A Nissan Motor staff member, his hands off the steering wheel while seated in the driver’s seat of the company’s autonomous vehicle, during a press preview for a field operation test of Easy Ride, a driverless mobility service, at the Minato Mirai business district in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. — AFP
TOKYO: With an ageing population in need of transport, Japan is betting on autonomous cars, but an accident involving a self-driving showcase at the Paralympics illustrates the challenges ahead.
Japan is far from the only place with autonomous vehicles on the roads, but its government has set acceleration of the technology as a key priority.
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A Nissan Motor staff member, his hands off the steering wheel while seated in the driver’s seat of the company’s autonomous vehicle, during a press preview for a field operation test of Easy Ride, a driverless mobility service, at the Minato Mirai business district in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. — AFP
A Nissan Motor staff member in the driver’s seat of the company’s autonomous vehicle, during a press preview for a field operation test of Easy Ride at the Minato Mirai business district in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. This month, the Easy Ride taxis are in their third round of tests on public roads in Yokohama outside Tokyo, albeit in a limited area designated for the purpose. — AFP
A Nissan Motor autonomous vehicle during a press preview for a field operation test of Easy Ride. The Japanese government has changed the law to pave the way for increasingly advanced autonomous vehicles, and the ministry of economy, trade and industry (METI) has plans for 40 autonomous taxi test sites nationwide by 2025. — AFP
A view of the interior of Nissan’s autonomous vehicle during a press preview for a field operation test of Easy Ride in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. — AFP
With an ageing population in need of transport, Japan is betting on autonomous cars. For rural Japan, autonomous vehicles ‘will become a necessity’, Richter added. — AFP
Doi said social acceptance (of autonomous cars) is not high enough, making the time horizon for the arrival of such cars a complex proposition at this stage. — AFP
Doi admits it is hard to say when autonomous taxis could be commercially available in Japan, noting that the Easy Ride cars currently avoid ‘complicated’ areas with narrow or winding streets. — AFP
When Nissan launched tests of its ‘Easy Ride’ self-driving taxis in 2018, it said it expected them to be commercially available from the early 2020s, but Doi is more circumspect now. — AFP
A Nissan Motor autonomous vehicle during a press preview for a field operation test of Easy Ride in Yokohama. Japan is far from the only place with autonomous vehicles on the roads, but its government has set acceleration of the technology as a key priority. — AFP
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