Nissan Leaf completes 230 mile autonomous UK journey

The milestone journey, which took place on 28th November last year (2019), marked the culmination of the HumanDrive project, a closely guarded, three-year long Nissan led initiative primarily aimed at developing technology that can help autonomous cars drive in a more “human-like” manner, thereby helping passengers to feel more comfortable with the technology.

The £13.5m project, which included a consortium of nine industry partners and was funded by the UK government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) consisted of two elements: the 230-mile “grand drive” from Cranfield to Sunderland and a test track-based activity that looked at how AI could be used to further improve the performance of autonomous vehicles.

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Nissan’s Bob Bateman, who led the project, explained that the grand drive enabled the group to put its technology to test in one of the world’s most complex and unique road environments. “The HumanDrive project allowed us to develop an autonomous vehicle that can tackle challenges encountered on UK roads that are unique to this part of the world, such as complex roundabouts and high-speed country lanes with no road markings, white lines or kerbs,” he said.