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 It's building a test track to develop them in Japan 
 
 Nissan announced that the company will be ready with multiple, commercially-viable Autonomous Drive vehicles by 2020. (Photo: Nissan Wieck) Story Highlights Nissan pledges self-driving cars by 2020 
 
 It is showing off a self-driving electric Leaf 
 
 It is building a test track in Japan for self-driving cars 
 
 Nissan said Tuesday that it will have multiple "commercially viable" self-driving vehicles ready for sale by 2020. It becomes the first major automaker to make such a pledge. 
 
 It says it is working with major universities including MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Tokyo on the technology. Work also is underway on a special-purpose test track in Japan that Nissan says features "real townscapes." 
 
 And in Irvine, Calif.,today it is showed off for the first time a specially outfitted electric Nissan Leaf that can drive itself. The Leaf is equipped with laser scanners, all-around video monitors, as well as advanced artificial intelligence and actuators. 
 
 Nissan said its goals for autonomous driving cars are "realistic prices for consumers," and availability of self-driving technology across its model range "within two vehicle generations." 
 
 "In 2007 I pledged that by 2010, Nissan would mass market a zero-emission vehicle," said Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn in a statement. "Today, the Nissan Leaf is the best-selling electric vehicle in history. Now I am committing to be ready to introduce a new ground-breaking technology, Autonomous Drive, by 2020, and we are on track to realize it." 
 
 Other automakers have also indicated they are working on similar. Audi and Toyota, for instance, showed cars with self-driving features at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year. They could be next to set a date for marketing the technology. But the best-known autonomous vehicles so far are not from a car company but from Google, which has pioneered testing of self-driving cars in Nevada in the past couple of years. 
 
 Nissan's autonomous driving technology is an extension of what it calls "Safety Shield," its various systems that monitor a 360-degree view around a vehicle, gives warnings to the driver and takes action if the driver does has not react. 
 
 The most advanced application to date is with the new 2014 Q50 sedan from Nissan luxury division Infiniti. It makes first use of advanced technology that allows it to essentially drive itself on a highway. The Q50 has a system that keeps the vehicle driving in its lane on freeways. Coupled with an adaptive cruise control that maintains a set distance from other cars and brakes if the car ahead -- or the car ahead of that one -- slows, it allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel. 
 
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 More on Motortrend.com: Comparison: 2011 Chevrolet Volt vs 2011 Nissan Leaf SL vs 2011 Toyota Prius III 
 
 Unlike Unlike other self-driving cars that use GPS to get around, the NSC-2015 relies on a remote monitoring system based on an all-around view camera and 4G mobile communications. Nissan says this method provides precise recognition of the vehicle’s surroundings and, perhaps more importantly, works even when communication to the satellite network is interrupted -- as is often the case in underground parking structures. 
 
 Through a smartphone app, the car can be told to park itself. The EV will then seek out a vacant parking spot and pull itself in. While parked, a security camera system monitors the vehicle’s surrounding environment. If any suspicious activity is detected, a report is automatically sent to the driver’s smartphone. Just as easily as it parked itself, the NSC-2015 can return to pick you up when called. 
 
 Nissan says the overall goal of the project was to reduce the chance of human error , which it says is the cause of 90 percent of all accidents, to as close to zero as possible. Another objective, however, was to reduce the time spent looking for parking. As the car’s name implies, the NSC-2015 will be fully viable by 2015, Nissan claims. 
 
 Source: Nissan
– 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.