New Car Has No Reverse Gear and Can Read Your Face

Forget iPhones.  I want one of these:

TOKYO (Reuters) - For all those drivers that hate parallel parking and anything else that requires the reverse gear, Nissan could one day have the car for you.

The leading Japanese carmaker recently unveiled the Pivo 2, a battery-powered concept car with a fully rotating cabin that makes going backwards obsolete, since the driver can turn to face the direction they need to go.

Its wheels also turn 90 degrees, making parking easier.

"With this easy-to-handle car, you can feel comfortable while driving," said Masahiko Tabe, senior manager of the advanced vehicle development group at Nissan Motors.

"You can go everywhere without worrying about your driving skills." The car is as yet not for commercial sale.

The futuristic, three-seat car also comes with a robotic device that Nissan said monitors the driver's expression using censors and tailors its conversation accordingly.

The device, able to converse in English and Japanese, can help an angry driver overcome road rage or wake you up if you're prone to dozing behind the wheel, the car makers said.

"Are you sleeping? There's a cafe 500m ahead," the device said during a demonstration of the car last week. The Pivo 2 will be showcased at the Tokyo Motor Show later this month.

Nice.  My only concern is that the car looks extremely small and about as crashworthy as a reinforced aluminum can.  I don't even want to think about the unusual trajectories this vehicle with sideways-turning wheels might take in a freeway accident.  A rollover accident would not be a picnic, either.

But with a few modifications -- say, incorporating some of the same technology into a SUV -- we'll have something really useful here.

Another round of kudos to Japan for thinking outside the box.  With advanced robotics, a new moon exploration program, and vehicle innovations like this, Japan is setting an impressive technological pace.

Comments

[Shibuya Sightseeing]

Indeed. Japanese Auto technology is great, they were the first to give a back view camera with arrows to direct reverse parking (which is the only legal way to park in Japan)