Nissan becomes first automaker to promise self-driving cars by 2020

Most goals offered by a global automaker rarely get specific enough to actually judge their success. The one exception in recent years: Nissan, whose CEO Carlos Ghosn has made setting ambitious goals a hallmark of his tenure. Today, he threw down another one, vowing that Nissan would offer a fully self-driving car for sale to the public by no later than 2020, backed by millions of dollars in research and a platoon of top universities.

The question is: If Nissan's ready to sell a self-driving car, who will be ready to buy one?

After Google's initial pioneering in self-driving experiments, many automakers have quickly caught up with the idea and technology of using radars, GPS tracking and complicated software to guide a vehicle without input from the driver. In a few modern luxury sedans — namely the Lincoln MKZ, Mercedes S-Class and Infiniti Q50 — the combination of several available safety features adds up to an ersatz form of self-driving for at least brief stretches.

But no automaker before Nissan's move today has committed to building a fully autonomous car, less for reasons of technological uncertainty than practical ones. Autonomous cars are in theory supposed to reduce crashes due to human error, and with $160 billion in damages and nearly 40,000 deaths a year in the United States alone due to traffic accidents, the payoff for even small reductions in accidents could be huge. Google's experimental division is so enamored by the prospect — and a potential market of billions of dollars a year — that it's considered trying to build its own cars, tech writer Amir Efrati reported earlier this week.