Finally got to try letting the car parallel park itself

[M A V I C]

I've been fascinated by this since the tech came out years ago. In all the demos I see the parking spots are HUGE and the streets are WIDE. Really, if you can't park a car yourself in those circumstances, you probably shouldn't have a license.

I tried using it a few times but it seemed slow in determining if the spot was big enough, and I was starting to hold up traffic. So I finally got a chance on my street. The spots are tight - there's no lines for each spot. There's parking on both sides of the street, and only one car can go up or down the street at a time. If you park more than ~12" off the curb, no one can get through.

What happened?

Well, first it will only detects spots on the right side of the street. That's a little dumb since people park on both sides of the street. Anyway, I got it into position, put it in reverse and:

Unable to park
Opposite side obstructed

So apparently it needs an open spot on both sides of the street for it to work. That almost never happens. :/

[C(-)ris]

M A V I C wrote:

Well, first it will only detects spots on the right side of the street. That's a little dumb since people park on both sides of the street. Anyway, I got it into position, put it in reverse and:

People park facing the wrong way on your street? I wouldn't expect it to be able to auto park facing the wrong way/on the left. The only time that would come into play would be on a one way street.

It probably needs a wider street not necessarily an open spot. Most streets are wide enough for 2 lanes of traffic plus the cars parking on on each side(4 car widths wide). It sounds like your street should either be a one way with a single lane OR not allow parking on one side.

[Racer X]

C(-)ris wrote:
[quote=M A V I C]

Well, first it will only detects spots on the right side of the street. That's a little dumb since people park on both sides of the street. Anyway, I got it into position, put it in reverse and:

People park facing the wrong way on your street? I wouldn't expect it to be able to auto park facing the wrong way/on the left. The only time that would come into play would be on a one way street.

It probably needs a wider street not necessarily an open spot. Most streets are wide enough for 2 lanes of traffic plus the cars parking on on each side(4 car widths wide). It sounds like your street should either be a one way with a single lane OR not allow parking on one side.
Lots of one way streets in the part of town MAVIC and I live in. His street is pretty wide too. I should know, I spend a lot of time in the hedges there.....

[M A V I C]

C(-)ris wrote:
[quote=M A V I C]

Well, first it will only detects spots on the right side of the street. That's a little dumb since people park on both sides of the street. Anyway, I got it into position, put it in reverse and:

People park facing the wrong way on your street? I wouldn't expect it to be able to auto park facing the wrong way/on the left. The only time that would come into play would be on a one way street.

It probably needs a wider street not necessarily an open spot. Most streets are wide enough for 2 lanes of traffic plus the cars parking on on each side(4 car widths wide). It sounds like your street should either be a one way with a single lane OR not allow parking on one side.
In this city, parking facing the wrong way is okay on streets like this. There are place where they are one-way, but for the most part they're two-way. If two cars are heading at each other, one will either need to find a spot to pull off, or back up.

Considering that one-way streets are pretty common across the planet, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the parallel parking to work on the left side as well.

Since humans clearly are capable of parallel parking on both sides of the street, even if it's narrow, I expect an automated system to be able to perform at least as well as humans. I guess that expectation is too high.

[M A V I C]

Racer X wrote:
[quote=C(-)ris]
[quote=M A V I C]

Well, first it will only detects spots on the right side of the street. That's a little dumb since people park on both sides of the street. Anyway, I got it into position, put it in reverse and:

People park facing the wrong way on your street? I wouldn't expect it to be able to auto park facing the wrong way/on the left. The only time that would come into play would be on a one way street.

It probably needs a wider street not necessarily an open spot. Most streets are wide enough for 2 lanes of traffic plus the cars parking on on each side(4 car widths wide). It sounds like your street should either be a one way with a single lane OR not allow parking on one side.
Lots of one way streets in the part of town MAVIC and I live in. His street is pretty wide too. I should know, I spend a lot of time in the hedges there.....
The hedges have been trimmed. Though now I need to widen the driveway so I can roll the trashcans out without moving the car.

[robfilms]

interesting.

thanks for the sharing.

and what kind of car are we talking about?

stay well.

rob

[Filliam H. Muffman]

I wonder how it would do on a One-way street with parking only on the passenger side... They are pretty rare though.

[davester]

Is there a particular reason why you are not telling us which car maker's parking app you are using?

[cbelt3]

I watched my son use that in his Ford. I got nervous…

[Racer X]

cbelt3 wrote:
I watched my son use that in his Ford. I got nervous…

If it fails, does Ford pay to fix the vehicles' damage?