This Volvo 'totally' parks itself

By this stage of the game you would already have items in your shopping basket.

By this stage of the game you would already have items in your shopping basket.

Published Jun 21, 2013

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Now imagine the convenience of driving to your local mall, stopping at the door, jumping out and then letting the car go off by itself and find a parking?

While there are many cars out there that have so-called 'auto-parking' systems, these are still 'semi-autonomous' in that they will measure a parking space for you and even take control of the steering, but you still have to be present to feather the throttle.

Now Volvo has released a concept car that is completely autonomous. In fact, it’s basically an automated valet service because the driver doesn't even need to be in the vehicle.

You just jump out and let the car find a spot and park itself. It, Volvo claims, even interacts “smoothly and safely” with other cars and pedestrians in the parking lot, although we'd imagine the sight of it could be a little on the creepy side.

Yes folks, Herbie has come back as a Volvo.

However, the system is reliant on Vehicle 2 Infrastructure technology, in which transmitters in the road infrastructure would inform the driver when and where the service is available. The driver would then use a smartphone app to activate the auto-parking function before jumping out and leaving it to its own devices.

The system makes use of sensors to localise and navigate to a free parking space.

Of course, the procedure is reversed when the driver is ready to go home.

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