Nissan To Add Advanced Safety Systems To Volume Models

Watch for Nissan to be adding more safety features to its lower-price models starting in the near future. The automaker just announced it will introduce a host of new safety technologies leading up to 2016.

One of the key safety technologies Nissan is developing low-cost sensor-based safety systems. These will be found in inexpensive mass-market models, and offer safety perks such as lane departure, blind spot intervention, collisions prevention systems at the front and rear of the vehicle.

The less-expensive system will only use one camera (the pricey one uses a millimeter-wave radar sensors and multiple cameras). And to keep the price down, it will cut out the frills. For example, the expensive system’s automatic braking feature triggers a control function, while the less-expensive model will just warn the driver.

You’ll start to see these low-cost rear camera sensor systems in the US soon, as recent regulations mandate rear cameras in new cars made after 2015.In about a year or two, Nissan will add forward-sensing camera systems to its models. Each of the sensor systems cost about $260 to make – compare that with the $3,511 price tag for the high-end radar-based system.

Also in the works at Nissan are two other sensing technologies, which should take shape in the next two years. The first is a predictive forward-sensing system that monitors two cars ahead. This means that it keeps an eye out for not only the car in front of you, but the car in front of that one as well. The second is an accelerator-suppression system that would curb pedal misapplication (stepping on the gas instead of the brake).

[Source: Cnet]