At the 2014 International CES in Las Vegas, the Global Consumer and Electronics show, a self parking demonstration has been held. This is an idea which was science fiction a few years ago but it is now becoming reality. The technology has been developed by Swedish car manufacturer Volvo and French parts maker Valeo, and while still at the prototype stage it could be widely available within six years.
The car, with no one on board, can drive into a narrow car park space and park itself without hitting anything around it. Now some vehicles can already drive themselves in certain circumstances such as the Mercedes CLS coupe, which brakes by itself when the driver forgets, and some BMW models can go onto automatic pilot in traffic jams and warn drivers if they are about to go over a white line.
However, rapid progress in both radar and detection camera technology, lets cars see what is going on around them and onboard computers make the car react accordingly.
Now car manufacturers believe that by 2020 there will be cars which can drive by themselves and total robot cars by 2030.
