Connected cars to park by themselves in near future

Cars will park unaided in the near future thanks to the latest technology on connected cars which is being showcased at Barcelona International Motor Show that runs from May 9-17.

The system, called "automated parking" or "valet parking," enables the car to look for free places in a car park and park unaided.

"The car park and the car are connected so the park gives you information about free places through your Smartphone," Lidia Vicente from the company Bosch explained to Xinhua. "If there is a free space the driver can leave the vehicle and the car parks unaided on the assigned place," she said.

Then, the car will notify the owner it has parked and it can pick up the driver when needed.

"We want the car to be on the Internet, and the Internet to be on the car", Vicente stated, adding that "the idea is that the whole system is connected so that we can optimize it as much as possible."

The connected car area at the show addresses the challenges of the future and the latest innovations within the connected car field, currently available or under development.

"The valet parking" is one of the newest technologies presented at the Barcelona International Motor Show. It has not been implemented yet, although Vicente pointed out that so far there was only a model of Volkswagen that had it, "but it will take two years to implement this system in a large number of cars. The technology is fully developed, now it is time for the companies to implement it."

"Car-to-car communication" is another fully developed system that has not been implemented yet. This system enables cars to share information in real time which increases safety and the quality of traffic, among others.

"If the car has a breakdown, the car itself sends out a signal to other cars in the area in order to avoid possible accidents as they will drive more carefully when knowing there is a car stopped on the road," Vicente explained.

"We try to offer a safer and more efficient driving," she highlighted.

Apart from these new systems, the connected car area of the show offers visitors safe driving courses, experience how it is like to travel in a fully connected car thanks to a virtual reality glasses and learn about the process of receiving vehicles in the garage through a tablet system.

The GSMA, an association that gathers more than 800 telephone service providers around the world and also organizes the Mobile World Congress, calculated that the automobile market will generate 39 billion euros (44.22 billion U.S. dollars) in revenues by 2018, with the number of vehicles sold with inbuilt digital technology increasing seven-fold over the next five years. Endit