The Range Rover Evoque’s invisible bonnet
The debut of the new Range Rover Evoque sees the first appearance of Jaguar Land Rover’s new ‘‘ClearSight’’ technology – a suite of camerabased technologies aimed at increasing interior visibility and, therefore, safety. The most interesting is the ‘‘ClearSight Ground View’’ system that enables the driver to see what is happening under the car.
This effectively makes the front of the car invisible by projecting camera imagery onto the upper touchscreen to show the driver a 180-degree view under the front of the vehicle.
JLR first previewed the technology in 2014, when a demonstration projected the image onto the windscreen, making the car’s front end transparent to the driver.
While the head up projection technology isn’t quite good enough yet, JLR has now realised the first stage by making it available on the Evoque’s dash-mounted touchscreen.
Originally developed to be useful off road, particularly when approaching potentially unknown drop offs that can’t be seen from inside the cabin, Land Rover also claims that it is of use around town for tight parking spaces as the range of vision extends beyond the track of the vehicle.
Another feature of the new system is the ClearSight rearview mirror that transforms into an HD video screen if rear visibility is compromised. It displays what is behind the vehicle in crisp high definition using the rear camera.