AS the race to build an autonomous car gets more competitive, Nissan has ramped up the excitement with a thought-provoking teaser video.
Posing the question ‘What if cars could move like schools of fish?’, the captivating film uses stunning graphics to tease viewers with a concept for motoring in the not too distant future.
The animated aquatic scene ebbs and flows to funky music as the school perfectly avoids the jaws of an oncoming shark. Eventually a LEAF, the car Nissan is working on being the first autonomous vehicle on the road, is revealed.
Nissan’s chief planning officer Andy Palmer has previously stated that the manufacturer would have a car that could drive itself on the road by 2020 – and within two decades the brand’s complete line-up will be available with this feature.
And now Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has now announced that his firm could have autonomous cars on the road even sooner.
He said: “The problem isn’t technology, it’s legislation, and the whole question of responsibility that goes with these cars moving around, especially who is responsible once there is no longer anyone inside.”
Ghosn told Reuters that “pioneer countries” France, Japan and the United States could have autonomous cars on the road by 2018 and that they will be commercially available in Europe in 2020.
However, for now, Nissan has been making a splash with this video explaining the crash prevention benefits of autonomous cars.
With more than 90 per cent of all traffic accidents caused by human error, Nissan’s Autonomous Drive has been developed to help realise an “accident-free society” by eliminating human error during driving.
