Assisted by video cameras and radars, and working out traffic and roundabouts, a self-driving Nissan car took to the streets of London on Monday for the Japanese automaker’s first European tests of an autonomous car.
Taking a trip at approximately 50 miles (80 km) per hour and moving from local streets to a significant multi-lane road, the customized Nissan LEAF electrical car showcased the sort of innovation many want to be the future of travel.
Britain has been charming developers of autonomous automobiles, wishing to get a part of an industry it approximates could be worth 900 billion pounds ($1.1 trillion) globally by 2025.
It also recently revealed modifications to allow for a single insurance policy to cover motorists driving traditionally and in self-driving mode, as it aims to get policies in place to motivate the uptake of driverless cars from 2020.
Britain’s flexible method to test autonomous cars assisted Nissan select London for its very first European tests, the director of its research center in Silicon Valley informed Reuters.
“It’s not all over in Europe that we can go and drive on the road,” Maarten Sierhuis stated.
“You don’t want to go to the most difficult parts of London when you begin. The system needs to be tested,” he stated of the east of the capital where the tests are happening near the ExCeL exhibition center and London City Airport.
Nissan communicated with regulator Transport for London and the cops ahead of the trials, providing information of its path and the guidelines it would follow, and was recommended to keep a complete log that it would share in the event of an incident, it stated.
Inside, the vehicle switches from standard to self-driving mode at the touch of the button ‘Enter’ and a screen recognizes the nearest vehicles to car in red and green, likewise revealing the speed the car is traveling.
Almost two dozen video cameras, radars and lasers are fitted on the top and around the side of automobile to guide its course.
A driverless automobile taken to Britain’s streets for the very first time in the southern English town of Milton Keynes in October 2016 however traveled at a much slower speed.
