Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn proclaimed Tuesday that his company will have self-driving vehicles available to the general public by 2020.
Ghosn made the announcement at an event in Irvine, Calif., introducing the new self-driving, electric Nissan Leaf. Cutting-edge technologies incorporated into the vehicle include laser scanners, all-around video monitors and advanced artificial intelligence and actuators.
According to Ghosn, Nissan is collaborating with MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Tokyo on the project. The University of Tokyo is also building a test track specifically designed for self-driving vehicles.
The 2014 Infiniti Q50—from Nissan’s luxury division—is the latest application of self-driving features, including technology to keep it in its lane during highway travel. An adaptive cruise control maintains a set distance from other cars, applying the brakes when lead cars do.
Nissan is the first major automaker to put a timetable on commercial availability of self-driving vehicles, but others may not be far behind. Audi and Toyota both debuted their own self-driving models earlier this year, and Google has already received national media attention for its testing of the technology.
