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OK, so you’ve seen cars able to parallel park themselves with you working the pedals in the car, but have you seen one actually drive off into a car park, find a space, park itself, and then come and pick you up again when you’re done, all by itself? This is awesome.
Self-driving cars are definitely the future, and I’m not sure I’m entirely happy about it. I like driving. No, scrub that, I love driving. There’s nothing quite like getting behind the wheel, but there are definitely some types of driving I could do without. Commuting is one of them, and so what Volvo’s doing with car trains sound like an awesome idea. Parking is another.
Who actually enjoys driving round a car park, hunting for a space? Exactly. No one. So I can 100 per cent get behind this awesome self-parking A7 from Audi. It’s like having your own personal valet with you, without having to trust the keys to your pride and joy to some spotty oik. [YouTube via Jalopnik]
Well thank fuck they’ve invented a self parking car for that nazi bitch from HR. God forbid she would have to park it herself. Now she can put more effort into her self important aura she so tirelessly maintains to make everyones life as miserable as possible while chugging her skinny latte
Riiiiiight.
You sound angry. I think it’s because no nice women have ever acknowledged your existence.
I’m gay so I can survive without female attention, lol. Ill always remember this one girl tho who was outrageously flirting with me and it took me ages to realise what the hell she was doing, for the most part I was just looking at her with a confused expression on my face.
Nah, my anger comes from the fact that whenever I apply for a new job or promotion there always seems to be a really uptight HR person who will interview me and whenever you try and build some kind of rapport its like getting blood from a stone.
You have to be one of those stereotypical gay guys who girls love to befriend. Getting ahead is all about networking and emotional blackmail.
ugh, I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this… *googles tight fitting hollister t-shirts
Really impressive tech, and it shows you how much better the car is at doing this itself, but there are 2 rather serious problems to using it :
(i)I think I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been parking in a multi-storey garage with no-one behind me. I don’t think they’d take very kindly to me stopping, getting out, and screwing about with my phone, and thus holding them up.
(ii) How is the car going to deal with obtaining, paying and validating a parking ticket ? This requires modifications to the car park itself (i.e. some kind of remote ticketing system) and infrastructure changes always take ages to implement.
There’s also (iii) – as the car autonomously drives past the spot to reverse in, some prick will undoubtedly try to scoot in first behind it.
Ha! That’s so true!
See my response for point 2!
I was thinking does the car check behind itself to see if there is someone in the queue behind. Paying and validating car parking tickets is relatively easy Stratford London Westfield sometimes allows people to have free parking and it uses the Number plate. Accounts linked to number plate and DVLC – Simples.
Hah First thing I thought when watching it was ‘Where’s the extendable arm for pressing the button at the boom gate?’
Also the issue of trying to find out where your car has parked itself when your phone battery runs out and you can’t retrieve it!
Now all the need is the little blow-up man from ‘Airplane’ to sort the tickets out
Except in the Audi version the little blow up pilot’s manually “inflating” himself…
Is it also programmed to automatically drive on the M4 exactly 0.02 inches behind the car in front with the high beams on?
No no. It’s programmed to automatically drive at 200mph right up to kissing distance from your bumper, then slow down — rinse and repeat.
http://goo.gl/McjYA
If 99.9% of Audi drivers are arseholes (this is factually correct by the way) then what does it make the person that owns this that just jumps out of their car and leaves it to park itself?
Ok, list of questions.
1. Is this simulated or real currently working tech?
2. If real, does the system require that the car has a pre programmed map of the car park in it’s memory or the assistance of some system in the car park that knows where all other cars are?
3. Are all humans forbidden from entering the car parking space?
I ask because the car appears to be no different from a current car, no obvious additional sensors/cameras that would be needed for collision avoidance/parking space detection.
It looked pretty real to me, unless Audi put a midget in a fully-instrumented seat in the boot.
They did the “remote controlled car” thing years ago on a James Bond film, that was fake, this could be too.
the dream of having my own batmobile able to park and then come back at me on call and stop inches from my knees is almost here
Does it come back out when I call or do I then have to wander all over the car park trying to find where it has parked itself?
It looks as if the smartphone app notes where you got out and returns to that spot. You can see a little progress bar spooling up after a couple of taps.
oh and one for the girlfriend as you know what they are like at parking! ducks head, makes quick exit avoiding all incoming missiles
I like to see it try to park in our local car park, the bays are considerably smaller than the US ones.
Also, why does the LCD screen pop out when the system is activated? There is no one in the car to see it!
To prove to all the disbelievers out there that push the “Park” button whilst sitting in the drivers seat, that it can actually do it
I would be surprised if this ever happened. Legally it would be a minefield. Who would be at fault if a self drive car and a human driven car had an accident. We have already seen, over the last couple of years, how car manufactures respond when it looks like there is a fault with their OS. They basically do nothing until either Government gets involved or the PR becomes so bad it hurts sales.
The other thing when driving is the thinking ahead, noticing in the mirror a biker is about to over take you and as such you alter your driving. Im not sure a car could react in the same way as I have seen some driving in my time which probably could not be predicted by the actual driver, never mind computer software.
“a fault with their OS” there is never a fault with a piece of software, the fault is with the human who programmed it. Computers don’t decide things on there own they do what they are programmed to do.
That is a dumb comment for the sake of a dumb comment.
The fault is with the piece of software, the fault was put there by a human who was at fault.
Just to prove how wrong you are you can already see proper and legal judgements of air accidents where the software was judged to be at fault and the company who made the fault were liable.
Such incidents usually say the failure occurred due to a design limitation in the software. ie it failed when it encountered a situation it had not been programmed to handle.
From a newer article on the same website.
“Further complicating things is who will be at fault in the likely event that autonomous cars are imperfect and get into accidents. Say a self-driving car on its way to pick up its owner were to blow through a red light — who would pay the ticket for that violation? The owner? The car manufacturer? The people who wrote the navigation software? This sort of query gets even thornier as the potential problems get more harmful: Who is liable if an autonomous car rear-ends a standard car with a driver? Will the robot always be implicated? Worse still, what if a malfunctioning robot car veers momentarily onto a sidewalk and kills a kid? Who will pay for that tragedy?”
it will happen eventually. google’s driveless car can operate in nevada, although it still requires a person behind the wheel and one in the passenger seat. so yes, no quite there yet but the technology will be further developed and tested. legislation will have to catch up with the technology.
The big car park in the town where I used to live, brings up some concerns…
1. I assume it knows which way round a car park to head if its a one-way car park.
2. What about car parks where the exit is in a different location to the entrance?
3. What happens if you get out the car in a one way street, where the only way to get back to where it drops you off, is back through a one-way system? I’m thinking, bus lanes, cycle lanes, along with 2 normal traffic lanes, roundabouts with 5 entrances/exits?
As much as I think its perfectly possible for the car to go off and park itself, I really don’t think I would trust it.
Cant wait for this to become the norm though, when every car is self driven, and aware of every thing else on the road…
Screw this, just give me Turbo Boost KITT!
Not only can it park itself but it can time travel too according to it’s estimated pickup time at 2:55