and we're back at BMW again this time it's going to be a little bit different
so last time we got to see the inside of a tent and we got to see a car from the
outside this time we're seeing the outside of a tent and we are going to be
playing around in the I8 mirrorless from
the inside actually taking her for a drive so this would be my first time
ever driving well anything this high
performance so I am actually pretty stoked right now let's get going
so the test drive started out with a few surprises number one is that the I8 was
really really comfortable for me sometimes it's nice to be small wow this
is a car that I actually feel like right at home in at my size look at that
number two is I was actually surprised as many of our viewers know I'm really
not that much of a car guy so I was surprised when we started the car and I
realized that it has a three-cylinder supplementary gasoline motor which
contributed along with some simul sounds
to the car not being as quiet as I had initially
expected though switching to Pure electric mode later was a very different
and very silent experience that is really quiet and number three the
mirrorless rear view display I guess is
what I'm going to call it was a lot better than I expected and the camera's
hooked up to it really really impressed goodness you can see the entirety of
behind you that is way better which doesn't mean
that I got the hang of it right off the bat in fact the first thing I did when I
went to back out of the parking stall was to wrench my back around put my hand
on the back of the passenger seat and try to stare out the back of the vehicle
no no no that's not what to do you are
actually just supposed to stare at the mirror and monitor the live video feed
from the cameras that are directly out the back of the car and and the ones
that are positioned where normally the rearview mirrors would be on the left
and right side of the vehicle so from
there it was pretty much Off to the Races I mean it's not to say that it
went completely smoothly especially at the beginning of the test drive I was
constantly trying to check my mirrors on the left and right side of the car but
what's interesting about even that is that my behavior started to shift very
very quickly something that I don't think would have happened if this system
wasn't so cool so let's talk a little bit about the cameras they're positioned
on the right and left side mirrors facing backwards or where the mirrors
would be see I can't even help but call those positions the mirrors and then
there are two additional ones that are on the body of the car pointed towards
the back those are the depth ones so let's talk a little bit more about those
cameras there are four 1.3 megapixel
cameras and let me tell you this is not the 1.3 megapixel camera that's in that
cheap Chromebook that you were looking at as kind of a disposable computer not
all pixels are created equally and I have to say these ones looked really
really good now I did only get to try the car in broad daylight but BMW is
saying that with the extra time that they have between building a concept car
and actually bringing this product to Market they have a lot more work to do
and they're confident that they will be delivering nighttime vision capabilities
out of these cameras without relying on infrared light that exceed the
capabilities of an unassisted human and
the other thing that I thought was really cool about them is the way that
the whole thing is stitched together so when you're just driving down the road
and the most important thing is hey what's behind my car all of a sudden
with one glance you've got not just what's outside the rear window but what
is outside the rear almost
180° of the vehicle it's great for being
able to get a quick and efficient glance
at what is important to me as the driver
and this is neat too the information actually changes depending on the
context of what I'm doing as a driver so for example hitting the turn signal to
turn is going to go ahead and widen up the stitching on that side so that I can
get a better idea if there's say for example a pedestrian to the side of my
car that might have snuck up on me or a cyclist coming up beside me in in a bike
lane but that's not all they can do so the four rear viiew cameras can actually
work with the other four cameras and sensors that enable BMW's like bird's
eye outof Body Experience thing that we saw the other day with the I3 where that
car was able to park itself look at lines on the road to find well the
parking spots to park itself and this is cool if someone bumps it send you an
alert that gives you this live view of what the car looks like from the outside
so you can check for then and then they take that mode and they
put it to even better use so this is an issue that I have with sportier cars and
really cars in general it's often very
very difficult to shoulder check and see into the blind spot that is created by a
traditional mirror setup this takes it one step further not only can you see
completely behind you to the left when you're trying to change lanes on the
highway for example you can see the entire rear of the car at a Glen
in a way that is genuinely useful and what do I mean by genuinely
useful ah yes very good question if this
system had an unacceptable degree of
latency I would be crapping all over it
because that is totally unacceptable at the speeds that you might be moving
never mind on the Autobon but even on a regular Highway here in North America
and I have to say BMW has done a pretty
bang up job of of not only just having a low latency camera and display but also
doing all of the processing that they're doing pretty much in real time check out
this demo okay so uh this will be an
interesting test of the latency of the system you guys will be able to see my
mouth moving we're not going to mess with this at all and I'm wearing a
lavalier microphone on me that'll give you guys an exact idea of how much delay
there is between something happening and what's on the screen
so I guess all that's left to say at this point is what a freaking cool
practical application of Technology on
this concept car and I wish I could say this concept car and point behind me
but that's just the regular I8 it's the one with actual mirrors which for now is
fine because at the moment at least in the US driving around in a car with no
mirrors is not actually street legal but that doesn't change the fact that I got
to drive one it doesn't change the fact that it's really cool and way way better
than I expected to be and it doesn't change the fact that that technology is
most assuredly coming so a huge thanks
to BMW for hosting us here for allowing me to take their I8 mirrorless concept
out for a drive and a huge thanks to you guys for checking out this and all our
other content here at CES 2016