With every piece of technology being automated in this day in age, which piece of technology has yet to be fully automated? The car. If you think it has not been thought of yet, think again, because Nissan, the sixth-largest automotive company (source: OICA) is currently experimenting with the technology to make the consumer car fully automated. Imagine a car where all that you have to do is to plug an address into the car’s built-in GPS, and the car will automatically transport you to its destination without having any hands touching the steering wheel. This is the vision that Nissan has in mind.
According to the Denver Post, Andy Palmer, the Executive Vice President of Nissan Motor Company, exclaimed the following statement to automotive journalists at a recent event at El Toro Air Force Base in Southern California.
“Nissan Motor Co. pledges that we will be ready to bring multiple affordable, energy efficient, fully autonomous-driving vehicles to the market by 2020.”
Many of you may think that giving up control of driving your automobile may be a crazy idea, but the Nissan Motor Company thinks that this may help reduce the amount of accidents caused by human error. The amount of control the driver has of the car can be modified, just in case this technology becomes erroneous.
This past Tuesday, Nissan demonstrated a fully automatic version of their Leaf hybrid vehicle. During this demonstration, a dummy passenger unexpectedly approaches the front of the vehicle, and with thanks to laser technology, the vehicle automatically dodges the pedestrian without any control from the steering wheel by the driver. To see this test in action, be sure to view the video below.
Even though this is new technology for Nissan to be experimenting with, Google is also experimenting with their own version of a self-driving car; however, with Nissan’s model, it will not have a self-rotating sensor visible on the top of the car. (Source: Wall Street Journal)
At the presentation made at El Toro, Palmer stated that “Beginning in 2020, Nissan plans to roll out autonomous driving technology and make it available across its model lineup within two product generations, or roughly between eight and 10 years thereafter.”
What do you think about this new technology to soon hit the automotive industry? Will this help make getting from point A to point B more effective, or is this a bad idea altogether? Let us know below in this post’s comments section.