Nissan has announced plans to bring real-world demonstrations of autonomous driving to Britain.

Kicking off in London next month, the the on-road demonstrations will showcase next-generation technology utilising a modified Nissan LEAF - enabling the vehicles and their passengers to cover a diverse city environment autonomously.

Passengers, including government officials and technical and safety experts, will be given the opportunity to experience and test the technology in a live environment. These will be the first demonstrations of Nissan’s autonomous drive technology on public roads in Europe, representing the next step in Nissan’s Intelligent Mobility blueprint for transforming how cars are driven, powered, and integrated into wider society.

It follows recent announcements that both the refreshed Qashqai and the new LEAF, will be equipped with autonomous drive technology to enable single lane autonomous driving on motorways.

The announcement was made following a visit to the Nissan Technical Centre Europe (NTCE) in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, by the Rt Hon Greg Clark, the UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

NTCE, the European R&D hub for Nissan, is developing autonomous drive technologies as well as new advanced fuel, energy and efficiency technologies, in collaboration with the Nissan Technical Centre and Advanced Technical Centre in Japan.

Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark said: "Government and industry are working together to build on our world class reputation for excellence as a leading location for automotive R&D and manufacturing. We want to see centres, like Nissan's here in Cranfield, continue to develop, making us a world leader in the development and testing of auto technology so we can anchor the next generation of vehicle manufacturing and its supply chain here in the UK.”