Whatever Happened With Cars Parking Themselves?

The automotive world is a cutthroat place. New technologies pop up all the time, vying for attention and our hard-earned dollars. Some are so good that they eventually become an industry standard, like power windows and keyless entry. Others burst on to the scene with great fanfare, only to seemingly disappear years later.

I’ve covered many technologies in that latter category, from Jeep’s Predator system to Volvo’s creepy heartbeat sensor. But there’s another more recent example that recently popped into my head. What happened to cars that can park themselves?

Just over a decade ago, this was the hottest new feature out. If you were scared of parallel parking, or simply tired of the chore, you could have your car do it for you. Just about every automaker was rushing to fit this tech to their cars. And yet, here we are in 2024, and I don’t think I’ve heard anyone mention it in years. What gives?

Park Yourself

The basic technology required for automatic parking is relatively common these days, but was astounding in the late 2000s. Computing power and image recognition had advanced to the point where you could do all kinds of crazy things with the right algorithm. You could slap a bunch ultrasonic rangefinders and cameras on a car, throw in the right logic, and have the thing park itself by letting the electric power steering turn the front wheels.

The technology has a long history. The Volkswagen Futura of 1989 allegedly featured self-parking, though it never went beyond the concept phase.  It was Toyota that put it into production vehicles, with the 2003 Toyota Prius featuring ‘Intelligent Parking Assist.” This system could handle parallel parking for the driver, with later versions adding the ability to reverse park, as well. The user merely had to approach a space and activate the system, before outlining the desired parking area on the infotainment screen. The car would then take over maneuvering itself into the space.

Lexus would pickup the system for its luxury models a few years later. Other automakers were simultaneously rushing to develop their own versions. It became the hottest new feature out, and seemed to be the herald of a bright new age. Soon, surely, our cars wouldn’t just park themselves, they’d drive themselves, too!

Like so many new technologies, though, the reality on the ground wasn’t quite how it looked in the glossy sales brochures. Reviews were often mixed. Even by 2010, automotive outlets were complaining that systems were slow, unreliable, or unable to straighten up in a spot. Other complaints included the fact that the self-parking systems often required more parking space than a skilled driver, and that they simply didn’t do as good a job as a human.

Regardless, the systems proliferated anyway. By the mid-2010s, you could get a parking assist on everything from a Nissan Qashqai to a Holden Commodore. In the latter case, the self-parking system hilariously failed during at least one press event for the VF model’s big debut. It also required the driver to handle braking, lest it back into a neighboring vehicle for you.

The real problem, though? Hardly anyone actually cares.

A quick search will turn up buckets of forum posts, all asking the same thing—does anybody actually use automatic parking assists? Those with Subarus, Audis, Citroens and BMWs are all asking the same thing. While you can find some evangelists out there, many more express their distaste for these systems. Common complaints include the assists taking too long to park, or moving erratically and risking damage to the vehicle. A lot of people note they used the feature once upon first getting their car, but never found the need to enable it again.

We can openly speculate about why this might be. Ultimately, I think it comes down to a lack of trust. A skilled driver knows they can parallel park, and will rely on their own skills to do so. To them, the system is useless. The systems can be anxiety inducing, too. The driver often has to sit nervously with their foot over the brake, not knowing if the automated system is going to stop in time before clouting a neighboring car.

Volkswagen is one of the few automakers to shoot a real video of their parking assist in action. Most rely on animated footage.

The story is worse for lesser-skilled drivers who might find themselves nervous in tough parking situations. They often worry about hitting other vehicles, or holding up traffic. You’d think that a parking assistant would be perfect here, but alas, no. A digital system that takes several steps to activate doesn’t get around their anxiety about holding up traffic. Neither does the slow performance of many parking assists. Furthermore, they must tangle with the possibility that the parking assist might fail. In that case, they’d be left hanging halfway out of a park, having likely enraged multiple drivers around them. Plus, they’d then have to find a way to extract their vehicle from the precarious situation they’d gotten into.

Indeed, a study by Budget Direct in 2023 found that trust in these systems was remarkably low. Less than 24% of drivers surveyed had “considerable or complete trust” in an automated parking system. 36% had “minimal or no trust” in the technology. Similarly, in 2015, AAA found that 72% of American drivers wouldn’t trust self-parking vehicle technology in a parallel parking situation.

You might think these drivers are rare, but they’re everywhere. According to a study by The Zebra, 49% of Americans suffered from “parallelophobia”—a fear of parallel parking. In the UK, AutoTrader found driver’s heart rates spiked by over 57% during parallel parking maneuvers. 18.7% of drivers surveyed said they’d rather visit the dentist than attempt a parallel park.

Tech Woes

The plight of the parking assist is not uncommon. Indeed, the phenomena is commonly referred to as the Gartner hype cycle. When a new technology hits the scene, there is a huge rush of publicity and excitement as the world buys into the hype. This is followed by the “Trough of Disillusionment,” when the broader public realizes the technology can’t do half of what was initially promised by the media. Usually, this is followed by a general upward slope in capability as the technology matures and actually becomes useful.

It’s true that parking assists have improved over the years. In 2015, AAA found that drivers using the systems experienced 81 percent fewer curb strikes in controlled testing. Self-parking systems also parked 10% faster than the human drivers, and were able to park 37% closer to the curb.

Nevertheless, parking assists have fallen out of favor to a degree. The technology is no longer shiny and new, and it doesn’t serve as a point of difference anymore. Indeed, use rates are low enough that some automakers are ditching the option entirely.

Notably, Ford made the call to abandon its Active Parking Assist earlier this year. Ford COO Kumar Galhotra announced publicly that deleting the hardware would save the company roughly $60 per vehicle, or a total of $10 million a year. “Very, very few people are using it, so we can remove that feature,” said Galhotra.

Other automakers continue to stick with the technology, barring a few that temporarily cut the option during the COVID-19 supply chain crises. Tesla also temporarily cut the feature when it deleted ultrasonic sensors on several models. Just about every automaker has it available on some models, with some offering it as standard across their range.

Despite it’s popularity, almost nobody talks about it. The vast majority of automotive reviews don’t mention it, and it seems few customers are asking for it. In my time with the Alfa Romeo Tonale, I didn’t even notice a button for it. And yet, it’s apparently available most everywhere you look.

If you’re buying a new car, you can probably get it with a parking assist. Whether you use it or not is another thing entirely. But it seems this is one new technology that permeated the automotive world whether we gave a damn or not.

Image credits: Ford, Tesla, Holden