Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
HUNTING FOR A parking space when you’re at the airport is not a fun task by any means, especially if you’re in a rush.
Yet those who are travelling to Düsseldorf airport in Germany can leave the job to a robot valet who will park their car for them.
An airport spokesman says the robot, nicknamed Ray, starts work today and can be booked using a smartphone app.
Thomas Koetter says all travellers need to do is leave their car in a designated area and confirm it’s empty before they collect a ticket.
Then Ray, or one of its cybernetic colleagues, will take the car to one of 249 parking spaces reserved for robots. When the person wants to return to their car, they pay the ticket and their vehicle is brought to a designated location.
Koetter says the forklift-like machine can carry any standard car weighing up to three metric tons (3.31 tons) and is fully insured.
He says the service costing €29 a day targets busy business travellers, but is available to anyone.
Similar services designed around the car are beginning to emerge. Google recently announced a new feature for Google Now where it remembers where you parked your car, while both it and Apple are developing services which will see iOS and Android integrated in cars.
Here’s the robot in action.
(Additional reporting by Quinton O’Reilly)
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I’m all for these robots, so long as we build our own. Native jobs 4 native robots!
What happens when 2 robots go for the same space.
Robot war.
I’d trust it over the wife to park the car properly……..going to get killed for this.
Maybe we could get the robot to be your Pall Bearer.
A few subtitles would be sound
“….leave their car in a designated area”….so in other words park their car. Then a robot can park it for them. Hilarious!!!!
Deadly just what some Gobshits in this country need to park there car for them
Looks cool.. would lifting it like that not set off the alarm though?
It is interesting that all the cars the robot parks are all German and from one brand Audi.
German, yes, no real surprise. All Audis apart from the Mercedes. The video was obviously a set-piece; as you’d expect. Hardly going to feature anything French, (assuming any French car lasted long enough to get to Dusseldorf), Italian, Swedish, British, Japanese etc. The Germans take their national pride seriously.
The glass silo VW have at their factory would be a better idea., but this is good to be fair. Would save on a lot of people/road rage for people who don’t know how to drive or park!
#noscratches
Stop with the pointless f#cking #hashtags, everyone
The hashtag is the worst thing that our generation has given the world. That and Selfies, actually we haven’t really excelled as a generation really.
Unnecessarily angry much?
so its a valet system with a robot instead
why not just hire someone to park the cars?
I got someone to park my car for me in Ballymun one weekend, I’m still looking for it.
Hope U didn’t pay him/her too. I’ll gloss over your prejudiced comment
More jobs gone for valets.
I blame the current government
Whine whine whine. More jobs in the manufacture and maintenance of this machine.
so, lets invent a useless machine to create jobs
“…..leave their car in a designated area”…so, park their car. Then they get a robot to park it somewhere else? Hilarious!!!!
Dear me, there are some very small-minded people on here to-day.
have your say