Nissan plans to make robot cars; human 'mobility managers' will intervene when needed

Nissan is the latest in a now long line of automobile companies to go public with plans -- sketchy as they may be -- for autonomous cars. The Japanese company will begin testing driverless cars in Japan and put them into commercial operation by 2020, according to Carlos Ghosn, who spoke at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday. He is chairman and chief executive of Nissan, chairman and CEO of Renault and chairman of Mitsubushi. The only substantial difference between Nissan's announced plans and those of Ford, FCA, General Motors, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and several other companies is a plan to put "humans in the loop" based on technology developed at NASA. The director of the Nissan Research Center in Silicon Valley, Maarten Sierhuis, said human "mobility managers" will intervene if an autonomous car encounters a situation it can't handle, like having to cross a double yellow line when a lane is blocked.