Nissan testing self-driving vehicles in London
Nissan has announced that it is conducting on-road autonomous vehicle testing in the east of London. The company yesterday (27 February) showed the vehicles to the media and issued a statement in which it said: “This is the first time that Nissan has demonstrated its latest autonomous drive technology on public roads in Europe. Nissan has already conducted public-road testing in Japan and the United States to pursue easy-to-use autonomous drive technology in real life situations.”
Takao Asami, Senior Vice President, Research and Advanced Engineering at Nissan, said: “This test of Nissan’s forthcoming autonomous drive technology in the demanding conditions of London streets underlines our commitment to delivering Nissan Intelligent Mobility to our customers.”
Nissan added: “The London test follows recent announcements that both the updated Qashqai and the new Nissan LEAF, both coming in the near future, will be equipped with ProPILOT autonomous drive technology to enable single lane autonomous driving on motorways. Meanwhile, last year in Japan, Nissan launched the Serena, its first model to be fitted with ProPILOT. In December ProPILOT autonomous drive in the new Nissan Serena won 2016-2017 Japan Car of the Year Innovation Award.”
Other car manufacturers have also been driving forward their vision for autonomous driving in a city environment. Ford, for example, last year unveiled its “City of Tomorrow” concept – which included autonomous parcel delivery vehicles, called “Autolivery” units.
