Nissan pledges affordable self-driving car models by 2020

A self-driving Nissan Leaf prototype

(Credit: Nissan)

It seems 2020 is shaping up to be the magic year for self-driving cars.

Nissan announced Tuesday that it’ll have “multiple, commercially-viable Autonomous Drive vehicles by 2020,” a deadline that General Motors and automotive supplier Continental also have set. Google, however, has set more ambitious goals for its autonomous-vehicle program: Google co-founder Sergey Brin predicted the arrival of self-driving cars for the general public by 2017.

Nissan said its autonomous-vehicle technology will be available “at realistic prices for consumers,” and that its goal is to make the technology available “across the model range within two vehicle generations.”