Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
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
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
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.
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.