Aug. 28, 2013—Nissan Motor Co. announced Tuesday that it plans to have multiple autonomous drive vehicles “commercially viable” by 2020.
Nissan’s engineers are well into the process of researching the technology, working alongside teams from the world's top universities, including MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Tokyo.
Work on the company’s first autonomous vehicle is already underway in Japan, and Nissan said it expects it to be completed in 2014. It would then go through complete testing.
Nissan plans to create a model range within two vehicle generations, aiming to achieve realistic prices for consumers.
"Nissan Motor Company's willingness to question conventional thinking and to drive progress is what sets us apart," said CEO Carlos Ghosn. "Now I am committing to be ready to introduce a new ground-breaking technology, Autonomous Drive, by 2020, and we are on track to realize it."
