A Nissan Intelligent Driving car based on the Leaf model gave autonomous rides around the Renault-Nissan Silicon Valley Research Center, Jan 6, 2015. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Two Nissan Intelligent Driving cars based on the Leaf model gave autonomous rides around the Renault-Nissan Silicon Valley Research Center to 25 reporters from China, Japan, France, Italy, and the US on Thursday and Friday. The car carried three reporters on each of the roughly 25-minute, 16-kilometer urban road tests.

Carlos Ghosn, chairman and CEO of Renault-Nissan Alliance, experienced an autonomous ride on a wet Wednesday, one day prior to the media program.

Tetsuya Iijima, general manager of Nissan's advanced driver assistance systems and the autonomous driving engineering department, turned over control to the system when the car was on the main street. The car accelerated, braked, stopped at signals, switched lanes, made turns and, finally, stopped in front of a police car invited for the purpose of the test.