In Tomorrow Never Dies, Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond character arrived at a multi-storey parking garage only to find the baddies were already buzzing around his BMW 750iL. He then whipped out his Ericsson mobile phone, double tap on the touchpad to fire up the 750iL. He proceeds to dispense clouds of smoke, throwing the bad guys around his spy ride into disarray and drove the car to him with the rear window wound down, and he dove into the car. That scenario is heavy with fantasy technology which we have yet to realize, but with BMW’s Remote Valet Parking Assistant, it is safe to say we are not too far away from it. It will not let you remote control the car in a literal sense, but a car with such technology will be able to drop you off and proceed to look for an empty lot, park and lock itself until you are ready to call upon it via a smartwatch.
In order to achieve that, the car, in this case a BMW i3, combines information from laser scanners with the digital site plan of a building, such as a multi-storey parking garage, to enable it to precisely navigate around a complex parking garage without GPS. When you need the car, you cue the car with a smartwatch or voice command and the car will compute the exact time you will arrive at the predetermined pickup point, starts up the BMW i3 and proceed to pick you up. This, btw, is not a fantasy technology. It is something the Bavarian automaker has been working on and will be showing off at the upcoming CES International, along with other innovative developments, like the 360-degree collision avoidance system. Welcome to the future.
