Monday, November 7, 2016

Nissan and the Self Driving Car




How do car companies plan on informing pedestrians and other drivers to what their self-driving car is going to do? Nissan has a plan, and that is to display messages on the windshield and light patterns on the bumpers. That’s at least how they envision it working out.

That is the main challenge that Nissan is facing, finding a way to have their self-driving cars interact safely with humans on the streets and in their vehicles. One of the concerns is say when a car approaches a red light and plans to make a right hand turn, the car needs to be aware of of all of the traffic so it can turn safely. The self-driving cars must also follow socially acceptable practice, what is acceptable in one country might not be acceptable somewhere else.



Nissan is trying to address this problem by coming up with a way for their self-driving car to communicate with other drivers and cars. One of the ideas they have is to install lighting into the car that would flash certain colors to tell other drivers what they intend to do. It would be similar to how people recognize and react to traffic lights. The other is to have a message display on the windshield to tell pedestrians directly what they are doing, for example the windshield may read After You  to a pedestrian to let the pedestrian know they are safe to cross the road.

                Another concern that automakers are having regarding the autonomous self-driving car is what happens in a power failure. In traditional vehicles, you still can control the steering and braking to prevent accidents. But with an autonomous vehicle, all the mechanics run through a central computer, and a power failure could spell disaster. However knowing Nissan, they with extensively test all options before they make it available to the public.

                It seems as though will may have to wait until 2020 to have a fully autonomous self-driving car, but until then, check out our other fine Nissan vehicles. Be sure to Contact us now to test drive your next Nissan today!

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