Nissan has announced it will launch its next-generation ProPILOT technology from fiscal year 2027. The system, features Nissan Ground Truth Perception technology.   With next-generation Lidar and Wayve AI Driver software. Will set a new standard for autonomous driving with advanced collision avoidance capability.

Wayve AI Driver software, built on Wayve’s embodied AI foundation model. Is designed to handle highly complex real-world driving conditions in a human-like manner. The technology’s ability to efficiently and rapidly learn from vast amounts of data ensures continuous advantage to Nissan vehicles in the future.

Wayve overview

Wayve is a global AI company that’s pioneering embodied AI for driving. Its embodied AI foundation model is trained on vast amounts of real-world experience. Using custom Generative AI technology to enable point-to-point driving across urban and highway environments. With greater safety and reliability. The foundation model excels at adapting to new scenarios and platforms to accelerate wide deployment of its autonomous driving technology.

AD Technology showcased in Japan

March 2025 Update

AD technology – Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. has showcased its latest autonomous-drive (AD) technology in Yokohama’s Minato Mirai area.

For the first time in Japan, a test vehicle with no driver in the car has navigated a public road in a complex urban environment^*¹. Nissan has developed this proprietary technology for a mobility service it plans to launch in Japan.

This is a significant step to empower mobility by resolving transportation service challenges faced by local communities, such as driver shortages resulting from an aging population. By leveraging its technology, Nissan will provide a broad range of new services that enable freedom of mobility.

Nissan is maximizing its efforts to establish and verify the safety of AD technology tailored to different traffic conditions worldwide. To do this, it is utilizing insights and technologies gained through research in Japan, research in Silicon Valley conducted by the Nissan Advanced Technology Center, and participation in the U.K.’s evolvAD project.

The latest test vehicles are based on the Serena — Japan’s top-selling minivan — and incorporate 14 cameras, nine radars and six LiDAR sensors. The roof-mounted sensors offer significantly expanded detection by taking advantage of the height of the Serena and enabling more accurate detection of its surroundings, compared to earlier test vehicles.

In addition, the use of AI has significantly enhanced recognition, behavioral prediction and judgment as well as control, delivering smooth operation in a variety of complex scenarios.

To ensure the utmost safety for the test vehicle demonstration, Nissan engineers verified an extensive number of possible scenarios along the driving route, added an immediate stop function for emergencies, and introduced intentional redundancies.

Demonstrating and testing AD technology

Since fiscal year^*² 2017, Nissan has been demonstrating and testing AD technology. Currently, Nissan is planning service demonstration tests involving approximately 20 vehicles to take place in Yokohama in fiscal years 2025 to 2026 and is building an operational framework and service ecosystem with stakeholders. Leveraging the test results, in fiscal year 2027 Nissan aims to provide autonomous driving mobility services, in collaboration with municipalities and transportation operators, with remote monitoring.

This initiative will be promoted in close cooperation with

• Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry;
• the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism;
• other government ministries, and
• Yokohama City.
• The ministries will also promote initiatives to create new autonomous mobility services. Through their Level 4 Mobility Acceleration Committee.

Nissan will continue to advance its technology. While establishing services in Yokohama. Based on development and verification results both in Japan and abroad.

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Cyber hacking and vehicle malfunctions are two roadblocks hampering the acceptance of self-driving cars – among Australian uni students in any case. Despite earlier projections that all of us would be ‘backseat’ drivers by 2020, motorists are refusing to relinquish the wheel.

Driverless cars have been expected to revolutionise motoring, with some commentators predicting everyone would be a permanent backseat driver by now.

But the uptake has been far slower than anticipated, despite substantial efforts from the likes of Elon Musk and other entrepreneurs in the tech and auto industries to encourage drivers to relinquish control of the wheel.

While university campuses, airports, holidays parks and retirement villages are pegged as some of the potential early adopters, an Australian survey of university students published this month sheds light on why the take up of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is still relatively low.

University of South Australia (UniSA) urban planner Dr Ali Soltani surveyed 152 students in 2019, prior to COVID-19, to gauge their views about self-driving cars and the likelihood of using them.

The two biggest concerns cited were the risks of private data* being hacked and potential computer malfunctions leading to accidents.

Male students favoured AVs more than females and regular drivers were also more likely to adopt them if there were no financial barriers.

“Not surprisingly, engineering students were also more enthusiastic about self-driving cars than those who studied other subjects, probably because they have more technical knowledge and better understand the concept of AVs,” Dr Soltani says.

“We know that trust – or lack of it – related to the safety and security of AVs is a big obstacle to their adoption, but there are other factors at play, too.”

Students rated several features of AVs in terms of low to high risk. These features included:

• Technical, safety and legal factors relating to self-driving cars;
• Moral and ethical issues;
• Capacity to reduce traffic congestion and delays, improving travel time;
• Improved air quality, less pollution and greenhouse gases and better fuel efficiency;
• Lower public parking costs;
• Likelihood of computer malfunctions;
• Increased accessibility for people with disabilities and those without a driver’s licence;
• Vulnerability to remote control and cyber security breaches

“The survey revealed a high level of concern about cyber security and AV malfunctions and glitches but if these obstacles were addressed it could open the way for the State Government to run trials of AVs in university settings,” Dr Soltani says.

“Uni students have sporadic lesson plans and a lot of flexibility, with complex and varied commuting patterns. However, there is very little evidence to support the benefits and drawbacks of AVs in university campuses, hence our study.

“Tertiary educational trips in Australia have increased massively in recent years, contributing to urban traffic congestion. If we can overcome student reservations about self-driving cars, it would be a first step towards easing traffic on our roads and making life easier for everyone,” Dr Soltani says.

The study has been published in Case Studies on Transport Policy. For a copy of the study email candy.gibson@unisa.edu.au

*In February 2021, a European Union Agency for Cybersecurity report found that autonomous vehicles were “highly vulnerable to a wide range of attacks” that could be dangerous for passengers, pedestrians and people in other vehicles.

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