chips and compnents that a car didnt need before. There was the chip shortage during covid which held car production back becasue the auto makers couldnt source their chips fast enough. I am waiting to see if the current supply issue for ram chips modules will produce a similar effect.
- nebezb 8mo ago
  All of that is worth the extra safety.
- hedgehog 8mo ago
  Stability control, pre-collision braking, lane departure warnings, the complexity is pretty inevitable as we improve the safety of vehicles.
- AngryData 8mo ago
  I mean you can buy add-on 3rd party backup cameras for like $20. They don't have any cost excuses for including backup cameras, camera sensors and display screens are literally cheaper than dirt.
  - dylan604 8mo ago
    That's great for cars built before the regulation were put into place. Without that regulation, you'd then be dependent on the end user purchasing an after market part and installing it. The vast majority of them won't. So if it is so important to have, you make it part of the car. They did not leave seat belts up to the owners to install after market versions.
    - AngryData 8mo ago
      My point is that if a 3rd party manufacturer can produce and sell a combination screen and camera for $20 for a profit, an automotive manufacturer has no reason to complain about the "expense" of such a setup. It is even cheaper for them than a 3rd party addon supplier since they buy in larger bulk and can integrate mounts for those devices into the car, rather than trying to devise some sort of one-size-fits-all mounting system that the addon manufacturers need. They might as well be complaining about the costs of a rear view mirror, it is nonsense from the start. If a $20 gadget breaks the bank on a $30,000 minimum vehicle, they are a shitty business to start with and we should all be clapping our hands when they go out of business.
      - dylan604 8mo ago
        The 3rd party guy isn't paying someone $40/hour to install the $20 unit. The $20 unit will not be as integrated into the car and will have the look of an after market part. Does the $20 part only come on when the car is in reverse, or is it on all the time? There's a lot of reasons the after market thing can be $20 and a lot of reasons the auto manufacturer's is not. It's not all down to greed
  - pornel 8mo ago
    Legacy automakers still use these for upselling trims. It's so silly when they make some "Advanced Technology Package" with a VGA camera and a 2-inches-bigger infotainment screen that's still worse than junk from Aliexpress, and charge $3000 extra for it. I know it's just a profit-maximizing market segmentation, but I like to imagine their Nokia-loving CEO has just seen an iPad for the first time.
- ncallaway 8mo ago
  > Putting cameras into cars requires processors, ram, all manner of chips and compnents that a car didnt need before. Was there a single mass market consumer car sold in the United States in this millennium that didn’t already have processors and RAM in them? I would be absolutely shocked if there was a single car for which the relatively recent backup camera requirement required them to introduce processors and RAM for the first time.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 8mo ago
    I’m pretty sure that you can buy aftermarket backup cameras. The car can be a dumb bunny, and still have a good camera.
    - stefanfisk 8mo ago
      Yeah, my 2005 beater has both CarPlay and a backup camera. Cost me $40 and an hour of labor.
    - numpad0 8mo ago
      oh yeah. I've once bought a $10ish one on Amazon out of curiosity. There's the yellow composite plug, a 12V input, and a small bit of wire to be cut to rotate image 180 degrees, at the other end of a 30ft cable from the camera. The composite goes into the existing infotainment. There would be a wire from shifter to infotainment that switches the display to external composite video when the gear lever is in reverse. I think it even came with a miniature hole saw in size of the camera module. $10 and one afternoon later, I could have upgraded a dumb car to have one, complete with auto switch to backup on reverse. No software hacking needed. It's fundamentally an extremely simple thing.
  - dotancohen 8mo ago
    I believe that in some vehicles the backup camera actually runs on a separate (possibly real time, otherwise certainly heavily nice'ed) system. Tesla has a recall where they had to nice the backup camera software. The problem was if the display freezes or is delayed, then the driver is backing up and not aware that he doesn't see where he is going (he thinks that what he sees is representative of the area around the car currently).
- Dylan16807 8mo ago
  Was it ever a problem to get the kind of phone SoC or camera chips you'd need for a backup camera if you were willing to pay an extra $20? I thought the issue was more specialized things. And you need one gigabyte of ram or less.
  - spease 8mo ago
    A gigabyte!? You shouldn’t need any dedicated RAM. A decent microcontroller should be able to handle transcoding the output from the camera to the display and provide infotainment software that talks to the CANbus or Ethernet. And the bare minimum is probably just a camera and a display. Even buffering a full HD frame would only require a few megabytes. Pretty sure the law doesn’t require an electron app running a VLM (yet) that would justify anything approaching gigabytes of RAM.
    - Dylan16807 8mo ago
      I tried to think of a wording that wouldn't get this response, I guess I failed. Ram is generally bought in gigabytes, "1 or less" is as low as numbers go without getting overly detailed. So what microcontroller do you have in mind that can run a 1-2 megapixel screen on internal memory? I would have guessed that a separate ram chip would be cheaper.
