AUTONOMY TAKES A QUANTUM LEAF

The technology in this much-modified electric Nissan enables full driverless control, even on the UK's most challenging roads. We've been for a ride to find out how it works... and what happens next

- CLAIRE EVANS

I HELD MY breath as our car approached an oncoming 44-tonne lorry and passed just a few feet to the left of it; each vehicle was doing around 55mph on the narrow country lane. I needn't have worried, though, because the car I was in bristled with technology that enables it to genuinely drive itself along rural roads - with absolutely no human intervention.

The two-year-old Nissan Leaf in our images is one of two autonomous vehicles (AVs) that have been developed in the evolvAD project, (AD signifying autonomous driving) - the third and final phase of an eight-year, 16,000-mile self-driving research programme conducted by Nissan and four partners. A reassuring statistic that I kept in mind as the Leaf safely passed that truck is that all those self-driving miles were completed without a single accident.

Before evolvAD, true driverless cars (such as the fleet of self-driving Jaguar I-Paces operated by ride-share platform Waymo) have largely been confined to the spacious city streets and open roads typical of the US. Those are a far cry from the UK's rural roads and residential streets, which are among the most challenging environments that a driver has to deal with.

On many country roads, the markings that the driver aids (such as lane-keeping assistance) fitted to many of today's cars rely on for road positioning are either worn or non-existent, and the edges of the roads themselves can be poorly defined - or obscured in bad weather.