Automotive News -- Nissan is working to leverage its early lead in electric vehicles for bigger strides in autonomy and connectivity. Richard Candler, Nissan Europe's head of advanced product planning, provided details in an interview with Automotive News Europe Correspondent Olive Keogh.

Q: What is your definition of the fully connected car?

A: Autonomous, connected, electric. They just work so well together.

How soon will that happen?

We are launching a system next year that can manage traffic jams on the motorway, for example. By 2020, we will have cars that can basically drive themselves in every situation.

What's the most expensive part of connected-car solutions?

It depends on the implementation. We have the smartphone solution that is relatively inexpensive and the more expensive black-box solution. As the technology becomes more mainstream and costs reduce, we will start to see embedded solutions or a combination of embedded and smartphone systems becoming more common.

How advanced is Nissan's rollout of connected-car services?

We already have full connectivity on all of our EVs. This includes services such as a charging points download that tells customers where charging points are. We have a smartphone integration system on our other cars with access to services such as Google search and TripAdvisor. 

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