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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

Re: central seating position. Try driving a combine harvester or an agricultural tractor pulling a long train of equipment. They can be heavier, longer, and/or wider than a semi. They use a high central seating position for a reason.

Re: mirrors. They're not there for aerodynamic reasons. The semi has a lot of cameras, so you'll have to use the screens. Sometimes a mirror or sticking your head out the window might be preferable, but it's a reasonable substitute.

Re: night mode. It'd be nice if they used OLED screens with a dark theme so you can really crank down the brightness and black is completely black. Still time to change that if it isn't, so hopefully somebody from Tesla is reading this and/or advocating for it.

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> Try driving a combine harvester or an agricultural tractor pulling a long train of equipment.

Those are not typically driving on roads though. The seated position next to the center line means you don't have to pull as far into the other lane to see oncoming traffic.

Semis pass too.

WRT mirrors: no matter the high tech solution, having a manual backup is a prudent precaution. A mirror is harder to take out with a single splash of mud. It will also ease the transition between driving normal rigs to driving the Tesla rigs. Drivers working within their comfort zone is important when they're running for 10 hours at a time.

[EDIT] Wrote this before reading the article; frankly, the author does a much better job explaining why so many mirrors are a bonus (it's not just behind the truck that matters), and covers the central seating explanation much better. Short of being a trucker, I'm not sure how we can contradict his comments.

> A mirror is harder to take out with a single splash of mud.

Never mind mud, what about the ice? I drove trucks for a while and the entire front of my truck was routinely coated with snow, slush, and ice. If it was heavy enough I'd have to pull over and tap at it with a 'tire thumper' to knock huge chunks off periodically. Keeping the windshield clear was a constant battle. I wonder what kind of camera or sensor could be used that wouldn't ice up. Traditional mirrors have heating and most are enclosed in a front-facing housing. They get really hard to see out of too, because the salt and sand spray kicked up by the vehicle in front of you sticks to the heated glass of the mirror and collects there. Visibility in winter driving is a difficult problem but perhaps that can be improved.

I'd expect cameras to be easier to keep clear in extreme circumstances, actually. The key is the "clear view screen" [1], a circular window on bearings that spins rapidly to throw off obstructions. You can also heat them to deal with icing. I don't think that I've ever seen a mirror outfitted with one, but cameras are small enough to make them trivially fittable, and the units themselves I'd expect to be surprisingly cheap - armored ten-inch units for CNC enclosures are ~USD1300 even at low volume [2]. I could easily see a configuration that has four or five important cameras covered by spinners and placed so ice can't bridge the panel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_view_screen [2] http://visiport.com/pdf/VPO-DEU_Unit-Pricing_PL1601.pdf

Are you comparing a semi truck driven at 70 mph in between two lanes of traffic to a piece of farm equipment that maxes out at 15mph and is typically driven without another vehicle in sight?

Farm equipment still has to be driven with <6" of clearance on either side so it doesn't drive onto produce rows. Semi trucks aren't passing people going 70 mph faster than they are, and vehicles to the side and rear won't be going at a bigger speed difference than 15 mph. You only have to worry about things coming at you at 70 mph from the front.

It's still an absurd comparison. I'd venture to guess that the average combine is driven in a straight line at a set speed at least 95% of the time it's being used.

The worry for combine drivers is that last 1% of the time when they have to get that big machine (with wheels on it takes a lane and a half). Then running at 15mph they have to get from field to field. There is a big problem with other drivers (cars) seeing it from well back and not realizing it is going slow until it is too late and they rear-end it. Or they realize it is going slow in time, but because it is slow they decide to pass on a blind corner (or perhaps pass just as the combine passes a mailbox and so it cannot move over).

Yes rural roads do not have a lot of traffic, but they are not empty.

His objections are about low speed manoeuvring: backing up, navigating a yard, handing over papers, et cetera.

