Nissan to have self-driving car on market in 2020

Removing human judgement is a recipe for success

Papasmurf,

Well said. Some sort of autopilot would be nice for the 'burbs, though.

i hope this is successul, but i worry about the legal issues. who's at fault if the car crashes?

I thought California made it legal for computerized cars to drive on roads??

I can envisage a slipstreaming convey of these, sitting on the limit on some great driving road, impossible to pass.

Stop the bus and let me off!

Would be better if they tried to get self driving trucks out there a fast as possible since Japanese truck "drivers" with failed Formula One ambitions are the worst at handling anything with a steering wheel.

In general, though, I am sure Japanese traffic would benefit from not having to think when driving. Goes well with the society at large. :)

I only want it if, it also does the shopping " Go get me a sixpack!"

So, will this eliminate human error or create computer error?

The number of crashes will not go down. The self driving cars will just be at the receiving end as they get rear ended, side crashed and people still run out onto the road. Visibility issues in snow, fog, rain and in the dark will pose the most problems. It will mean you will not be allowed to move the car as you will be denied. You would then override and manually drive. Some of the smart cars are already semi-auto driven for parking and stopping. The real breakthrough is when all cars new and old are retrofitted with location devices and can communicate between each other seamlessly. The downside is if the airwaves are blocked the network goes down and traffic grinds to a halt.

greenlight wrote; "Removing human judgement is a recipe for success"

Could be. But not probable in less than seven years.

What about the actual infrastructure surrounding the 'driverless vehicle'?

One model on a national road system might work. Which model?

Which vehicle manufacturers are going to drop out?

Will there be a standardised interface if other makers build driverless vehicles?

The whole issue is incredibly complex, more questions need to be asked.

Hmmmmm. Automatic driving with a computer... So as for me living in Japan for a few years and watching the way cars drive around....I am not sure how well this will work in most streets...the streets here are crazy and narrow most the time...This will have to be one hell of a car to do all this. Then again the future is getting brighter...In video games cars can auto drive without crashing. Basically the same thing I guess.

I wont use this unless its 100% safe, and I don't have to get a license and yeah the company can pay for the insurance.

Lets look at airliner technology. Planes can basically fly themselves. You program in the flight plan, and the plane will follow that plan all the way to its destination (except for take off and landing). But even in those highly controlled environments, we still have to have very experienced pilots on board because human judgment is still very essential for safety.

If the car accidentally hits a person, who's liable? The driver or the car-maker?

Also:

http://www.infowars.com/hackers-demonstrate-how-easy-it-is-to-carjack-a-vehicle-remotely/

They better have good security systems.

Removing human judgement is a recipe for disaster.

It seems that human driver would not need a driver's license any more if car drives automatically.

I only want it if, it also does the shopping " Go get me a sixpack!"

Asimo can do that for you. ...oh no, he was a Honda!

I guess I can understand this for people who have long commutes every day, but as for me, I actually enjoy driving my car - why would I want to hand over one of life's joys to a computer?

cool , now we can get rid of driving licenses and we can drink and drive ... or should I say RIDE?

Sounds like the Knight Rider's KITT car with AI.

The self driving cars will definitely reduce the number of accidents and reduce traffic congestion but can they be driven unmanned?

Removing human judgement is a recipe for success

Definitely not. Here is an example why. My aunt has an SUV with all of these sensors on the bumpers that warn her when she is too close to an object. Its designed to help people park so that they don't accidentally hit something. Here is the problem. Every time she goes home, she has to drive down a very narrow street with concrete walls on either side. There is less than 5cm between the car and the walls, so the sensors go off like mad, warning her that she is too close to the wall. If she blindly obeyed those warnings, would never be able to get down her street.

Now apply that same technology to the sensors that are going to be in these self driving cars. These cars would never be able to drive down narrow streets, or go around a car that is parked on the street because the sensors have judged that the space is too narrow to get the car through. The reason why traffic is still able flow in such traffic conditions is because humans are able override any sense of danger, and judge the distance enough so that they can squeeze their cars though tight spaces. This skill is essential to be able to have any hope of driving in Japan. Computers may be able to judge space and distance more accurately than humans, but they'll never be able to over ride the safety parameters programmed into them to drive down narrow street with people, bikes and other cars. That takes human judgement, and one of many challenges that even Google has with their self driving car experiments.

