Nissan uses AI to check for paint defects

Nissan Motor Co. is using artificial intelligence to detect paint defects on cars produced at its assembly plant in the United States. [According to Nissan, the defect detection rate at its Smyrna, Tennessee plant has improved by 7%. The system uses a high-resolution camera to take 15,000 pictures of each vehicle as it emerges from the paint booth. These pictures are analyzed by AI software to find paint defects.

“The human eye can find 85% to 95% of defects, but AUTIS identifies more than 98%,” said Travis Fritsche, a paint process engineer at Nissan, in a statement. Technicians are still using monitors and specialized wrist-worn smartphones to verify possible paint defects flagged by the system. However, according to Nissan, the AI assist will reduce eye fatigue and allow more time to correct paint problems.

“Technicians are essential in identifying and classifying defects,” Rod Lynch, Nissan's new vehicle paint engineer, said in a statement.

The paint inspection process was initially partially automated as well. In 1985, Nissan began using laser-equipped robots to scan for paint defects. According to Nissan, these first robots could identify paint defects as small as 0.3 mm in 45 seconds, while the AUTIS system could identify defects as small as 0.2 mm in less than half that time. [Nissan claims that the AI-based system can also build a library of identified defects and reference it to improve its own performance in the future, adding that this same library can be studied by engineers to address any problems with the paint process for a particular vehicle or color He added that this same library can be studied by engineers to address any issues related to the painting process for a particular vehicle or color.

According to Nissan, AUTIS has evaluated more than 500,000 vehicles at the Smyrna plant to date; according to the 2022 fact sheet, the plant's annual production is more than 640,000 vehicles. The same paint defect detection system is also in use at plants in Canton, Mississippi, and Aguascalientes, Mexico. These three plants assemble most of Nissan's current lineup, including the Altima, Frontier, Kicks, Leaf, Murano, Pathfinder, Rogue, Sentra, and Versa.

Other automakers are also experimenting with AI, mostly working on adding general AI software to infotainment systems: the 2025 Volkswagen Golf integrates OpenAI's ChatGPT into its voice assistant, and sibling brand Audi plans to follow suit. Mercedes-Benz announced what it called a beta program for ChatGPT integration in 2023 and announced at CES earlier this year that it is preparing its next-generation user interface with AI