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May 1, 2008 by George Skentzos
Volkswagen has taken self-parking technology to a new level, with its Park Assist Vision where drivers can simply pull up along side an empty spot, get out, and let the car do the rest.
The system is so far just a technological showcase for the brand, however it could see production as soon as 2010.
Would you trust a Passat to park itself beside your pride and joy?
Print it: 
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Im not sure if I would trust this even if it is volkswagen. I love volkswagens but I don’t see why parking a car is such a trial anyway. Its EASY! I wouldn’t trust any brand to park my car for me. I have been living in London for the last couple of months but before that I lived in Berlin and didn’t find it hard to park at all. I now have a Range Rover (and others) but the Rangey is the one I use the most and I can confidently parralel park in London as I could in other cities I have lived in. I think that this tech would be great on the vans, the touareg, the tiguan (which is already getting it) and maybe the Phaeton but not the ones with good visibility and arnt too big like the passat.
I’ll trust it if VW guarantees and insures any prings and prangs resulting from it. Thats impossible so…NO. Learn to drive man, other wise take a freakin cab.
Volkswagen first showcased this years ago. Come on, guys!
No wouldn’t trust it.
I often have to parallel park outside my house with less than 300mm clearance. I can do it comfortably in my Vectra Wagon. Parking assist would never work in the with such tight parking spaces.
Just hope its not standard and available on the options list only, i’d never buy it.
I wouldn’t trust it either, all of these type of technologies are flawed in some way. I would love to say just learn to park, but I remember when I thought parking sensors and cameras were for people who couldn’t park cars and now I have them………
Some of you ppl are so full of it – you don’t trust the technology?!? What about other current technology like drive by wire (in nearly all vehicles now)… do you trust the ECU to control the throttle butterfly whilst your foot is helplessly controling nothing but a potentiometer?
Society is just getting lazy hence the amount of shocking drivers on the road :P
I agree with VW_freak…
ANTI SPAM WORD ‘toyota’
I WOULD NOT TRUST THIS IF HAD SAY A TOYOTA EITHER SIDE AS I DARE SAY IT WOULD SURELY HIT THE TOYOTA’S.
OH WHAT A BLESSING FOR AN AGEING WORLD POPULATION AS BORING!
What a bunch of wankers – “don’t trust it, don’t need it”. Feeble minds always dismiss the macro picture by providing a micro picture example, and no amount of discussion can get them out of their hole.
It’s just natural technology progression coming from the innovative Germans. Note it isn’t coming from Japan, but they will eventually copy it into their vehicles.
London will be the first City to ban all cars which can’t self park. Other cities will follow.
Mercedes invented ESP, and pretty soon you won’t be able to register a new car without it – that will have taken about 20 years, so the self-park thing will take maybe the same time. If we still have petrol then :)
The technology it’s not perfect, and releasing it in 2010 is a bit too soon for me, as people like me will be sceptical and people who trust the technology will be the “guinea pigs”.
What if you place the car 30degrees off tangent, would the self park anticipate it and still park properly?
Like Andy said, if these companies are willing to insure the car against damage to the car and other cars while self parking, I’ll buy it….
I agree with Reckless1. What a bunch of technophobes. History is filled with close minded people that say “that will never work”, “that will never sell”, “mark my words this technology will never take off”. “No Name” Believes him self more capable than a computer controlled precision instrument. Once this technology has a chance to develop I think we will see it everywhere. Not because we need it but because in tight situations people will want the luxury. This coupled with Mercedes adaptive cruise control could also perhaps be the initial technology that leads to cars that drive themselves. Gee won’t they s**t bricks then!
how does it change from Drive to Reverse and then back again??
The T-Bar looked pretty mechanical to me….
Whilst this self park technology is quite interesting, it is still quite new and there are going to be flaws and problems with it that no doubt get fixed up later along the track. The problem i see with this type of technology is that people will begin to depend on it and lose any ability to park themselves.
Guys, the Tiguan will have this and is released at the end of May. It’s already in production!
F1, not quite correct – the Tiguan has automated parallel parking, whereas this is one step further.
