Imagine an app that does the lookup based on a photo you snap. Does something like that exist?
I would think a lookup via a photo (unless it's the vin number or a QR code) would be more difficult and take much longer to adopt. I would think something like having the car broadcast basic info with an emergency beacon would be more ideal...but has privacy concerns, would require opt in from manufacturers, and equipment and training on the emergency services side. Maybe another industry like planes or boats would be easier to adopt something like this?
It doesn't generally help when the vehicle enters the water, because the signal attenuates so quickly in water that it's very unlikely that the modem will be able to connect to a tower.
Although this App simply snaps the license plate and does a lookup and I think what GP meant was a "random snap of the car itself, doing some machine learning magic... But that's possibly my bias towards hn comments :)
This is actually much more helpful, although I think not every country allows for has easy access to the license-plate data for vehicle type lookup...