Parallel Parking Is Stressful. Most Drivers Still Won’t Let the Robots Take Over

Parallel parking can stress drivers out. The pulling over, sometimes in traffic; the honking as you maneuver and remaneuver; the fear of smashing into other cars or the curb; the vital questions at the end: Is the car close enough to the sidewalk? Too far?

This is perhaps especially true in the US, where, outside of big cities, drivers rarely have to pull off such an operation. (Some drivers might never learn to do it: At least 16 US states no longer include parallel parking on their driver’s licensing test.) One 2010 study found that parkers’ heart rates spiked in the midst of the act, as compared to even 10 seconds before.

So it would seem to be the classic use case for automation: Let the robots do it. For more than a decade now, cars have come with automated parallel parking features designed to help drivers out.

US and European drivers do not seem to appreciate the help. “It’s the sort of gadget people try,” says Richard Symons, who sells used electric vehicles and makes YouTube videos about cars in Hampshire, UK. “But most people just say they’re not really interested, and they do the parking themselves.”

Earlier this year, Ford said it would nix its “Enhanced Active Park Assist” parallel parking feature because, as one executive put it, “very, very few people are using it.” The move would save the automaker $10 million annually, the exec said.

Contrast that with China, where consumers seem excited about automated parallel parking features—and really, automated features in general. There, automakers manufacturing software-focused vehicles have concentrated on building in auto tricks that delight and surprise drivers primed to expect the latest and greatest technology can offer.

This summer, a video showing a still-in-development vehicle from the Chinese manufacturer IM Motors sliding sideways into a parking spot went viral. BYD’s new Denza Z9 uses some 30 sensors and two lidar units to enable autonomous parallel parking (and some driving tasks without drivers’ attention). This summer, electric automaker XPeng got the jump on Tesla in China by updating its vehicles, via over-the-air update, with advanced driving assistance features including intelligent parallel parking and valet parking assist.

A survey from the automotive research and advisory firm S&P Global Mobility found that Chinese consumers’ interest in, and willingness to pay for, fully automatic parking sat at nearly the top of the list of desired features, higher than it did for American and German respondents.

The discrepancy points to the wide gulf between not just countries’ driving preferences, but the successes born from newer automakers’ focus on software development and automated features. Legacy manufacturers, meanwhile, seem to be playing catch-up.

When Humans Do It Better

One explanation for the diverging attitudes toward parallel parking tech, says Symons, the car dealer, might be that Western automakers’ features simply aren’t very good. “When you pull up on the high street and you’re parallel parking, and there’s a queue of cars behind you beeping their horns, the self-parking systems usually feel a bit slow,” he says.

In one video, published two years ago, Symons compared the parallel parking systems on a Tesla’s Model S and 3, Audi’s e-tron GT, Ford’s Mustang Mach-E, and BMW’s i4 M50, and found that while Tesla’s system was mostly disappointing, the others performed acceptably. But many systems he’s tried have had trouble detecting the curb, and tend to park too close—or too far—from the sidewalk. “Nothing yet that I’ve tried has been consistently better than a person, by quite some way,” he says.

The older, Western self-parking systems may suffer from automakers’ old-school approach to building new features. For newer manufacturers, including Tesla, BYD, and Xpeng, automated parallel parking is “part of a holistic self-driving capability,” says Jeremy Carlson, who leads autonomous vehicle research at S&P Global Mobility. Those carmakers start with software, and have been willing to spend the money to add extra sensors to enable more sophisticated parking performance. By contrast, other manufacturers have tended to build their features as discrete parts, which can lead to rigidity. “Usability can suffer,” he says.

Drivers might also be neglecting their smart-parking features because they simply don’t trust the systems, points out Greg Stevens, a former Ford engineer who is now the research director at MCity, a vehicle technology facility associated with the University of Michigan. Parallel parking requires manipulating a large, heavy, expensive thing into a tight space, close to other large, heavy, expensive things—and mistakes are costly. “Getting over that trust hump has been a big issue,” Stevens says.

Automation Adulation

In urban China, by contrast, the government has primed a new class of middle-class drivers to embrace technology, including features made by its powerful domestic auto industry. Regulators have given domestic auto companies approval to operate more highly automated systems on public roads, including fully autonomous vehicles.

All that exposure, one McKinsey report concluded, has raised consumer enthusiasm for autonomous driving higher than in other countries. In a 2021 survey by the consultancy, 60 percent of Chinese respondents said they would likely buy a car that could drive on the highway itself if the feature were offered for less than $10,000, compared to 57 percent of Americans respondents and 36 percent of Germans.

Now, as more sophisticated automated systems debut on roads all over the world, parking could become a bigger focus. Ford spokesperson Alan Hall points out that while the carmaker’s parallel parking feature is going away, its automated driving package includes features that help human drivers park, including backup cameras, front parking sensors, and a reverse brake assist.

Meanwhile, Ford CEO Jim Farley is a professed fan of Chinese-style automotive development, telling a podcast last month that he appreciated that many of some of China’s most dominant auto manufacturers also make cell phone tech. In fact, he admitted he had been driving an electric SUV from the Chinese mobile and automaking giant Xiaomi for six months. “I don’t want to give it up,” he said.

As more complex technology hits the streets, parking lots and garages are a great place to demonstrate new capabilities, points out Carlson, the analyst. After all, cars drive more slowly there, making the risks of a whoopsy much lower. After delays, Tesla rolled out its new “smart summon (supervised)” feature in September, designed to maneuver a vehicle out of a parking space and around corners to meet a driver (or more precisely, her GPS-enabled phone) at distances of up to 213 feet. But Tesla cautions that drivers “must continually monitor the vehicle and its surroundings” and be prepared to intervene at any time, and the company’s video showing off the feature has been sped up, which makes it look snappier.

In the past, some vehicles’ automated features have felt like “driving with your 15-year-old on a learners’ permit,” says Stevens, the research director. “You sit there and go, ‘Oh, this is so stressful.’” People don’t want more stress in their lives; maybe that’s why many aren’t using parallel parking features. Once the tech not only delights, but also solves problems—as perhaps the Chinese automakers’ offerings do—maybe drivers will change their tune.