Self-Driving Nissan LEAF Prototype Hits The Road

Nissan is absolutely blowing it up at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show this week, with blockbuster announcements seemingly rolling down the tubes each and every day. In his press briefing, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn shared that Nissan will be bringing its autopilot suite “Nissan Intelligent Driving” version 1.0 (hey, at least it’s not a beta, right?) to Nissan’s new vehicles, which will allow the cars to drive on single-lane highways and “provide traffic jam assistance.” That second part sounds great to me, as I hate driving in traffic, but the overall suite sounds a bit light when compared to what we are seeing from Tesla today, right here in comfortable old 2015.

Nissan’s aspirations don’t stop there. Version 2 will include more advanced features, such as multiple-lane piloted drive that can change lanes on highways by 2018 with a stretch vision for 2020, including full management of urban environments including intersections all by itself.

Nissan holds its unified vision for human+vehicle interactions very near and dear to its hearts and sees EVs and autopilot working together as part of a unified Nissan vision. Merging the innovations that come with EVs with the advanced sensors and technology from Nissan Intelligent Driving suite will allow Nissan to bring its customers closer to a “Zero Emission, Zero Fatality” future that Nissan aspires to deliver.

This is very exciting and all, but how is all of this technology converging at the same time? Doesn’t it feel like EVERYTHING in the auto industry is changing almost every month (or faster at times!)? Referring to self-driving cars, Liam Pedersen of the Nissan Research Center in the Silicon Valley said, “the technological capability to do this is advancing extremely rapidly.” Mr. Ghosn reinforced this as well, stating that Nissan is, at its core, an innovator, a technology powerhouse that is bringing its years of expertise to bear on this defining moment in transportation history. He feels Nissan is uniquely positioned to deliver in more substantial ways than the other automakers — specifically because it was the first to bring a mass-market zero emissions vehicle to the market. Let’s hope he’s right (I think so!)…

Nissan paints a very compelling picture of the future, enabled by its self driving concept, the Nissan IDS:

Check out the full keynote below:

Related:

Nissan Announces Self-Driving IDS Concept With 500km Range

Nissan Spills Details of 60-kWh LEAF At Its Advanced Technology Center