      - spease 8mo ago
        https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/How_to_display_on_HDMI https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/How_to_display_on_HDMI But mostly it’s the fundamental problem space from an A/V perspective. You don’t need iPhone-grade image processing - you just need to convert the raw signal from the CMOS chip to some flavor of YUV or RGB, and get that over to the screen via whatever interface it exposes. NTSC HD was designed to be compatible with pretty stateless one-way broadcast over the air. And that was a follow-on to analog encodings that were laid down based on timing of the scanning CRT gun from dividing the power line frequency in an era where 1GB of RAM would be sci-fi. We use 29.97 / 59.94 fps from shimming color signal into 30 fps B&W back when color TV was invented in the early-mid 1900s, that’s how tight this domain is.
- TylerE 8mo ago
  All cars have required "chips" since OBDII was mandated in the early 90s. That ship has sailed around the world, returned to port, and sailed again.
- bastawhiz 8mo ago
  > Putting cameras into cars requires processors, ram, all manner of chips and compnents that a car didnt need before. Call me old fashioned but in my opinion, processors/ram/chips/components are a good trade-off versus squished children
Zancarius 8mo ago
I have to agree. Backing up my Tundra (8' bed) feels substantially safer since I can see immediately behind the vehicle than any pre-regulation vehicle I've driven. That doesn't even account for the convenience with lining up for towing, hauling, etc. (It's no replacement for GOAL—Get Out And Look—but it definitely helps!)
- harrall 8mo ago
  I like it because I can see kids, no matter what vehicle I’m in. I have unusually good spatial skills. I have parallel parked and reverse parked perfectly every single time for over 5 years… …but no matter what, I cannot see behind my bumper. No mirror on any car points there.
  - jjmarr 8mo ago
    The law was passed due to sustained lobbying from a man, Greg Gulbransen, who ran over his child
    - brabel 8mo ago
      What an absolute tragedy it must be to go through that. Hopefully he finds peace knowing this law will save many other children.
    - icemelt8 8mo ago
      What an amazing piece of information in a thread about a game engine, thanks for sharing this.
nobody_r_knows 8mo ago
As someone who can only afford cars that are 10+ years old, i've never owened a car with a backup camera. And in a way-- good. That part of my brain, let it continue to develop. I am much better at "feeling out" where a car is than my friends who rely on back up cameras.
- skhr0680 8mo ago
  Being good at driving doesn’t fix the huge blind spot you have behind your car
- jabroni_salad 8mo ago
  I used to be ornery about this but having a camera mounted on the back of the trunk that can see all the way down both ways of the aisle is actually a huge boon when backing out of a spot. Especially if I am parked next to something that is taller than my golf, which is most vehicles.
  - doubled112 8mo ago
    This is what changed my mind too. I was firmly in the “can’t you just learn to drive?” camp before. I can use my eyes and look around but I can’t see through objects. The camera and sensors have an incredibly wide view. I only have to get my rear end out a few inches to be able to see everything I couldn’t before. Pray and pull out isn’t very safe.
- commakozzi 8mo ago
  unless you're Yoda or Luke Skywalker, you're not "feeling" a 4-year old walking behind you in your blind spot.
  - DerArzt 8mo ago
    If they are feeling it, the worst scenario has happened.
    - luqtas 8mo ago
allenrb 8mo ago
Give me a backup camera without a screen and then we’ll talk. Doubly so because once you’ve got that screen, no automaker will resist making it do other things.
- falcor84 8mo ago
  You piqued my interest. What is the alternative output for a camera without a screen?
  - JoeBOFH 8mo ago
    My old F150 had a screen in the rear view mirror. I miss that.
  - glaslong 8mo ago
    These days I guess we could do gpt with voice out to recite a poem about the kid you're about to hit?
    - harikb 8mo ago
      Haha... I think gp meant touch-screen, but thanks for the chuckle :)
  - tracker1 8mo ago
    My SO's Buick Enclave has a screen behind the rearview mirror that can be set to show the backup camera. Works okay, but I prefer the actual mirror and just use the dash display. That said, vision issues, so not driving since around this time last year.
- tempest_ 8mo ago
  My 2010 Tacoma has a 2 inch square in the rear view mirror that works wonderfully.
  - allenrb 8mo ago
    I actually like that a lot. Does the job without providing a (practical) target for infotainment. TIL.
RHSeeger 8mo ago
I bought a new car last year (my first actual _new_ car, vs pre-owned) and one of my most important features was a 360 camera. That extra visibility is just amazing for safety. Another was a HUD. Being able to see how fast I'm going, what the speed limit is, and other info; all while keeping my eyes on the road... is safer.
- jnrk 8mo ago
  I agree. Going back to a car without a 360 camera is unthinkable now that I've gotten so used to it...
- abustamam 8mo ago
  This makes my wife's Tesla seem very outdated. It only gets a rear camera when backing up, and a side camera when activating a turn signal.
tracker1 8mo ago
I think it was a Dodge Neon from the early 00s that had the worst rear view I'd experienced. My Challenger was close, but the backup camera and blind spot sensors helped a lot. You could hide a bus in the blind spot on a Challenger, not to mention the passenger seat headrest blocks most of the corner/A window.