Who here has been caught behind someone who decides to park in reverse… only they cant do it fast enough and you sit there waiting for them to fit their little suzuki swift into a truck bay? This would help the morons who cant park, but then again that car was slower at it than me. Wouldn’t it just pee you off to then have the driver get out, and smugly control their car with a remote while they watch their veedub park while standing in front of your car (like FREAKING MOVE). I can fit 5m of falcon wagon into that bay 15sec faster than that car. Who needs this technology, its no faster than a human.
Minnow, your comments are self-contradictory.
You finish by saying it’s no faster than a human, but you open by saying humans are impossibly slow at this.
Where’s your head at dude ?????
Eerrrrrrrr, like WTF?
BigT have had this on the Lexus and some other models, like the Prius for years?
What kept vw?
Cheers
F-0
may as well catch a train or bus. Technology for it’s own sake. Just stupid.
Cannot compare valid advances in tech such as ABS ESP etc with gimmicks like this.
Thought as much F-O this right up Toyotas bullshit alley.
Reckless – You say it’s coming from the German’s and NOT the Japanese, well the Japanese beat them by actually having a working system (although with the driver in the car) in a production car for sale NOW.
I see two issues with not having the driver in the car and that is if it miscalculates and is about to hit something (it would appear that a button is held down via the remote and presumably if released the car would [assumingly] immediately stop) or if it miscalculates and returns an error, meaning you have to get back in and either park yourself or reset the system (result = road rage).
I do quite like the idea though.
I have to say that speed appears to be the issue here for me. This looks very, very slow. The reality is that if it takes twice as long to park as I could do it in, then I’m unlikely to want to use the system. Otherwise, I’m all for it. Why wouldn’t you be?
I love all these ‘I wouldn’t trust it’ comments. Are you all the same people who complained during the 80s with the introduction of Electronic Fuel Injection because you’d no longer be able to fix/service your car with a shifting spanner?
Just keep it as an option – then all the hopeless parkers can option it up and those who don’t see the value don’t need to pay for something they won’t use. Simple.
To all the people who say that the people who dont like it are being stupid then I think that they neeed to consider that when you spend $50,000 on a car you probably don’t want to risk the car scratching itself! And there would always be that slight worry. What if the tech goes wrong after while – my VCR buggered up the other day after 15 years of use – why wouldn’t this? (And yes I know its a Volkswagen) The other problem is that I don’t think there would be a person out there who would just get out of the car and walk away while it parked – they would stand and watch! So most people who buy this tech will be absolute WANKERS! They will simply be showing off! I would seriously think about getting the one that parks itself with you inside but I think that this one is sort of pointless. They need to get this tech on Touaregs though so soccer mums stop denting my car!
If u can’t park u shouldn’t drive.
Here is some advice for nothing VW. Just do what u do best and keep making good Euro cars.
Leave the gimmicky bullshit to Lexus.
agree Alex!
Reckles 1 – Nah mate I’m not a wanker. perhaps saying I wouldn’t trust it was wrong. I take it back, I would trust it. BUT what I will say is IT WILL NOT WORK for anything but a huge parking space with plenty of room in both the space and the approaches. How many times have you had to do a 3plus point manouver to get into a spot in an underground car park. Like to see it work there. NAH couldn’t do it.
The parallel parking systems currently available in I think a Lexus or a Merc wouldn’t work in 9 out of 10 cases. They all require huge spaces that are not typically available. I would love to see it work with a 300mm gap.
reckless, yeah its good for people who cant drive.. this would help them, that was my open sentence. But for the majority of normal capable drivers this technology is pointless. If you cant reverse park.. park forwards its much faster and wouldn’t it annoy you to have someone get out of their car to watch it park itself while your idling there with a clearly stupid driver too lazy to learn to reverse park when they could have easily front parked?
My car’s a 1988 Sentra with a $25,000 insurance payout if damaged in a no-fault accident. I’d love to have a Passat crash into it.
I don’t trust the PEOPLE who OWN Passats to park next to my car!!! I am sure the car will do a better job !
# JapanCarBlog.com Says:
May 4th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
“My car’s a 1988 Sentra with a $25,000 insurance payout if damaged in a no-fault accident. I’d love to have a Passat crash into it.”
Huh? A what…?!? Sorry mate, we don’t get those here in Ausland. :)