"Furthermore, I can't see around trucks in front of me without pulling halfway into another lane."

Elon claimed in his speech that is was easier to see all 4 corners in his semi than competitors, so it's obviously something they're thinking about.

Honda thought t was a good idea to replace volume knobs with capacitive touch strips.

People hated it so much they’ve had to add the knobs back.

A car maker ‘thinking about something’ doesn’t mean the solution will be good. There are tons of infotainment systems to serve as counterexamples.

And let’s not forget GM’s ‘easier’ gear shift that caused people to get run over because you couldn’t tell if it was in park.

Skepticism is always warranted for new things, but also remember this is the guy who made EVs viable and cool and luxurious, as well as they guy who made reusable rockets a thing, to put it mildly. Elon Musk has a brilliant mind for solving engineering problems that others think are too daunting to even approach. "Seeing around corners" is something fairly simple, especially when you consider Tesla vehicles have myriad sensors for detecting objects/vehicles on the road, even through other vehicles. Teslas can stop when the car ahead of them stops--surely they can provide a driver with a (near) real-time view of where cars are in another lane, ahead and behind the vehicle.

but then look at the gull wing doors! I think at this point we can only wait and see.

That would actually be the monostable ZF shifter used in some FCA cars.

You’re right. Wrong brand. It was also FCA who made the weird dial shifter a few years ago that was confishong to use and easy to confuse with the volume knob too?

I had ‘fun’ driving a Chrysler 200 with one of those.

not sure how that's relevant to seeing down the road around the truck in front of you.

Still he has a good point about not being able to open the window to reach out to hand papers / etc...

I don't know how it works with "normal" trucks, but won't this mean having to get out of the vehicle to pay tolls, hand license to police, etc?

I don't know how the rest of the country (and world) is but anecdotally in New England the tolls are almost entirely electronic.

Some (most?) exits don't even have manual tolls at all, you have to go to the website and pay within 7 days if you go through one without the transponder.

Getting pulled over by an officer should (hopefully) be infrequent enough where getting out of the vehicle is not a big deal. Although, I know police officers get very nervous if you motion to get out of your vehicle (understandably) so some communication is in order.

Getting pulled over by an officer should (hopefully) be infrequent

I guess it depends a lot on where your route goes. If it's a harbor, airport or any sort of restricted area, you'll be 'pulled over' every time you enter or leave.

Very good point. I hadn't thought of that.

Also trucks have to pull over at weigh stations all the time, and when there are no weigh stations they'll often be pulled over by troopers to check their weight.

Getting pulled over by a trooper is rare, even if you are speeding (unless it's flagrant). It does happen but they tend to focus on cars and I think this is because the ticketing and inspection is easier for them. I've had to get out of the truck and help them find the trailer registration documents in the nose box for example, and I could tell they were a little embarrassed by this.

Weigh stations are simple, you just idle slowly over the scale plate(s) and there is an illuminated sign board ahead telling you to go, stop, or pull around for inspection. New Mexico is the only state I encountered where you actually rolled up to a trooper in a window up at your eye level and had to interact with them, but this was just to hold up a copy of your permit and they waved you through. You didn't have to speak.

I was thinking the same thing about the mirrors. Physical mirrors have their own limitations (poor in low light, poor when there is a badly placed bright light due to glare, etc), its just that we are used to dealing with them. Tesla's implementation may turn out to be better than that. Of course, it is also possible that Tesla's implementation may turn out to be worse, and his article was phrased as a list of questions that he would like to resolve in a test drive.

A camera is preferable in some situations, mirrors and sticking your head out the window in others. Why can't we have both and use the best as the situation demands?

Was it stated that there would be no mirrors? It's common for concept/renderings of autos be mirrorless because it looks nice. The mirrors always get introduced at a later stage. Even the new roadster renderings have no mirrors, but surely the will at production.

https://www.tesla.com/roadster/

Could do mirrors that can retract electronically.

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