WAY OT: Lexus parks itself?

Anyone have this vehicle?

If you want to charge people the same price as a Porsche without the performance, you have to have a lot of cool gadgets. LOL Actually, I live in San Diego and have a lot of friends that could use that feature!

I actually think the Lexus line of vehicles offers incredible value and performance for their intended use: luxury street driving. Hell, for the way many people use their 996s, the Lexus would be a better choice for them.

I think that this car is very impressive. Being in "telematics" field for vehicles, these types of features are going to be increasingly added to all of our vehicles. For example, Seimens/VDO just unveiled their products that they hope GM will pick up for the MY ' 09 and they include a camera that monitors your eyelids for drowsyness and will give you warning indicators such as vibrating your seat when you start to fade off! Another camera will be reading speed limit signs so that you wont be nailed for speeding when the zone change happens abruptly. All sorts of "gadgets" are coming it is just going to be interesting to see how Porsche navigates these features and yet still keeps the purists in us all satisfied. Remember when everyone flipped at the thought of having a digital speedo in a Porsche? They are still walking that thin line. And IMHO, quite well.

Car and driver reviewed the car and technology recentlyl. Summary: works well but it's a bit slow. You have display screen, select the objects you want to park between on the screen, and let it do it's thing. I think they said it took about 30s altogether, but I may be off on that figure. Their conclusion was that if you're good at parking it's worthless since you can do it faster yourself, but if you have a lot of trouble then it's great..assuming nobody takes the spot while you're fooling with the screen.

I have an '06 GS300 AWD that my fiance drives. We actually have an appointment to see the new '07 LS next week and we're only thinking of trading up because of the self-park feature. If it is easy enough for her to use, I think we'll probably do it. I don't drive the GS much but I have to admit, it is an incredibly smooth-riding and quiet vehicle.

http://www.madweird.com/cool-videos/...arking-tested/ Pretty Cool.

That is one cool feature. But.......can you imagine being the poor guy behind the person that wants to park and wait for them to go through the series of menu selections on the nav screen to setup for the park and then watch it happen? Not to mention, it is just human instinct to NOT believe the car cando the parking job WITHOUT human control. How long do you think it willtake totrust the car?

If you cannot parallel park, don't drive.

agree with ML......besides, don't you have to be able to pass the parellel parking portion of the test or you fail?

I'm all for it, I'd be driving to work with no other cars on the road. I'd rather have the car park itself than some housewife jacked up on too many latte's backing into my 911.

Well for me, I've only owned 1 vehicle at a time up until the last couple of years. When I owned one vehicle, parallel parking was a breeze but now switching from an SUV to a Sports car sometimes more than once in the same day confuses my little brain.. I'm not saying I can't parallel park but I do have a rash on one of my rims that I wouldn't have if I only owned one vehicle.

That's what I told a buddy of mine. City dwellers would have less bumper scratches on their car. Still though, it doesn't unpark the car for the careless or thoughtless so one would only have half as many scars on their bumper.

It's a cool gadget and I'm sure the car will be awesome...Lexus has always made excellent cars. I'd love to hear the sound system in that car...I believe it's 19 speakers

Googlephonic sound?

Jeez...and aircraft can land themselves. I agree with JD....Lexus makes an excellent reliable vehicle with lots of extras (I have several of them). I'm not sure I would use that particular feature.

Since we are still talking about Lexus, has anyone noticed they stopped copying MB's S class and now have more of a BMW look on the new LS's?

Not in California -- at least not in 1988 or so. I doubt they have added it. Not only that, the test does not include any freeway driving or merging at all. And we won't even get started on car control... hehe

mduff, the timing of this thread and your reply is amazing. I just got a ticket driving a rental car in Waldo Florida on my way from Jacksonville to Gainesville. I was on the phone talking with my 16 year-old son who had just broken his hand in Gym class and didnt see the speed limit go from 45 to 15. Got nailed driving 31. Definitely a speed trap. Only my third speeding ticket in 31 years. My fault but i was thinking that it happened because i was distracted and wouldn't it be cool if the car warned me that it was happening.

P Parking is truly a lost art. Years ago you had to do that plus a bunch of other tricks to pass your road test. My wife has a Lexus GX470, it's a wonderfully perfect car with zero personality, kinda like driving a $300 toaster....

Must be nice. I grew up in TX and it is easier to get a gun permit than it is a DL! That parallel parking protion got you every time

http://www.freshcreation.nl/comments.php?id=75_0_1_0_C Video of BMW using the same type of parking system.

The performance numbers aren't too shabby either. 0-60 in 5.4 That's pretty quick for a big sled.

Later down the road these cars will alert the authorities when you run a light or go over the speed limit, or maybe turn themselves off and gps the authorities.

And I will have an undetectable device that disengages or gives false readings to such device.