The First Transparent Car

Japanese researchers have created a ‘transparent’ car. The car uses cameras, projectors and special mirrors to reflect the outside images on to the surfaces inside the car. This eliminates all the usual blind spots because door and window frames appear see through, giving you a 360 degree view of everything around you almost as though you’re floating along rather than being surrounded by a metal and plastic cockpit.

This augmented reality doesn’t make the car transparent but it certainly feels that way. The technology is already being researched in aircraft as we saw in our ‘A plane without Windows’ blog from earlier this year but the adaptation of this technology for cars is certainly welcomed.

The creators Susumu Tachi and Masahiko Inami of the Graduate School of Media Design at Keio University plan to build a set up for the Toyota Prius next, so implementation in commercial available vehicles may not be that far away. It would certainly make the roads safer and give drivers an unparalleled view of all around them making reversing overtaking and general motoring more enjoyable and safer for all.

You can read more on this from the Spectrum website and check out the video of their progress.