No longer part of a Steven Spielberg movie plot or quirky feature in a futuristic cartoon, autonomous cars and self-driving technology are both very real. While we are still some time away from self-driving cars hitting the road, the reality is that it is something most of us will see happen in our lifetimes.
The Renault-Nissan Alliance has been tirelessly working towards its end goal of making self-driving cars an everyday part of life. The two car giants have been working on a fleet of cars that are fitted with advanced driver assistance technology and fully autonomous technology, as well as the next generation of electric cars.
But, as you might have gathered, most motor vehicle manufacturers are jumping on the self-drive, autonomous car bandwagon. So, what the Renault Nissan Alliance have in the pipeline is something a bit different. They have teamed up with Japanese game company DNA and French transport giant, Transdev, to form a partnership whose goal it is to redefine the way we use cars in the future.
The Nissan Renault Alliance is working on an autonomous vehicle ride sharing platform that will elevate the two companies from just being car makers to being the providers of mobility solutions for the future.
The idea behind this plan is to leverage off Nissan’s ability to produce level five autonomy by 2020, in order to provide vehicles that can drive themselves, and as such don’t need drivers inside them to get where they are going. But first let’s explain what level five autonomy is: very simply it is the final stage in autonomous drive technology whereby the vehicle can navigate itself in any on road situation thanks to lane keep assistance, radar activated cruise control, cross collision detection and traffic jam assist, all of which allow the vehicle to keep on track, in its lane with a safe distance between it and other vehicles. But there’s more. Level five means that the vehicle can compute and react to unexpected events or situations on the road.
The idea behind the Alliance’s ride sharing platform is to provide a service whereby you can hail a car through a digital app, and it will come to you. The self-drive technology allows the car to drive to you and allows the car to navigate itself through the mundane boring parts of the journey, allowing you to take control for the more exhilarating parts of the drive.
As you will hear in the video, in principle this is a wonderful idea. But the complexities come in when trying to distinguish between a person who can actually drive and one who can’t. But these are all details that the Alliance is working to iron out. There are also many legislative hurdles to leap before this becomes a reality. But, not to be deterred by red tape, the Renault Nissan Alliance continue to forge ahead and look set to create a whole new way of getting around in the future.
