Nissan's Autonomous Car Now Road Legal In Japan

Daniel_Stuckey writes "The current test vehicle uses what Nissan calls its 'Advanced Driver Assist System,' which isn't fully autonomous, but rather can be thought of as a really advanced cruise control system. According to the company, the system can keep a car in its own lane, while automatically changing lanes to pass slower vehicles or prepare to exit a freeway, which it can also do automatically. Along with that, the car automatically slows for congestion, and — most impressively in my opinion — can automatically stop at red lights. In other words, the car isn't fully automatic in that you can't simply type in a destination and have it do all the work, but the bulk of driving load is taken care of. Curiously, Nissan's goal appears to be to take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities."

Comments

Curiously?

[Antipater]

Curiously, Nissan's goal appears to be to take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities."

"We want fewer people to die" is a curious position to take?

Re:Curiously?

[pablo_max]

Why? Dead people tend not to buy as many cars.

Re:Curiously?

[BreakBad]

They sure do like to vote though.

Re:Curiously?

[cusco]

Hell, in Miami they still drive.

Re:Curiously?

[gagol]

As far as general availability of self-driving cars, I see it as a good step. The technology needs to mature much more before we should consider total automation. Keeping a responsible human in the loop is not bad too. Kudos Nissan.

Re:Curiously?

[EnsilZah]

What's curious is the fact that this line has nothing to do with the car in the article and actually refers to Nissan's plan to build an army of ninja robots who would take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities.

Re:Curiously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or may be they have a real problem with aging population there.
So helping the drivers as much as possible and gradually going to autonomous isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Re:Curiously?

[aliquis]

In Texas they become presidents!

Re: Curiously?

[Ralph Wiggam]

The problem is the large percentage of people who *think* they're "perfectly capable drivers", but are not.

And no matter how capable you are, a computer has a faster reaction time.

Re: Curiously?

[Mike_EE_U_of_I]

But will it detect that guy you've seen in your rear view mirror switching lanes doing 40mph faster than you?

Yes. And it will almost certainly do it better than almost any human driver.

Now it just remains to be seen...

[Kjella]

Now it just remains to be seen if drivers will continue to pay attention to the road, or if it becomes so autonomous that people start slacking (more) behind the wheel. It really won't work to have a car that drives itself 90% of the time and then expects you go randomly jump in for the last 10%. Still, nice to see this tech getting closer to reality.

Re:Now it just remains to be seen...

[Dimwit]

That's what worries me. The transition to fully automatic cars needs to be essentially 100%, or at least 99% with a "pull over and stop moving" for the remaining 1%. Otherwise I would've be surprised if fatalities went *up* due to drivers taking a nap/getting drunk/reading a book and failing to notice when they need to take back over.

Re:Now it just remains to be seen...

[ShanghaiBill]

I dont think that is true at all.

Of course it is not true, because the entire premise of the GGPP's objection is false. Self driving cars do not expect the human driver to "randomly" jump in. If the SDC calculates that it cannot make the best decision, it will prompt the human to take over. If the human does not respond, the SDC will either continue if it is reasonably safe to do so, or pull over and stop. The people designing these systems are not morons.

Re:Now it just remains to be seen...

[timeOday]

Get ready to be annoyed for about 30 years, because "automated" commonly means "more automated than before," not "automated in every conceivable way."

Your example about how this might cause a crash is incorrect, since the car doesn't just follow rules (such as red lights) in the hopes everybody else will also follow them perfectly. They do what you do - they also watch for and avoid other cars, pedestrians, and other obstacles (regardless of why the other car is doing whatever it's doing).

Still I do worry about how they will accurately see stoplights and stop for the intersection even if no other cars are in view. There are bad lighting conditions where it's extremely difficult to do. (I guess as a backup it could know the GPS location of stoplights and stop if it doesn't see the light and confirm that it is green). But I am sure we will end up with some level of instrumentation on the road such as stoplights that emit at a frequency not obfuscated by sunlight, snow, etc, like visible light is.

I am all for it

[pablo_max]

I cannot wait until we have automatic driving cars! I love to drive as much as the next guy. Hell, I am the go-to car guy among my friends and family. But I hate sitting in traffic to and from work. It is the same every day. I would love to be able to sit back and relax.
So long as I can still take my Jeep out on the weekends in manual mode, you'll hear no complaints form me.

Re:I am all for it

[Dimwit]

Most state laws (I'm assuming you're in the United States) allow for a DUI conviction if you are in "actual control" of a vehicle. That means if you're asleep drunk in the car and the keys are also in the car, you can be found guilty. If you're parked on private land and drunk, you can be found guilty. If you're in the driver's seat in an automated car and the car could be switched to manual control, you could be convicted of DUI if you're drunk.

What worries me with cars like this

[petermgreen]

Is that drivers will stop paying attention and/or take their hands off the controls. Then when something bad happens that the automatic system can't handle they will be in a much worse position to deal with it than if they had been driving the car manually.

The same is true to an extent of autopilots in planes but with a plane you usually have much more time to respond to problems than in a car. Still at least one plane has crashed because the pilots accidentally disabled the autopilot and failed to notice.