Ghosn confirms at NYIAS
Nissan, having agreed on a five year development partnership with NASA on the development of autonomous vehicles, has confirmed that their first market to have the vehicle will be Japan next year according to comments by Carlos Ghosn, Nissan CEO, at the New York International Auto Show.
There is a very sound reason for all manufacturers, not just Nissan, to move toward the development of self-driving cars – over ninety percent of automobile accidents are the result of human error. Taking the human element out of the equation can cause a significant reduction in injuries and fatalities due to that element. Audi has already demonstrated their own self-driving at the Hockenheim racetrack in Germany (found here – jump to the :43 minute mark of the video to watch something really wild), and in a demonstration drive from Palo Alto to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show this year.
Automakers aren’t the only companies looking at developing the technology. Google has racked up almost 700,000 miles on their self-driving cars, and they are now looking to partner with auto manufacturers.
With all of this discussion of cars that drive themselves, we recall reading stories wondering what happens when there is a failure in a system onboard a self-driving car. My thought is that just as there are already fail-safes on many of today’s vehicles (which most consumers don’t even know about), these new vehicles will also have fail-safes built in. With over ninety percent of all automobile accidents the result of human error, it seems to me the question should be how soon can we get this technology on the road?