Great if you want to go out and have a few brews.

I think human perception still plays big (huge) role in better driving your car/vehicle. Cars with sensors sometimes can be such a nuisance that drivers ignores it altogether. It might come in handy for elderly or disabled but shouldn't able bodied and young persons helped them instead and drive them to which ever destinations they want to go.

As for busy people, I think long drive is a way for them to perhaps not hooking up with technology and just drive? Stuck in the jam? no problem. I think they have plenty of means to handle work while on the go, like taking public transport.

The main trouble with a lot of people is they think they have a lot of skills they do not have. Especially behind the wheel of a car or truck.

we still have to have very experienced pilots on board because human judgment is still very essential for safety.

The main reason is that people would freak out if they thought there were no pilots. I think the boss of RyanAir said in an interview he would welcome pilotless flights.

As for self-driving cars, they would already be almost certainly safer than human drivers. The Google cars drove 300,000 miles without an accident whereas a human driver on average has an accident in about half of that.

If the car accidentally hits a person, who's liable? The driver or the car-maker?

Or, the owner? Certainly an interesting question.

Computerized cars are old story in USA. Kit in Knight Rider can communicate and go to where to pick up its master. Not this one yet. Altima, you can get driving instruction on its i-pad on dashboard. Then tell you when you have to fill up gasolin. 6 iPhones so that you don't get caught talking on iPhone on hands. This one is new. Are Japanese automakers get ideas from TV shows?

The main reason is that people would freak out if they thought there were no pilots.

I don't think so. I think if proven completely safe, people would welcome a pilotless flight, especially if it cuts down on airfare. But the fact of the matter is, you can never remove human judgement from planes or any forms of transportation for that matter unless the environment is highly controlled (like a train). What if there is mechanical failure? What if there is a major storm. or another plane that had to divert its course and fly in your plane's flight path. What about emergency and cross wind landings?

Also, Airbus has been testing a completely autonomous airliner that could land and take off by itself, and guess what? It crashed. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzD4tIvPHwE

Bottom line is, for Nissan to be able to come out with an autonomous car in 6 and half years, means that the car is basically done already and they are testing it now. With today technology, I doubt that it could be fully autonomous in a real world scenario. They would have to program every single driving scenario for every single road on the planet, and that is pretty much next to impossible with current technology.

realistically speaking, if Nissan said that they could have a car that can drive autonomously on the highway, where there is less of a chance of people running in front of your car, or other cars running stop signs or red lights, then I am more inclined to think that may work, but not in a city driving scenario...just way too many variables to work with.

Make it an electric taxi and have a robot voice command.. and you would have something cool.

For the next big technological leap, how about making a self-PAYING car?!!! A car that pays for itself, now THAT would actually be helpful!

Opening the door to a new type of crime: --murder by wireless sabotage. Developing a "counter-sabotage software" could be far more daunting than developing the auto drive software itself.

Granted, many or most accidents are due to driver error, but no thank-you! It's also safe to suppose the speed will also be determined by the computer brain of Johnny-Cab making everyone a passenger.

Too much reliance on technology, not enough using one's own brain.

when they can make a self driving car that has a very low collision rate, many things will change, you wouldnt need to spend stupid amounts of money getting your licence in Japan so that industry would be gone for the good, insurance and car parts industry would take a hit because there woudnt be as many crashes. but the positive is fatal car crashes would also be less

Wow that is certainly early. I cant wait!

Computers work on a set of logical operations.

People driving recklessly, bicycles with no lights at night dashing through an intersection from blind corners, kids running in the middle of the road and general disregard for self preservation & traffic rules will be hard to program.

Do hope it will be successful though. If it reduces at least some of the human error from the equation it might even save lives.

Once these cars are proven to be safer than human drivers (as the google car has already anecdotally done), it just won't be possible to argue that we are better off keeping humans in the loop, of course we need to avoid the risk of hacking as may have been involved in the death of journalist Michael Hastings in the US recently.

Great! I'm looking forward to the improvement in general driving standards that we'll surely see come 2020....couldn't be any worse, surely?!! lol

If this propagates, the cops will lose all their revenues from speeding tickets.

I don't want to be one of the people testing these things out. I have no doubt eventually it'll be the norm and the tech precise, but it's going to be a nasty start.

No thanks Japan. You can keep this one...