Suppliers Biggest Beneficiaries Of Backup Camera Mandate
With the mandate that all vehicles post-2018 possess backup cameras set to begin its ramp up in 2016, suppliers will be the biggest beneficiaries of a growing safety market.
Automotive News reports current cameras supplied by Magna — who claims the largest piece of the market by 40 percent — Delphi, Panasonic, Gentex and Valeo already meet the standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, though Magna’s director of image vision systems Joel Gibson believes the cameras will receive rapid upgrades in order to meet consumer expectations of high-resolution images like those found on current smartphones.
In turn, the cameras could drive business toward more safety systems — including pedestrian detection, automated parking and blind-spot alerts — that would compliment a 360-degree situational awareness system.
Seattle-based writer, blogger, and photographer for many a publication. Born in Louisville. Raised in Kansas. Where I lay my head is home.
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As a motorcyclist (Australia), we have had mandated daytime headlights for decades; and one often reads letters to the editors demanding the obligatory wearing of hiviz vests. Yet there is no evidence that detection systems based on human visual attention work. Like the chap above in the carpark this is reality for bikers everyday. I would like to see an active bike/pedestrian detection system developed and tried: but it cannot rely on human vision. A flashing image in dash screen (rear and side view mirrors as well),accompanied by a loud sound that increases as distance closes may help cut the principal death-by-car statistic.
What's wrong with being a responsible human being and looking where you're going?? Maybe if modern windows weren't just apocalyptic gun slits then it wouldn't be such a problem. From the looks of it 8 50 years well all be in self driving electric powered Abrams tanks without cannons.
We went decades without backing over a lot of people. Maybe the solution isn't these cameras but more normal sized cars to replace these giant CUVs.
The reason the mandate finally went through is that family members repeatedly testified of the enormous pain that killing their own children brought upon them - a pain that a simple dollar analysis could not illustrate. That, and the fact that almost all cars are going to have LCD screens standard anyway, made it easy to mandate the extra $50 that the camera would add. Now if the "evil govt." had mandated that ALL cars/trucks on the road would have to be retrofitted with the devices, then that would have smacked of an overbearing bureaucracy that was out of control. I made sure that my new Malibu had the feature, as the high decklid would leave me anxious when backing - I have no kids/dogs, but I go shopping, and I couldn't forgive myself if I backed into a wayward rugrat in the Target parking lot.