Nissan Uses Geneva Motor Show to Announce ‘Nissan Intelligent Mobility’ vision

Nissan Motor Corporation used the ongoing Geneva International Motor Show as the platform to announce the goal of pursuing the goal of zero emission vehicles and zero road fatalities with its ‘Intelligent Mobility’ vision. This vision will serve to guide the evolution of Nissan’s products and serve as the keystone for the company’s decisions with regard to the how Nissan models should be powered, driven and integrated into society while providing users with a more enjoyable driving experience.

Commenting on the new vision, Carlos Ghosn, CEO said that the company’s Intelligent Mobility vision will serve as a framework to help provide customers with mobility in a more sustainable and safer manner in the future. To support this vision, Nissan has launched a a long-term strategy that involves significant expenditure on R&D. This led to the launch of the path-breaking LEAF, which is the world’s first mass-production EV, in 2010, well ahead of Nissan’s competitors in the industry. It also led to Nissan’s development of several cutting-edge self-driving technologies which will be available in several production models by 2020. In the long run, this drive will help Nissan to deliver self-driving and EV innovations to customers on a large-scale basis by the end of this decade, thus heralding a new era in mobility.

Nissan Intelligent Mobility rests on three areas of innovation. Each area will involve focus on cutting edge technological advances like increasing safety through high-stability control and high-reliability drive systems, optimal power through high-efficiency and energy management solutions.

1. Nissan Intelligent Driving involves creating greater confidence in drivers with the aid of the company’s autonomous drive technology, Piloted Drive. The aim of Nissan Intelligent Driving is to take the stress out of driving while adding to comfort, performance and safety. A few of these innovations are already available including Nissan’s Safety Shield technologies like Forward Emergency Braking and Lane Departure Warning. These developments will culminate in autonomous drive technologies becoming available in all core Nissan models by 2020.

2. Nissan Intelligent Power involves the provision of more power and higher efficiency to motorists with the development of more high-performing and cost-efficient electric vehicles. Nissan has emerged as a frontrunner when it comes to the development and sales of electric vehicles with the emphasis being on developing vehicles with quiet, powerful acceleration, better range and a fun driving experience. The IDS Concept which made its European debut at the Geneva Motor Show represents the breakthroughs made in this sector with a 60 kWh battery and range up to 550km. Nissan has also come up with technologies to reduce charging time, and is on a quest to encourage fuel persity and development of renewable energy through exploration of alternate sources of energy like fuel cells. Other ways to increase efficiency include research into development of a downsized turbo and X-TRONIC transmissions to further increase fuel efficiency and response to the throttle.

3. Nissan Intelligent Integration – Nissan Intelligent Integration highlights the connectivity factor and creation of new links between vehicles and society. Connectivity is the name of the game currently with all customers expecting to use their work and personal devices wherever they go. This expectation extends to their vehicles and Nissan is committed making all its cars connected.

This will involve development of technologies that are more sustainable, minimizing the impact of vehicles on the environment, and making traffic safer through networking of cars and inpiduals in addition to setting up infrastructure for the charging of EVs. Nissan plans to contribute to infrastructure elements like roads, electric power networks and data networks in order to minimize traffic jams, promote car sharing, optimize energy use and allow remote vehicle operation.

Nissan will support the setting up and expansion of EV charging networks in different parts of the world including Japan, Europe, Mexico and the US and is also working on the development of quick chargers that are compatible with all EVs in order to broaden the customer base for EVs.

With relation to a vehicle’s link to society, Nissan plans to work with other automotive companies and regulatory agencies to work on modification of motor vehicle laws, standards, and policies to support the introduction and widespread use of self-driving vehicles.

According to Daniele Schillaci, Executive Vice President, Global Marketing and Sales at Nissan, autonomous technologies have been an integral part of Nissan’s R&D activities for a long time, with the company conducting extensive on-road testing from 2013. Hence, the versatility of Nissan’s Piloted Drive engineering has been verified in real-world scenarios.

Nissan is slated to launch several models with autonomous drive technology by the end of the decade in the United States, Europe, Japan and China. These models will be available on a large-scale basis at affordable prices and the first model will reach the Japanese retail market in this year. An on-road demo event in Europe in 2016, will showcase the maturity of Nissan’s autonomous drive technology. In 2017, the Nissan Qashqai will become the first Piloted Drive vehicle available in Europe.

Nissan’s Intelligent Mobility technologies are available today in the form of Safety Shield, camera technologies and EV vehicles. It will further expand with Piloted Drive vehicles available in 2016 in Japan and in 2017 in Europe. As Nissan looks toward a future of car sharing, integrated traffic management systems, and wireless charging networks, the full vision of Intelligent Mobility becomes clear.

Ultimately, the focus is on providing motorists with the highest levels of convenience, comfort and safety through Intelligent Mobility and making the driving experience more thrilling, more personal, and more empowering for customers.