Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Toyota Offers Automatic Parallel Parking Option

Posted by timothy on from the hover-parking-would-be-better dept.

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?"

21 of 504 comments (clear)

  1. Old News by mphase · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Still interesting and all but old as the hills. The technology is even older than Toyota's products as well, handicapped conventions have had similar systems for years.

    --
    vampirical
    1. Re:Old News by hackstraw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The first incarnation of such feature that I remember seeing was in the 40s or 50s (on TV, I'm not that old) where the car had a 5th wheel that looked like a spare hanging off of the trunk. With the push of a button the 5th wheel lowered and rotated the back of the car into the parking spot.

  2. Why the brake need? by Oxide · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Alot of the cars now come with a sensor that alrets the driver when aproaching the the car behind. Couldnt the automatic parking system make use of this? and therefore fully automate the process.

  3. No thanks... by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I'll keep my manual windows, manual locks, manual transmission vehicle thank you. I like software a lot, but I certainly don't let it take over driving.

    I guess learning how to do things on your own is going the way of the do-do bird, so to speak.

    --
    Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
    1. Re:No thanks... by CaptBubba · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It is almost impossible to open the door of a car when it is floating in the water, too much pressure on the outside. So the accepted thing to do it to roll down the windows and wait for the car to flood, and then open the door when the presure is equalised.

      Oh, and Don't Panic.

  4. If the spaces are so small . . . by frankthechicken · · Score: 4, Interesting

    . . . is there a program that helps you to get out of that parking space?

    I mean it's all very well being able to cram yourself into a tight parking space, but getting out might just be a bit trickier.

  5. USA drivers by Burb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Reminds me of a comment made to my wife (English) while she was a student in the USA. She reversed into a parking bay at the mall, and was congratulated. "You must be British" they said "an American wouldn't be able to park in reverse".
    Now before you all toast me, I don't hold this to be a general truth. But European cars are smaller and parking bays are often more crowded than their North American counterparts. And I'm led to believe this could be even more so in Japan.
    So yay to anything that helps you parallel park in a confined space.

    --

    1. Re:USA drivers by ObviousGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I got my Japanese driver's license and have been enjoying my new car for the past month.

      Everyone parks backwards here because that's what it says in the Rules of the Road handbook. It's fine that everyone parks this way, I have no doubt that it's probably easier to get the car lined up straighter with practice and it's easier to get out of a parking space going forward.

      However, the driving ability of many Japanese here is suspect, as is the ability of the Department of Transportation to design adequate roads. I'm not talking about the narrow streets that they can't do anything about, those can be dealt with with some courteous driving. I mean the intersections that allow for a minute for each direction, incomprehensible lights, and an incredibly low speed limit.

      The intersection problem is, as I've recently discovered, a workaround for the walking aged problem. Here everyone walks, and the old folks walk slower than most. If the light is too short, they can't make it all the way across, so the solution was to extend the length of the green lights to a minute and beyond. This, of course, causes every other lane to wait for their green light because god knows that they aren't allowed to make a left on red (they drive on the left hand side, so this would be like making a right on red at an intersection). With all the waiting lanes lined up, cars from side streets can't flow smoothly into the arteries and everything comes to a screeching halt.

      One problem that I've noticed since I started driving is that the lights are designed to make as little sense as possible. The biggest thing that gets me is that when I am making a right turn across oncoming traffic at an intersection, sometimes the oncoming traffic stops. Of course I have a green light and NO indication that the oncoming lanes have a red light. They've worked around this in some areas by adding a green turning arrow signal that indicates that I have the right of way through the intersection. However, there are still many places (e.g. the right turn into Makuhari Costco) that this is not implemented and traffic sits still for too long because no one knows what the hell is going on.

      I am befuddled by the low speed limits of Japanese roads. The Tokyo highway has a maximum posted speed limit of 60km/h. That's a little over 30mph for us Americans. The speed limit in the city is around 20km/h, and on arterials it jumps to 40km/h. These streets aren't so much different than the downtown areas of most American cities where the speed limit is usually a minimum of 25mph. So everyone crawls along but that's not too bad I guess because within a few seconds everyone gets stuck at a stoplight for several minutes and is lucky to make it through without getting T-boned by some other driver who has no idea that you still have the right of way.

      Tokyo driving is a zoo.

      --
      I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
  6. It would be even better if by Scorchio · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...it could turn all four wheels 90 degrees.

