Jaguar’s Next-Gen Windshield Makes Pillars Invisible, Provides ‘Ghost Car’ to Follow

One seemingly intractable problem drivers have when it comes to seeing everything around them is that entire vehicles cannot be made of glass—inevitably there will be certain parts of the car that block the driver's vision. Jaguar may have found a way to at least partially address that issue.

As you can see in the video, the luxury carmaker has been experimenting with something it's calling the 360° Urban Windscreen, whose primary feature is "Transparent Pillars." How exactly?

• A screen embedded in the surface of each pillar inside the car will take a live video feed from cameras outside the car.
• The screens show pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles, giving the driver 360 degrees of visibility all around the car.
• Any pedestrians or cyclists at risk will be highlighted by the Heads-Up display with a halo warning.

What that means is that the two pillars on either side of your car's front windshield (those parts we mentioned above that you can't see through) will function as screens, making it appear as though they are transparent. Additionally, the car will identify and alert the driver to any passing pedestrians or other nearby. Basically, your windshield is going to look more and more like a video game screen, but in a helpful, hopefully safer way. This transparency will also apply to the B-pillars, which will activate whenever the driver looks over his shoulder.

A second feature, one that if anything looks even more video-game-like, is the 'Follow Me' Ghost Car Navigation, which is more or less what it sounds like. A ghost car will appear in front of you helping to direct you through busier urban traffic centers. As Jaguar puts it, "to aid navigation on busy urban roads, a ghost car can be projected on the windscreen for the driver to follow."

If you look below, you can see that when the light goes from red to green, the bluish-green ghost car appears, with the "follow me" label beside it: