Toyota And BMW Park Themselves

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19 Feb 2006 |
02:06 pm

Toyota And BMW Park Themselves

Yesterday I saw an amazing thing on tv: a Toyota Prius that was parking itself! The only thing the driver did was selecting the spot where he wanted to park the car (using the dashboard computer) and handle the brakes while parking. BMW is introducing the same techniques as you can see in the video above.

The automatic parking system on the Toyota Prius is called Intelligent Parking Assist (IPA) and has been implemented since 2003. Unfortunately this version of the Prius was only sold in Japan where 80% of the buyers opted for a Prius with IPA. With the introduction of the 2006 Toyota Prius it also becomes possible to buy a Prius with IPA in other countries.

Here’s a short movie which shows a journalist parking the Prius while keeping his hands out of the window.

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Comments

thats insane great digg

Posted by: 5 on 19 Feb 2006 | 10:12 pm

i wonder who's (owner or car company) is responsible if the car messes up and hits something

Posted by: 8 on 19 Feb 2006 | 10:17 pm

isnt the car in the video a BMW?!?!?! umm gd find btw

Posted by: ROULETTE on 19 Feb 2006 | 11:13 pm

nvm... now i read the title lol

Posted by: ROULETTE on 19 Feb 2006 | 11:14 pm

Thats really cool.

Posted by: 66 on 19 Feb 2006 | 11:44 pm

is it just me, or is that car space they are parking into fucking huge for that car?

now i want to see a video of them parking it in a REAL car space...

Posted by: 15 on 20 Feb 2006 | 12:04 am

To bad no one can drive a car any more. If you can not park it your self you should not be driving it.

Posted by: ROULETTE on 20 Feb 2006 | 12:25 am

i don't get it...=

Posted by: 65 on 20 Feb 2006 | 12:51 am

Rooma, your comment, name, and url are great together. :)

This is a pretty cool demonstration. Does anyone have a translation of what the man in the video is saying, or is it similar to what's already said on this page?
-Chasen

Posted by: 63 on 20 Feb 2006 | 02:28 am

Great find!

Posted by: ROULETTE on 20 Feb 2006 | 02:33 am

@Andrew Kao:
You are responsible for all the damage since you have to break the car. That's the only thing the automatic doesn't do itself.

I've seen this on TV about 1.5 or 2 years ago :)

Posted by: ROULETTE on 20 Feb 2006 | 02:48 am

My only question is can it also auto get you out and back on the road if its a really tiny space?

Posted by: 48 on 20 Feb 2006 | 04:25 am

Getting out of a space is always much easier than getting in (to my immense frustration, since the mechanics are totally reversible), so no real need to automate it.

Posted by: 92 on 20 Feb 2006 | 05:03 am

To the question above about what the German speaker is saying in the video -- essentially they just narrate over the video a simple description of what you are seeing, namely that the car has technology to park itself. No other details unfortunately.

Posted by: 8 on 20 Feb 2006 | 05:36 am

I love how at the end it shows a checkmark to indicate success..i'd hate to see that red X instead

Posted by: 72 on 20 Feb 2006 | 07:17 am

Dumbest thing I have seen in a while. Lazy people invent lazy things.

Posted by: 77 on 20 Feb 2006 | 02:56 pm

The license plate in the video is dutch. So I think that whatever is being said must be dutch altough due to the bad quality I can't make it out either.
Something along the lines of ...
"this is going smootly so"
and on the end
"both your hands apart now ..."
as I said doesn't make much sense to me either.

Posted by: 0 on 20 Feb 2006 | 04:43 pm

dumb just dumb so what the car moves 15 feet plus you are still braking then you have to pull forward and it was a huge space not worth a digg

Posted by: 90 on 20 Feb 2006 | 06:41 pm

I think this invention should be appreciated for its "scientific" value. It is quite an accomplishment to have a car perform what we saw in the videos. Whether such invention improves or degrades the driver's skills is subject to debate.

Posted by: 43 on 20 Feb 2006 | 09:42 pm

I think its an awesome invention... Especially for people like me ;-)

Posted by: 77 on 23 Feb 2006 | 07:36 am

In holland it is not the parking that's the problem, it's finding the parking space.

Posted by: 60 on 23 Feb 2006 | 10:24 am

I think this invention is fuckin awesome!!!! cause i can't park for shit.....

Posted by: darren on 24 Oct 2006 | 04:26 pm

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