Nissan, Honda Move to Improve Safety on the Road
Two Japanese automakers, Nissan and Honda, individually announced, earlier in the week, features that should make driving safer.
Nissan said it will make its Automatic Emergency Braking feature standard on nearly one million cars it expects to sell in the United States in the 2018 model year. The feature will be available on its most popular models regardless of trim level or features specified (with the exception of cars with manual transmissions).
Automatic Emergency Braking uses radar to detect a potential collision with the vehicle ahead and warns the driver of its proximity if too close. If the driver doesn’t take sufficient evasive action, the system will apply the brakes to help avoid or reduce the severity of a collision.
The safety feature will be included on Altima, Leaf, Maxima, Murano, Pathfinder, Rogue, Rogue Sport, and Sentra models.
Meanwhile, Honda committed to an ambitious goal for putting Level 4 self-driving cars on the road by 2025, as its CEO, Takahiro Hachigo, announced at a media event in Japan.
Level 4 differs from Level 5 on the SAE scale that covers cars designed to operate entirely without a human driver under all circumstances, while Level 4 connotes vehicles that can fully drive themselves but can only operate autonomously in certain areas or on certain routes.
Honda previously announced plans to offer cars with Level 3 autonomy by 2020, basically semi-autonomous vehicles, so it essentially plans to move from that to fully-autonomous cars in a period of five years.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)