Technical Topics: IT TAKES BIG BRASS BALLS TO BRING SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO MARKET ...

摘要

NOW THIS IS spooky: the recently announced facelifted Touran will be the first series-production Volkswagen capable of parking itself. Well, almost capable of parking itself... As from June next year, the Touran will be available in the UK with an optional parking guidance system called ParkAssist. Although it won't complete the entire parking operation by itself, the Touran will bear the brunt of the job, from initially measuring the available parking space, through calculation of the trajectories required to get itself into it, to all the steering required. While the increasingly redundant bloke at the helm will take care of throttle and footbrake control, Vee-Dub's seven-seater will use its brain to manipulate the electronic steering system to navigate into the available slot. It takes big brass balls to bring something like this to market with total confidence that it's going to work faultlessly, because the repercussions if it screws up are potentially vast.