GM's Cadillac DeVille to have night vision
WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp.'s
Cadillac division on Thursday unveiled a new night vision
system with the same technology the U.S. military used in the
Gulf War to improve vision in the dark three to five times.
The system creates infrared pictures from the heat energy of
objects in view.
"It's a tragic fact that the risk of dying in a traffic
accident almost doubles during nighttime hours, even though
only about one-quarter of driving occurs after dark," said
Cadillac general manager John Smith at a special briefing.
The night vision system, developed in partnership with
Raytheon , is expected to cost about as much as a
high-end car stereo system, Smith said. He added that it will
first be available in the fall of 1999 in the year 2000 model
DeVille.
Smith said the company plans to put the system into other
vehicles but he declined to give specifics, predicting only that
the technology would be placed in 20-25 percent of new vehicles
within the next decade.
The night vision system is not meant to replace a driver's
view out of the windshield but to give additional visual
information at night.
The images are projected low onto the windshield from a
device near the front edge of the car's hood, allowing drivers,
at a glance, to see three to five times farther ahead of their
low-beam headlamps, even in bad weather.
The system is designed to last the lifetime of the vehicle.
((Joanne Morrison, Washington newsroom, +1 202 898-8315, fax +1
202 898-8383, washington.newsroom@reuters.com)) |
