Nissan: We'll Be Selling Robot Cars in 2020

Do you sometimes wish your lazy car would just drive itself? Well, that future is looking closer than ever today, after Nissan announced plans to, in the words of one executive, "bring multiple, affordable, energy-efficient, fully autonomous-driving vehicles to market by 2020." The automaker will build a special course on which to test automated vehicles next year, the executive said during a presentation in Southern California, according to the Wall Street Journal. Nissan believes it can deliver the technology at "realistic prices."

Nissan's luxury Q50 sedan already has a system that can keep a car in its lane on the highway, USA Today points out, and Nissan has already shown off a Leaf that can park itself. "In 2007 I pledged that by 2010 Nissan would mass market a zero-emissions vehicle," a promise the Leaf fulfilled, boasted Nissan's CEO. "Now I am committing to … a new ground-breaking technology." Google, too, is famously working on self-driving vehicles, and several states are already preparing laws governing them. (More Nissan Leaf stories.)