Ghosn: Why enthusiasts will love autonomous cars

Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn says car enthusiasts have every reason to be excited by connectivity, ride-sharing and autonomous driving technology, which will significantly impact the automotive industry over the next decade.

Ghosn was the key-note speaker at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month, when the self-confessed driving enthusiast was quick to answer our question: Will autonomous vehicles will kill the Nissan GT-R?

“People who love to drive will be interested in autonomous cars and I’ll tell you why. Even for the most passionate driver, driving is very boring if you are on a congested highway. I can select autonomous driving when I’m on a congested highway.

“I think we should not say that autonomous driving will kill the pleasure of driving. It will reinforce it because you can choose when you want to use it. So you decide. It will make the pleasure of driving even more obvious.”

Ghosn agrees that self-driving technologies may lead to a reduction in vehicle ownership, but he doubts total vehicles sales will decline.

“There is an attachment with the car and there will be even more attachment to the car because it is moving from a transportation device to a personal mobile space.

"And when you have a personal mobile space, you’ll be more emotionally attached because you’re going to have a lot of your data in the car. I think you’re going to see a big change in the next five years.

“Ten years and beyond, nobody knows.”

Ghosn is openly excited by the autonomous technology being developed and confesses to riding in a fully functional self-driving prototype LEAF at Nissan’s technology centre in California’s Silicon Valley.

“US, Japan, China and Europe regulators are extremely interested in autonomy and we are very open with regulators," he said. "There is consumer appetite for this and there is an interest for social benefit. On top of this there is much better management of traffic.”

Sometime during this year, Nissan with Japanese internet company DeNA will begin testing self-driving commercial vehicles in controlled zones in Japan. The goal is to expand testing by 2020 to allow free-ranging self-driving commercial vehicles throughout Tokyo.

Ghosn realises fully autonomous technology can deliver enormous cost savings for commercial vehicle fleets, and fleet operators are willing to pay for the technology. “Cities are where we see the need for driverless cars – for taxis,” he says.

He admits that driverless autonomous technology won’t be consumer-ready for several years, but repeats a common statistic which states that about 90 per cent of vehicle crashes are due to human error.

“If you reduce human-car interface you will reduce car accidents,” he concludes.

“Consumers like autonomy because it is easier to drive and it reduces stress. I suspect that people in China and the US spend a lot of time commuting. And they need hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. Allowing them to relax and do something else is huge.”