Nissan Working On Self-Driving Cars And Self-Driving Chairs; No, Seriously

In a world where practically every car company is racing towards a driverless future, one brand dares to be different. Aside from developing its own autonomous vehicle line, the Japanese company is also making self-driving chairs. No, they won’t be deployed on roads. Rather, they will be placed in places where long lines are a problem like banks, the DMV, or perhaps even Disney Land.

As PC Mag notes, standing in line is one of the worst first-world problems that industrialized countries have, along with terrible Wi-Fi connection and low battery life of smartphones. Nissan is about to solve at least one of those things thanks to its newly unveiled ProPILOT Chair.

Now, hearing the words “self-driving chair” might sound weird at first because chairs don’t drive. If you put wheels on them, along with cameras and sensors, though, they can. Nissan’s curious project outfits what would otherwise be normal looking chairs with gizmos that are rightly found in autonomous vehicles.

The wheels are connected to an electric motor, much like how automatic wheelchairs move. Then there’s the camera, which detects when the chair in front of the user has moved, thus rolling along in response.

Ideally, all the chairs will be synchronized so that they maintain a fixed distance and on a set route. This effectively removes any responsibility on the part of the person lining up to pay attention to the queue.

Nissan is also claiming that the technology it is using with ProPILOT Chair can be used on cars as well, Popular Science notes. With the sensors being able to detect when the car in front has moved, sitting in a traffic jam might just become less frustrating. Imagine letting the minutes or hours pass by as the car moves its cumbersome pace while the driver simply watches a video or even eats some food; only if it’s declared safe to do so, of course.