Yeah, But Can It Pump Gas?

Nissan is expected to launch self-driving cars by 2020.

August 29, 2013

IRVINE, CA – A senior Nissan executive announced earlier this week that the company intends to offer cars with self-driving technology by 2020, the Wall Street Journal reports.

"Nissan Motor Co. pledges that we will be ready to bring multiple affordable, energy efficient, fully autonomous-driving vehicles to the market by 2020," said Executive Vice President Andy Palmer, adding that by next year, the company will have built a proving ground to test autonomous vehicle systems.

The impetus for developing a self-driving car is to reduce the number of accidents caused by driver error.

Nissan engineers have been working on self-driving car technology for several years, alongside researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon universities and the University of Tokyo.

The most difficult obstacles to marketing fully self-driving cars are not technical but legal and regulatory. While a few states have passed laws making it legal to test self-driving cars on public roads, before high volume sales to consumers can begin, automakers, regulators and insurers will have to clarify liability if a self-driving car is involved in an accident.

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