  7. What will they think of next? by anubi · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Maybe a small set of hydraulically controlled wheels that lower, sideways, so that you pull adjacent to the space you want, then slide in on smaller six-inch solid rubber tires or so?

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

  8. I wonder by Sarojin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Will the insurance company pick it up if you (I mean it) damages another car?

    In the US, these have to pass some stern Government inspection and testing before they are allowed on the road. I don't think I want the liability.

    Is parking really that hard? Are people really that stupid and lazy?

    --
    HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
  9. This is a great feature by MrRTFM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Its bloody hard to parallel park when your pissed :)

    Seriously, this is just one step closer to the car that drives itself - its going to take a long time for the public and the laws to allow this to happen, but eventually it will happen.

    --
    You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
  10. What about rfid parking meters by binaryDigit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But will the car plug the meter when I run out of time?

    Why not. This would be technically trivial. You modify the parking meter to have rfid sensors just like those toll booths. So you pull up to the thing and it just starts charging your parking account. You leave, it stops. No more getting angry because you left 1hr for the other guy. Or realizing that you didn't bring any quarters with you. Or running out in the middle of a meeting to stuff the meter.

    1. Re:What about rfid parking meters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      We have something like that in Amsterdam it's called the "ParkAdammer" (sorry, no english links). They are hacked on a large scale. Often they get stolen too.

  11. Best Solution by pklong · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Best solution I saw once to the problem of parallel parking, was a car with a set of small wheels which could be lowered when you wanted to park. They were mounted 90 degrees to the main wheels, so you drew up next to the place you wanted to park, dropped the wheels and "drove" in sideways.

    Of course the Italians won't need this device, if the space isn't big enough they tend to ram the other cars until it is ;)

    --

    Philip

    Signatures are broken

  12. Re:Parking Assist by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    I'm not sure about the physics involved, but my experience tells me that the going back and forth technique seems to have rather diminishing returns... often I find that redoing the whole thing (driving back out on the street and revising my entrance vector) is more worthwhile. The fact that most cars only have wheels which turn in the front could be significant.

    So maybe the major limitation is not that major after all? I might be seriously wrong though ;)

    PS. Offtopic sidenote: It's nice to see the Linux big boys in here with random Finnish coders like myself :)

    --
    .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
  13. Re:Lawsuit waiting to happen in the US by Viol8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "But if it fails by ramming something, then would you not be in the same realm as the possessed cruise control?"

    Not really. If the parking system ran over someone while operating normally its no different to you having the cruise on doing 65 and not
    braking if someone steps out into the road. The car is just operating normally, YOU are who is in control of the machine and its YOUR responsibility to operate it correctly.

  14. Re:Lawsuit waiting to happen in the US by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Bad analogy. With cruise control, you still have to monitor the car- 65 may be too fast (or too slow) to be safe in traffic conditions. The parking automation is the same. Figuring out who to blame would come down to the particulars of the case, but there would be major lawsuits.

    --
    I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  15. Unbelievable by jridley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You know, you could just grab a couple of chairs, go to a parking lot, and practice for 30 minutes. Assuming you still have intact chairs, you should be able to parallel park just fine for the rest of your life. It's not that hard, but maybe some people would rather spend a few thousand dollars than 30 minutes learning something.
    I've heard that some drivers training instructors are using toy cars to demonstrate how parallel parking works; some people can have a hard time visualizing it. I think the problem is that cars steer radically different when in reverse than when they're going forwards; this could be why some people have trouble backing up in general.

  16. BMW by Shant3030 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    BMW is coming out with this option in a few years as well. Along with their Active Cruise control and Active steering this is a welcomed option.

    --
    100% Insightful
  17. This is a lame implementation by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Apparently this has a camera and a computer, but the computer doesn't look at the camera image.

    The Volkswagen automatic parking system of a decade ago was better.

    What's really needed are low-cost 3D imaging laser rangefinders, to get an unambiguous picture of the nearby obstacles. Such devices are quite possible if there's a market for them. Today's laser rangefinders are big and clunky, but that's due to the tiny size of the market.

    It's coming. Two no-moving-parts 3D laser rangefinders exist in prototype right now. One is too low power and doesn't have enough range. The other is too high power and isn't eye-safe (the application is antiaircraft missile guidance.) In a few years, this technology should filter down to the robotics and automotive communities.