alt227 8mo ago

Its not just the added cost, its the supply chain. Putting cameras into cars requires processors, ram, all manner of chips and compnents that a car didnt need before. There was the chip shortage during covid which held car production back becasue the auto makers couldnt source their chips fast enough. I am waiting to see if the current supply issue for ram chips modules will produce a similar effect.

nebezb 8mo ago
All of that is worth the extra safety.
hedgehog 8mo ago
Stability control, pre-collision braking, lane departure warnings, the complexity is pretty inevitable as we improve the safety of vehicles.
AngryData 8mo ago
I mean you can buy add-on 3rd party backup cameras for like $20. They don't have any cost excuses for including backup cameras, camera sensors and display screens are literally cheaper than dirt.
- dylan604 8mo ago
  That's great for cars built before the regulation were put into place. Without that regulation, you'd then be dependent on the end user purchasing an after market part and installing it. The vast majority of them won't. So if it is so important to have, you make it part of the car. They did not leave seat belts up to the owners to install after market versions.
  - AngryData 8mo ago
    My point is that if a 3rd party manufacturer can produce and sell a combination screen and camera for $20 for a profit, an automotive manufacturer has no reason to complain about the "expense" of such a setup. It is even cheaper for them than a 3rd party addon supplier since they buy in larger bulk and can integrate mounts for those devices into the car, rather than trying to devise some sort of one-size-fits-all mounting system that the addon manufacturers need. They might as well be complaining about the costs of a rear view mirror, it is nonsense from the start. If a $20 gadget breaks the bank on a $30,000 minimum vehicle, they are a shitty business to start with and we should all be clapping our hands when they go out of business.
    - dylan604 8mo ago
      The 3rd party guy isn't paying someone $40/hour to install the $20 unit. The $20 unit will not be as integrated into the car and will have the look of an after market part. Does the $20 part only come on when the car is in reverse, or is it on all the time? There's a lot of reasons the after market thing can be $20 and a lot of reasons the auto manufacturer's is not. It's not all down to greed
- pornel 8mo ago
  Legacy automakers still use these for upselling trims. It's so silly when they make some "Advanced Technology Package" with a VGA camera and a 2-inches-bigger infotainment screen that's still worse than junk from Aliexpress, and charge $3000 extra for it. I know it's just a profit-maximizing market segmentation, but I like to imagine their Nokia-loving CEO has just seen an iPad for the first time.
ncallaway 8mo ago
> Putting cameras into cars requires processors, ram, all manner of chips and compnents that a car didnt need before. Was there a single mass market consumer car sold in the United States in this millennium that didn’t already have processors and RAM in them? I would be absolutely shocked if there was a single car for which the relatively recent backup camera requirement required them to introduce processors and RAM for the first time.
- ChrisMarshallNY 8mo ago
  I’m pretty sure that you can buy aftermarket backup cameras. The car can be a dumb bunny, and still have a good camera.
  - stefanfisk 8mo ago
    Yeah, my 2005 beater has both CarPlay and a backup camera. Cost me $40 and an hour of labor.
  - numpad0 8mo ago
