As the self-driving car slowly moves out of parking mode, a misconception remains that autonomy is not possible on South African roads. But the building blocks of self-driving are becoming commonplace. The earliest form of vehicle autonomy, cruise control, is 70 years old this year. Now, such technologies are arriving at a furious pace. This was one of the key messages brought home by Roel de Vries, global head of marketing and brand at Nissan, during a visit to South Africa last week. "We are developing the technology that will lead to robo-taxis, not because we want to build robo-taxis, but because we want to make driving safer and more exciting," he said. "A lot of people don't realise how much technology is already in their cars. As an industry, we started a long time ago, from cruise control to antilock braking systems to power steering. Adoption rates are high because people want these technologies. And it will lead eventually to self-driving cars. "We were the first company t...

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