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Toyota Offers Automatic Parallel Parking Option
dstone writes "For drivers who can't parallel park very well, relief is available in Japan. Toyota Motor Corp. is offering a $2,200 option package for its Prius (a gas-electric hybrid car) that includes a computer imaging system which stuffs your car into parallel parking spaces on demand. The driver must manually initiate the process and control the brakes while the car steers in reverse. Some might say if you can't master parallel parking, perhaps you shouldn't be driving. However, the article at Modbee.com points out that in Japan, streets are jammed and parallel parking spaces can be ruthlessly small. 80% of Prius customers have opted for this package. But will the car plug the meter when I run out of time?"
Parking Assist relies on a built-in computer, steering sensor and a tiny camera in the car's rear and works like this: A dashboard display shows the image taken by the camera. When you near a parking space and shift into reverse, computerized lines pop up on the display, along with arrows pointing up, down, left and right.
Using the arrows, you move the lines around until they define exactly where you want the car to be parked. Then you push the "set" button on the display. Keep your foot lightly on the brake pedal, and the car will start backing up, the steering wheel responding to an invisible hand. Voila, the car will park itself in the spot you've chosen with the arrows.
But be careful. Hands-free driving doesn't mean you can read a book or doze off. The system has no artificial intelligence that actually recognizes objects -- so it won't stop for a person or a cat or anything else you shouldn't be running over. You still have to hit the brakes yourself. And the system is designed so that it will shut itself off if you lift your foot from the brake pedal, making the car go too fast. Intelligent Parking Assist also will back you into a garage, and can "remember" three parking spots.
And now for the major limitation: The system works only in situations where the car can continuously back up into a space -- not for those tight spots where you must inch your way into a space by going back and forth, wrestling with the wheel.
>>esr>>
It has to be able to get into the space in one go - it can't shuffle back and forward to straighten itself out. Apparently this is why the feature won't be offered in the UK - our metered parking spaces aren't long enough for it to be able to park itself neatly.
Anyway, it's an extremely cool feature and all, but is parking really that hard? Mind you, I'm the sort of automotive Luddite that thinks that power steering's a bad idea, so maybe I'm not the right man to ask.
This article is a DUPE!
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In the UK being there is a parallel parking component to the driving test. Not sure what effect it's had though.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
A technique known and beloved of original Mini owners (as in released-in-1959, not the new BMW ones). Got passengers? Simply pick up the car and carry it.
Cheers,
Ian
I live in london and if a car is parked with one wheel up on the kerb and the backend of the car sticking out into the road you can almost :)
guarantee a woman parked it especially if its one of those "lifestyle" 4x4s that only tiny women with kids seem to drive. Maybe female ex-pats park well
abroad because they're the good parkers who got fed up with their car being bashed every time they went shopping and decided to emigrate
and there'll be a disclaimer with words to the effect of "you have responsibility for the car" much like you do with power steering and cruise control.
In my experience, female motorists tend to be more worried about their wing mirrors being clipped by passing vehicles, and more considerate about leaving adequate space for the drivers either side of them, and park their cars accordingly.
I will, however, reinforce the grandparent posters point, albeit more directly. I was learning how to drive in the UK when I went on an long summer holiday to Florida. At the time I went over, my driving instructor thought I had a fair way to go (and I did) before I could consider taking a driving test and getting my licence. But, when I got to the US, getting a licence over there was ridiculously easy by comparison.
For one thing, learners in the UK (and in most countries) learn in manual (ie, stick-shift) rather than automatic vehicles, quite the opposite of their US counterparts. For another, they have a whole handbook of information that they have to absorb, with details on everything from road signage, stopping distances, driving in hazardous conditions, etc - from what I saw, theoretical knowledge is barely tested in the US.
Also, the most tricky manouvre tested in the US seems to be parking, whereas in the UK you also have to safely demonstrate emergency stopping, reversing around a corner, making a three-point turn (turning around the direction of your car in a confined area using forward and reverse gears), etc.
Nowadays the UK standards are even tougher, with two seperate stages, a theoretical test and a practical test, both of which must be passed to attain a driver's licence. I believe the standards in some European countries (such as Germany, if I remember correctly) are just as strict.
