It seems that a new producer will enter the competition of building the vehicles of the future, as there has just been an announcement about new autonomous cars from Renault-Nissan Alliance. The plan of the company is to create ten self-driving car models, which seems to be the future direction for many car manufacturers.
Renault-Nissan’s project is expected to be finished by 2020, with autonomous cars driving on the roads of the United States, Europe, China and Japan. At the moment, the company’s engineers are tuning the fine details of the automated technology, while managers are kept busy with safety concerns and regulations. The first line of self-driving cars should be ready by the end of this year, and they are expected to have the capability of steering on a highway single lane. However, the cars should be able to drive across many highway lanes by 2018. Lastly, it seems that by 2020 we could all be relaxing in autonomous cars while traveling to work through the city.
Although the fact that quite soon we will not be needing to drive ourselves comes as exciting news, Renault-Nissan Alliance is not the first company to tackle this matter. Tesla Motors has already set into motion the grand plan, and at the moment their cars are able to shift into a self-driving mode while traveling on the highways. Furthermore, some vehicles can even park themselves, and this has been achieved several years ago. Other companies that are working towards the same goal while competing with each other are General Motors, Toyota, Ford Motor, Google Inc., Lyft and Uber, and many believe that Apple Inc. might soon make a similar announcement.
But what is the purpose of self-driving cars? Many people enjoy driving, but there are many situations when this can become boring or annoying, especially when you are stuck in traffic or you have to travel a very long distance. Why not fill this time with useful or pleasant activities? Sooner than expected you will be able to spend traveling time reading, watching movies or TV series, preparing for work or school and so on.
With the introduction of new autonomous cars from Renault-Nissan Alliance, the only issue that remains is the safety of the passengers. Researchers believe that switching from automatic driving to manual control creates a perilous situation, since people become absorbed in other activities and cannot focus all of a sudden on driving. Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn declared that the transition will take place in waves, because the new technology must first be accepted, then understood and finally used.
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