Holiday Season

Carol of the (Alert) Bells: 2020 Nissan Leaf's sound effects create their own Christmas music

Dec 18, 2019, 4:44 pm

Nissan has added its own holiday-themed twist to typical pedestrian alert sounds.

Photo courtesy of Nissan North America

Jingle, jingle, jingle. It's not just Santa Claus that you hear. There's a new Christmas carol out this holiday season and it features the sounds of the 2020 Nissan Leaf.

For the 2020 model year, the Leaf received several updates that including warning sounds. The two pedestrian safety sounds received updates in tone and volume. For the U.S. market, the all-electric Nissan Leaf makes a constant tone (known as "Canto," derived from the Latin verb for "I sing") for forward movement under 18.6 mph and a pulsing chime when reversing.

The volume of these sounds was updated to meet the standards of the U.S. electric vehicle regulations that go into effect Sept. 1, 2020. An additional speaker has been added to the engine compartment to aid in the compliance.

The creative team at Urban Green Lab put those sounds to use, combining them with "Jingle Bells" and "Angels We Have Heard on High" to create a unique holiday melody. Take a listen.

Also new for the 2020 model year, the Nissan Leaf comes with Nissan's Safety Shield 360 technology, a suite of six advanced active safety and driver-assist technologies.

The 2020 Nissan Leaf will arrive at dealerships in the coming weeks.

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In-Car Tech

Lexus Teammate advanced driver assist tech debuting on 2022 LS 500h

New driver assist technology is coming to the Lexus lineup later this year.

Photo courtesy of Lexus

New Lexus Teammate driver assistance technology will debut on the 2022 Lexus LS 500h later this year. Its availability is constrained to all-wheel drive models.

The technology was developed based on the Mobility Teammate Concept. This automated driving concept is unique to Toyota sough to enhance communication between drivers and cars, "enabling them to reach out to each other for mutual assistance". The concept sees cars and humans interacting and partnering rather than having automation take over for drivers. This approach allows drivers to enjoy the experience of driving but allowing the vehicle to take over some functions of driver's duties at times. In this way, the tech works as both guardian and chauffeur.

2022 Lexus The company's flagship sedan will get the technology first.Photo courtesy of Lexus

On the 2022 Lexus 500h, Lexus Teammate will offer two functions: Advanced Drive and Advanced Park.

Advanced Drive is design to "accurately detect driving conditions to plan and execute acceleration, braking, and steering commands to maintain the vehicle within the lane, follow other vehicles, change lanes, navigate certain interchanges and traffic jams and overtake slower vehicles." It's a Level 2 functionality that "allows for driving on limited-access highways with partial hands-free, eyes-on-the-road operation".

This description makes it sound a lot like the suite of lane keeping, lane centering, and adaptive cruise control technology that Hyundai offers rather than true Level 3 technology that General Motors's Super Cruise delivers.

Lexus will show operation of the technology on a screen with information displayed like this.Photo courtesy of Lexus

Advanced Park operates similar to how the Genesis GV80's hands-free parking assist technology works. The Lexus tech automatically controls steering, acceleration, braking, and gear changes with parallel parking or backing into a parking space. It uses a combination of 360-degree sensing technologies and a bird's eye view display to perform the task while allowing the driver to monitor progress.

"We are very proud of Lexus Teammate, which is the culmination of five years of close collaboration between our technical centers in Japan and the US. We conducted simultaneous development and rigorous testing in both markets with the goal of achieving industry-leading advanced driver assistance functionality," says Derek Caveney, executive engineer at Toyota Motor North America's Integrated Vehicle Systems team.