Nissan’s presence at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show was marked with the announcement of several technologies and partnerships as part of the Nissan Intelligent Mobility blueprint that strives to achieve a zero-emission, zero-fatality and connected future on the roads.

Presented by company chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn, the blueprint consists of five key areas where Nissan will focus on. The first is a new technology called SAM or Seamless Autonomous Mobility, a development from NASA technology that combines in-vehicle artificial intelligence (AI) with human support.

A part of Nissan Intelligence Integration, SAM is meant to help autonomous vehicles make informed decisions during situations that are beyond the norm. For instance, should the car encounter a problem it is unable to solve, it can request help from a command centre, where a “mobility manager” can ascertain what path the car should take in response, based on the available data from the car’s LiDAR, cameras and radars.


The directions can then be sent to the vehicle for it to follow through on, which therefore makes human intervention still relevant in an autonomous driving system. This human/machine teaming, will therefore utilise human intelligence to support a larger system of autonomous mobility – and to help improve the artificial intelligence of the vehicles in real-time.

Ghosn also revealed plans to build an all-new Leaf, which will come with Nissan’s latest advancements in its ProPILOT autonomous driving technologies. He revealed that the new electric vehicle will represent the next chapter of Nissan Intelligent Power, and with ProPILOT is capable semi-autonomous drive functionality for single-lane highway driving.


Diving into connected cars, which combines Nissan Intelligent Driving and Nissan Intelligent Integration, Ghosn said the Renault-Nissan Alliance will continue its partnership with Microsoft to build the next generation of connected car technologies and HMI, which features Azure, Office 365, Cortana and other intelligent cloud services provided by the software giant.

Passenger vehicles aren’t the only area of focus as commercial vehicles will also undergo driverless vehicle tests, with Nissan partnering with Japanese internet company DeNA. The first phase of testing will start this year in designated areas within Japan, with an expanded scope of testing by 2020.

To complement these new technologies, Ghosn announced a new partnership with 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC), a global non-profit organisation that helps cities lay the groundwork for autonomous drive, electric vehicles, and new mobility services.