In some places, such as Northern Ireland, newly qualified drivers are required to wear special plates on their cars to alert other drivers of their rookie status, further ensuring road safety.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
>The guard answered that if other drivers saw my car parked in reverse, they might attempt to do the same and that would create problems.
I think that's because a lot of American cars don't have a license plate on the front, so it can't be seen if you park backend in.
Because a Prius doesn't have a clutch.
It's an hybrid electric car with "Electronically controlled continuously variable transmission"
There is nopt only not an option to get manual gear shifting, but the car doesn't even really shift in the traditional sense, it just moves up along a cone shaped gear.
Look here for an explaination of CVT.
GMC is now offering four-wheel steering on some of their trucks and they use parallel parking as an example in their commercial. When I was a kid I saw a cartoon that had a car that turned all four wheels perpendicular to the road and drove the car straight into the parking space. I can't remember which studio but I think it was meant as a gag on the "products of the future"-type shows. I still think that would be a neat idea.
I wouldn't say I'm a bad gambler but the last time I went to Vegas I even lost a buck on the soda machine.
There is nopt only not an option to get manual gear shifting, but the car doesn't even really shift in the traditional sense, it just moves up along a cone shaped gear.
The Prius uses a planetary gearset as its "CVT", not a pair of cone-shaped pulleys and a belt. This planetary gearset (to which the engine, electric motor, wheels, and generator are attached) also serves as the power management system, sending power from either the engine, the electric motor, or both to the wheels and/or the generator to recharge the batteries. Pretty damn ingenious, actually.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
The self-parking feature on the Japanese 2004 Prius
will not work if the driver does not have their
foot on the brake pedal. True, the Prius does
not have object recognition to avoid running over
something - that's what the driver is for. The
driver does not have to steer into the parking
space, but they do have to brake. No lawsuits -
if the car hits something it's because the driver
did not brake, not the car!
-mrv
Correct, there's no clutch and what the Prius does isn't what you think of as "shifting".
The Prius CVT is much cleverer and simpler than the usual cone-shaped gear.
There's an explanation and a Flash animation at http://www.howstuffworks.com.
The entire transmission consists of one constant-mesh planetary gear assembly. The outer ("ring") gear is permanently connected to the electric drive motor-generator and to the differential. The "planet" gears are on a carrier permanently connected to the gas engine. The central ("sun") gear is permanently connected to the motor-generator that sits between the gas engine and the battery pack, and which serves as both the starter and the battery charger.
The magic is that the onboard computer, by rerouting electricity to/from the battery pack, can set the speed of the sun gear independently of what else the car is doing. Once that speed is set, there's a sort of gear ratio between the gas wheels and the engine. That ratio can be set to infinity when the car is running in pure electric mode, or to zero during warmup, the only time when the gas engine idles. A gear ratio of zero eliminates the need for a clutch.
Looking at it mathematically, the planetary gear system is one linear equation in three unknowns (the speeds of the gears). Set one unknown, the speed of the sun gear, and it's one (linear) equation in two unknowns. Solve that and you've got a linear relationship.
Looking at it physically, because the gears are always engaged and always have the same number of teeth, there's a fixed torque split. Because rotation speed can be changed, and power is torque times rotational speed, there's a changeable power split.
Looking at it in engineering terms, there are no clutches to wear out, no fluid couplings to leak, and no friction bands to go bad. The count of moving parts is breathtakingly low. It's one of the most elegant achievements of mechanical engineering and helped win the Prius the Society of Automotive Engineers award for Best Engineered Car of 2001.
in virginia parallel parking is no longer required to get a licence. aparentally it hasn't been for like 10 years. does this bother anyone but myself?
There are 10 kinds of people: those that understand binary code and those that dont
I distinctly remember an episode of "Beyond 2000" in which they show a prototype of a car than can parallel park itself.
Not too bad at all, it's only 4 years "Beyond 2000" and these things are showing up.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This should leave the driver with both hands free to make the appropriate hand signals to the cars behind that are honking. Seriously, the worst thing about parallel parking is that the cars usually follow too close to allow you to back into a place.
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