While this thread has been dormant for a while, recent discussion on the 7.0 beta thread mentioned the blind spot warning in passing. This caused me to think about how speculative UI improvements might improve the blind spot warning. Rather than posting off topic there, I thought this would be a more appropriate thread.
That said, I agree with many that the current visual implementation is too subtle to be picked up by peripheral vision and thus useless. However, I now think that much of the disappointment I feel with the implementation reflects the limitation of the sensors, which are basically ultrasonic and detect a vehicle that is statically within a few feet of the my car. That is fine for the case when the other vehicle is moving at the same speed as my car and is loitering in the "blind spot". (And yes, I have learned to adjust my mirrors to have essentially no blind spot.)
However, in highway driving I am also interested in the case where the other vehicle is overtaking my car and will be next to my car (entering my blind spot) as I start to change lanes. Obviously, the ultrasonic sensors can't cope with a vehicle that is approaching very quickly and so the side mirror check remains essential. But what if the other vehicle is moving relatively slowly, say relative speed of 1 mph, virtually motionless in a quick mirror check? That is about 1.5 feet/sec. For a sensor range of 10 feet, that allows a 7 second warning, assuming the speed of the other vehicle is known. Estimating the speed from the sensors probably reduces this by another second. At a relative speed of 4-5 mph the warning is a second at best. So the current sensors can only deal with a small range of situations where the other vehicle is moving at a very small relative speed. And that is assuming an optimal implementation by Tesla, which I am not claiming. If anything, the evidence points to Tesla not considering relative speed, which explains the relative "lateness" of the blind spot warning on the console when being passed.
My Tesla is the first car that I have owned with blind spot detection, so I can't compare with implementation from other brands. Perhaps they do include the relative speed of the other vehicle for a slightly better experience or have better hardware.
However, my net is that without better hardware to detect vehicles at greater range and with better estimate of relative speed, my expectations for the blind spot warning are now minimal. Hopefully the audible warning will alert me in time if I forget to check my mirrors while someone is loitering in my blind spot, because if I forget to check my mirrors, I am for sure not going to being checking the console. :redface:
