An automated driverless parking system – claimed to be the world’s first – has been officially approved for commercial use in Germany by the country’s Federal Motor Transport Authority. The Mercedes-Benz and Bosch automated parking system has been granted the approval it needs for use within a parking garage at Stuttgart Airport.
“Mercedes-Benz continues to break new ground in Germany with this announcement following approval of its L3 Drive Pilot system,” said Matthew Avery, chief research strategy officer at Thatcham Research. “Since the car is doing all the unsupervised driving, the Intelligent Park Pilot function effectively delivers full L4 automation for the first time anywhere in the world.
“It’s also an application that many drivers will appreciate. Parking can be stressful and accounts for around a quarter of crashes in the UK. So the car taking over this task is something that many will see the benefit to, especially in multi-story environments. This is good news for the adoption of automated driving technology, as it demonstrates a relatively safe and advantageous use case to drivers.”
According to Avery, despite the autonomous parking function being a great step forward for autonomous technology, there needs to be clarity for UK insurance companies because the vehicle manufacturers will be responsible and liable if there is a collision when models are driving or parking autonomously.
“So, while insurers will initially settle claims, they will want clear subrogation channels with car makers, and this is yet to be defined in the UK market,” concluded Avery.