Nasa has teamed up with car manufacturer Nissan to develop new self-driving cars that could be used to race across the surface of Mars. The technology created during the five-year partnership will also be adapted to create better driverless vehicles that can be used on roads on Earth. Robotics experts from the space agency will work with engineers from Nissan to adapt the company's electric Leaf cars. Scroll down for video Future rovers on Mars could look more like Nissan's Leaf electric cars as the automobile manufacturer is to develop technology jointly with Nasa to create self-driving vehicles that could be used on Earth and in space
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Engineers at Nasa and Nissan will work on  new technology for robotic cars
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Nissan hopes it will help them build driverless cars for use on public roads
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It has pledged to have its first autonomous vehicles on the market by 2020
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Nasa hopes to develop new rovers that can avoid hazards on other planets
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Sensors and systems to avoid pedestrians that are being developed for self-driving cars could be adapted for to help rovers avoid rocks on Mars
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It could allow robots to move more quickly across the surface of Mars
'The partnership will accelerate @placeholder's development of safe, secure and reliable autonomous drive technology that we will progressively introduce to consumers beginning in 2016 up to 2020.'