    oh yeah. I've once bought a $10ish one on Amazon out of curiosity. There's the yellow composite plug, a 12V input, and a small bit of wire to be cut to rotate image 180 degrees, at the other end of a 30ft cable from the camera. The composite goes into the existing infotainment. There would be a wire from shifter to infotainment that switches the display to external composite video when the gear lever is in reverse. I think it even came with a miniature hole saw in size of the camera module. $10 and one afternoon later, I could have upgraded a dumb car to have one, complete with auto switch to backup on reverse. No software hacking needed. It's fundamentally an extremely simple thing.
- dotancohen 8mo ago
  I believe that in some vehicles the backup camera actually runs on a separate (possibly real time, otherwise certainly heavily nice'ed) system. Tesla has a recall where they had to nice the backup camera software. The problem was if the display freezes or is delayed, then the driver is backing up and not aware that he doesn't see where he is going (he thinks that what he sees is representative of the area around the car currently).
Dylan16807 8mo ago
Was it ever a problem to get the kind of phone SoC or camera chips you'd need for a backup camera if you were willing to pay an extra $20? I thought the issue was more specialized things. And you need one gigabyte of ram or less.
- spease 8mo ago
  A gigabyte!? You shouldn’t need any dedicated RAM. A decent microcontroller should be able to handle transcoding the output from the camera to the display and provide infotainment software that talks to the CANbus or Ethernet. And the bare minimum is probably just a camera and a display. Even buffering a full HD frame would only require a few megabytes. Pretty sure the law doesn’t require an electron app running a VLM (yet) that would justify anything approaching gigabytes of RAM.
  - Dylan16807 8mo ago
    I tried to think of a wording that wouldn't get this response, I guess I failed. Ram is generally bought in gigabytes, "1 or less" is as low as numbers go without getting overly detailed. So what microcontroller do you have in mind that can run a 1-2 megapixel screen on internal memory? I would have guessed that a separate ram chip would be cheaper.
    - spease 8mo ago
      https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/How_to_display_on_HDMI https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/How_to_display_on_HDMI But mostly it’s the fundamental problem space from an A/V perspective. You don’t need iPhone-grade image processing - you just need to convert the raw signal from the CMOS chip to some flavor of YUV or RGB, and get that over to the screen via whatever interface it exposes. NTSC HD was designed to be compatible with pretty stateless one-way broadcast over the air. And that was a follow-on to analog encodings that were laid down based on timing of the scanning CRT gun from dividing the power line frequency in an era where 1GB of RAM would be sci-fi. We use 29.97 / 59.94 fps from shimming color signal into 30 fps B&W back when color TV was invented in the early-mid 1900s, that’s how tight this domain is.
TylerE 8mo ago
All cars have required "chips" since OBDII was mandated in the early 90s. That ship has sailed around the world, returned to port, and sailed again.
bastawhiz 8mo ago
> Putting cameras into cars requires processors, ram, all manner of chips and compnents that a car didnt need before. Call me old fashioned but in my opinion, processors/ram/chips/components are a good trade-off versus squished children

