Nissan is getting ready for the upcoming Tokyo motor show - or the Japan Mobility Show as it's officially called, or the JMS for short - with some clever, slightly kitsch, technology including a physical AI companion.
Physical AI? How does that work?
Essentially, Nissan has created an interactive AI voice assistant, which works through your mobile phone. Called 'Epolo' - or the ultimate extension of Nissan's old Auto DJ streaming music system, if you prefer - this does the expected AI stuff of having natural-language conversations with you, and can do things such as give you a live commentary on the areas you're driving through, like a little personal tour guide.
OK, but the physical bit?
Ah, that's because Nissan has created a little egg-shaped Epolo... well, we don't want to say 'toy' as that sound kind of demeaning, but it does look like a toy, and you can carry that around with you, or place it on the dashboard of your car, to give the AI a physical, friendly face and a literal presence in your car.
Nissan has also created different versions of Epolo, including 'Samurai Epolo' and 'Uncle Epolo' so you can either collect the set, or choose the one you like the best.
Sounds cute, anything else?
OK, so Epolo might be cute, but the Diorama Navi is really cool. Nissan is going to be showing off a new autonomous driving mobility service vehicle at the JMS and built into the back of it will be the Diorama Navigator - a navigation system turned into a real, tactile, 3D model.
How does that work?
So, in the back of the vehicle, there's an actual, physical, 3D-printed model of a city, complete with little buildings, bridges, etc. On that physical model there's a tiny representation of a car - Nissan says that it's 'a bean-grain-sized car' - which moves around the city streets, replicating the movement of the car you're sitting in, using tiny magnets. The idea is to give you a true representation of where you are on your journey at any given time.
Best of all, Nissan has really leant into the retro-futurism of the whole thing, so it's controlled in part by a header unit that looks like an AM/FM push-button radio taken from a 1970s Datsun Cherry Coupe, and there's another control panel that uses what appears to be the dashboard from Knight Rider's KITT.
That sounds mad...
Oh, it gets better - there's even a CB-radio-style handset, through which you can talk to our old friend from the top of the page, the Epolo AI system.
While it's hardly a practical idea (can you imagine having to replace the model every time you crossed the boundary of a map?) Nissan says that it's to start a discussion about having systems in your car that are "fun to operate” at a time when "touch panels are widespread.” We're all for more physical tactility in cars, so this gets a big thumbs up from us.
Tetsuro Ueda, who's Nissan's head of Mobility & AI Research Institute, said: "Nissan has been installing AutoDJ in its products for more than 20 years. Since then, the goal has been to provide the smooth provision of information necessary for driving and has not changed much, but at that time, there was no advanced AI like today, and it was limited to providing weather and traffic information according to established rules. This AutoDJ is the one who rechallenged this using the power of the latest generation AI. In addition to ensuring efficiency and safety through AI, which is now pursued by everyone, including Nissan, I thought about including playing and fun in the use of AI. That is why we have adopted seemingly inefficient physical interfaces in this digital era, such as AI agents and diorama navigation using figures. The path to the future is by no means a straight line. I believe that if I do it patiently, I will be able to achieve it someday.
The Mobility & AI Research Institute embodies Nissan's spirit of 'doing other things' with numerous innovations, including AutoDJ, and delivers an exciting mobile experience from ideas that are not bound by preconceived notions.”