The biggest problem with towing a trailer is it leaves you with a massive blind spot right behind your ride. While it’s fine when you’re driving straight forward, things can get really tricky when you’re changing lanes or backing up. Land Rover’s new Transparent Trailer tech offers a solution.
As the name implies, the tech allows your rearview mirror to act like the trailer you’re towing is transparent, so you can see both the road and any vehicle coming up from behind. It can work whether you’re towing a horse trailer, a U-Haul container, or even a boat on top of a submersible with tank treads, so it should find use regardless of whatever you’re hauling during the ride.
Transparent Trailer does this by integrating feed from a wireless camera that mounts to the back of the trailer into the feed from the rest of the cameras installed in the car (it should have one on the back and on each of the side mirrors), stitching them into a single feed that you can view from the LCD rearview mirror. A ghosted silhouette of the actual trailer in real-time remains visible from the rearview mirror the entire duration, so you can discern if there’s anything wrong with the cargo (like if an alien spaceship is trying to suck it up with a tractor beam or something). It will even display guiding lines when you’re driving in reverse to further ease the experience.
Land Rover appears to be targeting horse owners as the first demographic for the tech, demonstrating it at the Burghley Horse Trials being held this week. They’re also developing an accompanying app called Cargo Sense, which will allow users to monitor the contents of the trailer (in this case, the horses) from their smartphones. Hit the link below to learn more.