Rear view cameras are a required safety feature in the US now. As SUVs proliferated and pillars got thicker for crash safety cases of parents running over their toddlers increased.

Not just SUVs. The visibility out of the rear of my Model 3 is almost as bad as the rear of my BMW X5 SUV. The trunk is so high, you cannot see the headlights of a following passenger car until it's some distance behind.

It's not just Tesla, visibility across all cars is getting worse over time, as manufacturers are pushed by crash test standards to improve performance in a crash against another vehicle or stationary object, to the detriment of the ability to avoid a crash (visibility, weight/handling, etc), and at the cost of humans and animals NOT in a big heavy motorized box.

In Europe (Euro NCAP), crash test standards include tests against pedestrians and electronic assistance like ESP and emergency breaking, including against pedestrians. Standards are regularly updated to take new technologies, other road users, and potential loopholes into account.

Maybe it is different in the US, but most cars sold in the US are sold in Europe too.

Weight and visibility are still a problem, and electric cars and their big batteries make the weight problem worse, but it doesn't mean that crash test standards only cares about the car occupants, and handling is definitely considered.

>most cars sold in the US are sold in Europe too.

is this actually the case? i'm sure the inverse is true, but when I visited australia (which admittedly I'm aware is not in the US) I was surprised how many huge cars there were, which you don't really see at least in my part of europe. I was under the impression american cars similarly tend to be bigger than european ones

Most European cars need modifications before they can be sold in the US and visa versa. Some manufacturers have previously said it's like building two separate cars for the two different markets.

You're right, it's an exaggeration to say they don't consider pedestrians at all. Europe is leading the way there, but it's definitely becoming a consideration in the US as well.

So glad to come across your comment. This has been driving me mad when I've been on long road trips lately. As a driver of a "normal" sedan, it's amazing how few cars i can see around/through on the highway at this point. I was specifically noticing the model 3 and its raised rear window. It requires a much larger safe following distance when the only signal you get is the taillights of the guy in front of you, especially when they're the type of human who cant figure out how to leave a buffer so they tap the brakes for no reason every few seconds. And of course with an abnormally large space in front of you you'll get aggressive drivers moving around to fill in the spot, mostly the SUVs who can see over most, which means you get to try to see around them now.

it's a shame the trend (toward larger and larger cars) is so at odds with the environment. cars are already such a large and inefficient solution for what theyre used for 99.99% of the time, why keep making it worse?

as predicted in the early 1990s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA

Pretty sure this is from s8 or higher so more like late nineties? Probably more a parody of trends already existing

You’re right, but it can still be fixed after the problem happens

Those generally aren’t the places where the SUVs are being reversed.

Those spaces exist but in general people with kids don't want to live there.

Tesla's have limited rear-view visibility due to aerodynamic shape. Not a big problem, but once you get used to backing out while looking at HD screen, lack of it is quite a hindrance.

Yep - that’s the first thing I noticed/get used to w/my Tesla Y: rear view mirror looking out back windshield is basically useless and camera is basically necessary while backing up.

The Model Y would be pretty much undrivable without a camera. The Model 3 is also pretty bad about rear visibility, but the lack of visibility out the back of the Model Y is shocking.

Mandatory safety feature not working not a safety issue? How do you work that one out?

The recall is not specifically for vehicles with broken backup cameras. It is to deal with cars that have working cameras, but contain a flaw wherein closing the trunk could damage the cable and cause the backup camera to cease working. So TL;DR this should be fixed ASAP (hence the recall) but presumably those cars with currently-working cameras are perfectly safe to drive until then. The Model S hood issue, on the other hand, that’s more serious.

Okay so let’s say someone is at the grocery store, loads up the trunk, while doing so breaks the cable. Tries to backup without the camera/ obscured field of view inherent to the vehicle, hits someone.

I get most auto manufacturers calculate risk of death versus recall value, but Tesla doesn’t really have the cash on hand to survive that, and the stock would get obliterated. Why chastise them for being proactive?

>Why chastise them for being proactive?

Who is chastising whom? As an M3 owner I'm thrilled they're being proactive with this recall. I'm also thrilled that this issue is minor and any failure is easily detected. My camera is working fine, and as long as it continues to work fine I'm not at (extra) risk of hitting anyone.

Compare this to a critical safety issue like a malfunctioning accelerator cable or a defective hood-latch -- those are things that could pop up at any moment without any warning and kill people. My point above is that safety-critical recalls exist on a spectrum, and this one is about as benign as you get. Whereas the Model S frunk issue is not benign at all.

Yeah usually when my camera goes out I just say screw it and back up without looking.

Just because it's a safety feature doesn't make it now the operators fault.

I had a hood come open on a car I was driving once. It was definitely some scary shit. Luckily, I was on a long, straight road, and was able to decelerate in a controlled way and pull off the side of the road.

British vehicle?

Is common on British cars? The only other time I've known it to happen was on a family friend's MG a long time ago

federal regulation requires backup cameras on new vehicles, so that breaking likely to break would be probably be considered a decent sized problem

The rearview camera is a big issue because it is a requirement under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

Yes. It's a safety issue. But there are also at least tens of millions of cars on the road without backup cameras.

Lack of rear visibility without a camera is a much more of an issue on newer cars; older cars, which make up the bulk of those "tens of millions", don't have such a serious problem.

That's fair. Even when I shopped for a car over a decade ago, it felt like some of the electronic safety systems were making up for lack of the sort of sightlines you had historically. One of the reasons I ended up going with a pretty old-school SUV design even though I didn't have much of an interest in most of the off-road features. Would probably buy the same vehicle today even though it hasn't been updated a lot.

Yes, and of course there are exceptions. I bought a new Toyota 20 years ago that probably had worse rearward visibility than some of the Teslas that are being recalled.

I'm not (directly) saying it's a safety issue, I'm saying it's a compliance issue. It is clear that it needs fixed because it's clear that this function is required by law.

Of course it needs to be fixed.