The five-year partnership will see researchers from Nissan's US Silicon Valley Research Center and NASA's Ames Research Centre at Moffett Field, California work on autonomous drive systems, human-machine interface solutions, network-enabled applications, and software analysis and verification for both road and space applications.

Scheduled to take place from the end of this year, a fleet of autonomous Nissan LEAF EVs will be tested at Ames to demonstrate proof-of-concept remote operation of autonomous vehicles for the transport of materials, goods, payloads and people. For NASA, these tests parallel the way it operates planetary rovers from a mission control centre.

‘The work of NASA and Nissan – with one directed to space and the other directed to earth – is connected by similar challenges,’ said Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO of Nissan Motor Co. ‘The partnership will accelerate Nissan's development of safe, secure and reliable autonomous drive technology that we will progressively introduce to consumers beginning in 2016 up to 2020.’