Zancarius 8mo ago

I have to agree. Backing up my Tundra (8' bed) feels substantially safer since I can see immediately behind the vehicle than any pre-regulation vehicle I've driven. That doesn't even account for the convenience with lining up for towing, hauling, etc. (It's no replacement for GOAL—Get Out And Look—but it definitely helps!)

harrall 8mo ago
I like it because I can see kids, no matter what vehicle I’m in. I have unusually good spatial skills. I have parallel parked and reverse parked perfectly every single time for over 5 years… …but no matter what, I cannot see behind my bumper. No mirror on any car points there.
- jjmarr 8mo ago
  The law was passed due to sustained lobbying from a man, Greg Gulbransen, who ran over his child
  - brabel 8mo ago
    What an absolute tragedy it must be to go through that. Hopefully he finds peace knowing this law will save many other children.
  - icemelt8 8mo ago
    What an amazing piece of information in a thread about a game engine, thanks for sharing this.

nobody_r_knows 8mo ago

As someone who can only afford cars that are 10+ years old, i've never owened a car with a backup camera. And in a way-- good. That part of my brain, let it continue to develop. I am much better at "feeling out" where a car is than my friends who rely on back up cameras.

skhr0680 8mo ago
Being good at driving doesn’t fix the huge blind spot you have behind your car
jabroni_salad 8mo ago
I used to be ornery about this but having a camera mounted on the back of the trunk that can see all the way down both ways of the aisle is actually a huge boon when backing out of a spot. Especially if I am parked next to something that is taller than my golf, which is most vehicles.
- doubled112 8mo ago
  This is what changed my mind too. I was firmly in the “can’t you just learn to drive?” camp before. I can use my eyes and look around but I can’t see through objects. The camera and sensors have an incredibly wide view. I only have to get my rear end out a few inches to be able to see everything I couldn’t before. Pray and pull out isn’t very safe.
commakozzi 8mo ago
unless you're Yoda or Luke Skywalker, you're not "feeling" a 4-year old walking behind you in your blind spot.
- DerArzt 8mo ago
  If they are feeling it, the worst scenario has happened.
  - luqtas 8mo ago

allenrb 8mo ago

Give me a backup camera without a screen and then we’ll talk. Doubly so because once you’ve got that screen, no automaker will resist making it do other things.

falcor84 8mo ago
You piqued my interest. What is the alternative output for a camera without a screen?
- JoeBOFH 8mo ago
  My old F150 had a screen in the rear view mirror. I miss that.
- glaslong 8mo ago
  These days I guess we could do gpt with voice out to recite a poem about the kid you're about to hit?
  - harikb 8mo ago
    Haha... I think gp meant touch-screen, but thanks for the chuckle :)
- tracker1 8mo ago
  My SO's Buick Enclave has a screen behind the rearview mirror that can be set to show the backup camera. Works okay, but I prefer the actual mirror and just use the dash display. That said, vision issues, so not driving since around this time last year.
tempest_ 8mo ago
My 2010 Tacoma has a 2 inch square in the rear view mirror that works wonderfully.
- allenrb 8mo ago
  I actually like that a lot. Does the job without providing a (practical) target for infotainment. TIL.

RHSeeger 8mo ago

I bought a new car last year (my first actual _new_ car, vs pre-owned) and one of my most important features was a 360 camera. That extra visibility is just amazing for safety. Another was a HUD. Being able to see how fast I'm going, what the speed limit is, and other info; all while keeping my eyes on the road... is safer.

jnrk 8mo ago
I agree. Going back to a car without a 360 camera is unthinkable now that I've gotten so used to it...
abustamam 8mo ago
This makes my wife's Tesla seem very outdated. It only gets a rear camera when backing up, and a side camera when activating a turn signal.

tracker1 8mo ago

I think it was a Dodge Neon from the early 00s that had the worst rear view I'd experienced. My Challenger was close, but the backup camera and blind spot sensors helped a lot. You could hide a bus in the blind spot on a Challenger, not to mention the passenger seat headrest blocks most of the corner/A window.