August 26th, 2006
Lexus Self-Parking Demo
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
This is pretty cool. Gizmodo was invited along for a ride in the new LS 460 L sedan. This car has an Advanced Parking Guidance System … meaning it parks itself, given some caveats.
1. You drive past a parking spot at 12mph or less. The four rear and six front sonar sensors detect the cars, and the gap between them.
2. Putting the car into reverse activates the wide-angle backup camera. There’s a little button on the bottom of the screen that looks like a car parking. Hit it. If the spot is more than 6.5 feet longer than the car itself, the car enters Advanced Parking Guidance System mode. This is where the magic happens. Source: Gizmodo
More details at the Gizmodo site, and a direct link to the video is here.
We Say: Cool, though the limitation of 6.5 feet of extra space would be laughed at by my wife (I’m a terrible parallel parker, but she’s great).
Perros says:
6.5 feet is only just over 3 foot front and back.
You can’t get too much tighter than that when parallel parking manually… overwise you may be blocking somebody else in.
-Perros-
August 27th, 2006 at 1:53 am
Stephen says:
In New York, you often have only 1 extra foot front and back.
August 28th, 2006 at 6:06 am
MissingFrame says:
I was just thinking the same thing, if I had 6.5 feet I wouldn’t need an automated system. I’d say I can comfortably get into a place with 4 feet extra, 3 feet with some effort. If I was in NY I’d skip it and take the motorcycle.
August 28th, 2006 at 10:58 am
socobiguqumiyucn says:
socobiguqumiyucn…
nice post…
November 14th, 2007 at 1:27 pm