> NISSAN’S PROPILOT ASSIST TECHNOLOGY MAKES LONG DRIVES EASIER
When you drive 3,940 kilometres from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., on the old U.S. Route 66, as about 20 Canadian automotive journalists did last December while on a Nissan Canada-sponsored road trip — yes, I was among them — you tend to get a little tired, even with two guys sharing the driving.
Which means Nissan’s ProPILOT Assist technology can really come in handy. It’s meant to help out drivers who are on long trips, as well as those battling traffic jams on their daily commute.
In our case, the technology kept the three Nissan vehicles we used during the road trip centred during single-lane driving, even on curves, and when combined with Nissan’s Intelligent Cruise Control, made the long daily drives easier.
Melissa Tellez, an engineer with Nissan who’s based in Arizona, told me in an interview that she thinks ProPILOT Assist is the most sophisticated system on the market. And what makes it so good?
“It’s how we developed the technology in comparison to competitors,” she said. “A lot are luxury brands. Our lanecentring is very good. It doesn’t drift or ping-pong back and forth within the lane; our tuning for our speed control, acceleration and braking is very good. I think we deliver a very sophisticated product to the everyday person. You don’t have to be a doctor (PhD) to drive one of our cars.”
She said it takes more than hard work to stay ahead of competitors.
“Everybody wants to be the best. We work very hard to maintain our edge; we have multiple teams in different departments working together. We do a lot of testing and data collection and all sorts of on-road testing. We constantly benchmark with competitors.
“It’s very important to listen to customer feedback. We send out very specific surveys related to this technology to understand what our customers truly value with this technology and what they hope to see in the future.
“So we are always looking at that to make sure what we’re developing is what our customers have in mind.”