One immediate beneficiary of this week’s announcement by U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx that the feds would pony up a proposed $4 billion and otherwise grease the wheels to allow quicker adoption of autonomous driving technology is BMW.
That’s because the National Traffic Safety Administration said it would allow the automaker to bring its novel self-parking system offered in the redesigned-for-2016 7 Series to the U.S.
Here, after shutting off and exiting the vehicle, an owner uses the key fob, which packs a tiny video screen, to remotely pull the flagship sedan into a garage or a very narrow parking space on a fully automated basis and back it out later. The idea is that it precludes having to contort oneself into or out of the car with only minimal room for the doors to open. The feature had been banned here because of a federal safety regulation originally intended to prevent unintended acceleration that requires U.S. drivers to physically hold down a car’s brake pedal in order to shift it out of park. Other self-parking systems require the driver to physically shift gears and modulate the brake pedal.
Still, BMW’s latest system has a way to go before it can pull the car up to an owner’s front door upon command. As it stands, the driver has to leave the 7 Series straight and centered in front of the parking space or garage. Movements are monitored and modulated via a series of sensors, though the driver can bring the vehicle to a controlled stop if necessary should things not go 100% as planned.
BMW successfully petitioned the agency to make an exception to the rule as part of its newfound efforts to change existing rules – some of which have been on the books for over half a century – to help advance the development and adoption of self-driving cars. “In 2016, we are going to do everything we can to promote safe, smart and sustainable vehicles,” Foxx stated earlier this week at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. “We are bullish on automated vehicles.”
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