Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
THE FALL ACY OF THE SELF- PARKING CAR
Autonomy shouldn’t require patience.
SPRING, 2010: I’m driving a new Lincoln MKT Ecoboost in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighbourhood when I spy a parking spot. I pull past and put the car in reverse, initiating the familiar dance of the urban parallel park. Except now, for the first time in my life, my hands aren’t on the wheel. Ultrasonic sensors on the bumper measure the space and tell a computer, which calculates the angles for a perfect park. That data goes to the power-steering motor, which smoothly whipped the wheel to the right, then left, placing the big Lincoln snungly alongside the curb. A woman on the sidewalk, witnessing this sorcery, called out, “Did that car just park itself? That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”
Indeed, it seemed that way. A few years earlier, Lexus had introduced automatic parallel parking, but the system was finicky to the point of uselessness. Lincoln’s system, however, worked confidently, the car handling the steering and the driver controlling the speed. Just think where we’d be in a few more years. I imagined that by 2017 I’d be comparison-testing the Chevy e-lot Attendant and the Dodge Robovalet.
Instead, we’re still tiptoeing towards incremental improvements, like Tesla’s Summon feature, which can pull a car in and out of tight spaces. Don’t get me wrong, Summon is cool. But when you’re late to a meeting, are you going to climb out, close the door, open an app, and watch your car inch forward? Or are you just going to drive a little further to a bigger spot?
This is the problem with self-parking. Ultimately, it’s a party trick. The car handles the labour, but you still provide the key intelligence: is the spot on the left or the right? Parallel or perpendicular? Is that a fire hydrant? You make all these decisions. To then have the car execute the actual act of parking is like buying all the ingredients for a birthday cake, baking it, spreading the frosting and then having a robot add the candles. Would you then say you have an autonomously baked red velvet cake? No. You’d ask why your candles are in upside down. Because, at this stage, the computers still aren’t very smart. Last year, I had a new Lincoln MKX attempt to autonomously park itself in a perpendicular spot that was already occupied, requiring me to intervene. Teslas in Summon mode have hit bicycles. It’s still a work in progress.
I would know. I own a self-parking MKT. The la last time I used the feature was months ago, just to impress my kids. Auton Autonomous systems such as automatic b braking and lane-keeping make sense because they’re running in the back background, saving you from lapses in at attention. Active parking is the opposit opposite. Like other attempts at autonomy, it’s needy. And until it’s not, I’ll park it myself.