Turquoise taillights tell you this Mercedes is driving autonomously::California and Nevada have approved a test of the new light color.
Kinda wish we’d just leave blue (or off-variants like turquoise) lights for emergency vehicles only.
I like the idea of an indicator, just not the execution.
Emergency vehicles’ lights blink and are on the roof. Using the same color for multiple lights isn’t an issue; see: braking lights and tail lights.
Also judging by the picture it’s more of a white-blue than the bright blue used by emergency vehicles.
They legally can’t be blue which is why they chose turquoise.
I’ve been asking why cars don’t have more obvious visual indicators since I was like 8 years old.
It’s pretty weird that we’re basically just working with 2 sets of lights and blinkers at this point.
For AV’s specifically, a pretty significant/obvious missed feature is some indicator that the car “sees” you. Pedestrians make eye contact with drivers to check if crossing is safe. How is there no equivalent for AV’s??? It’s such an obvious miss.
It’s pretty weird that we’re basically just working with 2 sets of lights and blinkers at this point.
From a usability standpoint, you want to keep emergency signals simple and VERY consistent. Brake lights need to be a solid red for a very good reason.
On a similar theme, every time I get caught in stop and go traffic I wish we had tail lights that indicated letting off the gas. Like an orange light to say, “I’m no longer accelerating but I haven’t applied the brake yet.” I feel like everyone could coordinate traffic flow better with a little extra information, but I fear (much like these turquoise lights and adaptive cruise control) assholes will just game the system anyway to ruin everything.
Especially with a lot of new EVs on the road that use regenerative breaking if your foot is off the gas.
I wish they had this for my adaptive cruise control so people in front of me would know that’s as fast as I’m going
Or people behind know you’re not jamming on the breaks when someone is or has already turned, it’s just the car doing it…
If it’s a Mercedes, that will be a subscription value-add feature. It’s like Boeing with safety features being value-add.
Why not a colour that isn’t already on emergency vehicles? Why not green or purple, something that is clearly distinguishable?
Red and green are hard to distinguish by many color blind people.
As are blue/purple.
It was approved by the states where it is legal, aka california and nevada.
My buddy had a car with green and purple lights but was a restored hearse - like the Ghostbusters car - and it was fucking fabulous.
Oh boy, now when I get hit as a pedestrian I’ll know it was the car and not the rich person!
Would light placement be better like… Idk… Lit up license places, or wheel wells, or something? I guess not because some states already allow that stuff…
The moment it’s going to hit something, the lights will turn of
Blue bubbles
