- Nissan’s autonomous driving system demonstrates safe, convenient transit.
- The point-to-point technology launches in Japan in 2027, with other markets to follow.
- The Level 4 technology still has regulatory hurdles to clear.
A man sprinted across lanes of traffic, causing our car to halt. A construction worker flagged a street closed as a concrete mixer backed up near our bumper. A cyclist sped into our blind spot, prompting our Nissan Ariya test car to slow and let him pass before we made a left turn. All of this required no input from the human behind the wheel.
In a dense morning rush in central Tokyo’s bustling Ginza district, Nissan’s self-driving car proved its capabilities in several scenarios that would’ve been challenging for human drivers. Next year, the next iteration of ProPilot, supplemented with artificial intelligence, hits the road in Japan before spreading to other markets, including the U.S., over the next few years.
“This is equal to or better than humans,” said Tetsuya Iijima, executive chief engineer, ADAS Advanced Technology Development Department at Nissan.
The test car was an Ariya electric SUV, discontinued now in the States, equipped with 11 cameras, five radars, and a key LiDAR system that distinguishes it from Tesla’s controversially named Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. Three passengers filled the seats, and Iijima sat behind the wheel, legs crossed, hands folded in his lap, answering questions.
Nissan’s next-gen autonomous driving system uses artificial intelligence provided by Wayve that enables point-to-point autonomous driving. In its vision, the operator sets the navigation and the car does the rest, from your home to your office, for example.
It worked well for a typical morning commute.
ProPilot Level 4
Technically, this third iteration of ProPilot Assist is classified the same as many other semi-autonomous driving systems on roadways today: a highly sophisticated version of Level 2. Automakers prefer this designation due to liability issues, even when systems such as Nissan’s are more advanced. The industry uses a scale of Level 0 to Level 5, with Level 5 meaning a robotaxi with no need for human intervention and no need for a steering wheel, pedals, or any other operational interfaces.
In application, the next iteration of ProPilot is a Level 4 system. That means the operator can set the destination, wait for the icons in the cluster to turn the right color, then it goes without any input from the person sitting in the driver’s seat, similar to Waymo vehicles in select cities in the U.S.
On a 40-plus kilometer loop lasting about 40 minutes through an array of typical traffic situations and roads that varied from a narrow alley to more than six lanes with street parking and bike lanes, there were no real issues. The only blip was the deference to crosswalks, where the car stopped about 10 feet before it. At one light, where we had the right of way, the car started to go, then jerked to a stop when a pedestrian scurried across the crosswalk after the light had changed. Cross-traffic had to wait for us as we waited for the rogue human. A human driver would have done something similar. The system, like Japanese culture, was deferential.
In another instance, on a dense, narrow street, a construction flagger waved us to a stop. A cement mixer backed up to an area on our right blocked off by another construction truck. Ahead, left of the cement mixer, was a delivery vehicle with its hazard lights on. A cyclist avoided the congestion by rerouting to the sidewalk. Our car waited for the human flagger to move, eased forward until it could slip between the mixer and the delivery van. We joked that the whole thing was staged for our coverage.
Safer than a Human?
It’s similar in execution to Tesla, but a key differentiator is Nissan’s LiDAR system and its use of a driver-monitor camera that the prototype lacked. The driver-monitor camera is a redundant safety system advocated for by most safety and consumer agencies in the U.S.
Its point-to-point promise makes Nissan’s prototype more sophisticated than GM’s SuperCruise, which is the safest highway system I’ve tested. Mercedes-Benz debuted a Level 3 system under a pilot program two years ago. Those same automakers promise similar Level 4 systems in a similar time frame as Nissan’s.
This version of ProPilot operated as smoothly and predictably as a Waymo I tested in San Francisco last year, which is to say much more assuring than just about every human-operated ride-share service I’ve used. Results may vary — we’ve heard the Waymo horror stories — but our first-hand experience with these autonomous systems has been nothing but positive so far.
Questions Remain
Still, much remains unknown, including whether the system will be called ProPilot 3.0, following the naming convention of ProPilot 2.0, which launched in 2019. It rolls out in Japan in 2027 in the Elgrand van, with other major markets to follow, including the U.S. In what models and at what price point remains to be seen, though Nissan says affordability is key. The fact that hands-free highway driving is already available in the Nissan Rogue in the U.S. is a good sign that this tech won’t be limited to pricey luxury models.
“The mission on autonomous [driving] is to be really affordable, very safe, and super smooth,” Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa told reporters earlier in the week.
We didn’t test the AI-driven intelligence that works in concert with the autonomous drive systems, enabling users to reroute mid-trip by saying “stop for coffee,” or to pull up a connected phone calendar entry and ask if you want to go to that destination. Nissan promised that those capabilities will be incorporated into the autonomous drive system once it comes to market.
Nissan plans to expand that AI Drive technology and the autonomous drive system to 90% of its lineup in the long term, which is as vague as it sounds.
In the near term, it’s a promising development for commuters, especially in dense urban areas.
