LAS VEGAS — Back in 1997, James Bond remotely drove his BMW 750iL using his cellphone. It's taken awhile, and you can forget about the cellphone bit, but BMW has finally made that capability a reality. Byron Hurd and I got to play Pierce Brosnan yesterday when we climbed behind the wheel, pedals and multiple displays of BMW's Remote Valet system and drove a BMW iX around a coned-off course.
BMW Remote Valet is an experimental system that allows for your car to be remotely operated by a driver using video screens and remote controls not unlike those used for racing simulators. It uses existing hardware in the car, including forward and reverse cameras, as well as those for the 360-degree surround-view parking cameras. The practical applications for BMW Remote Valet are you’d basically have a valet parking person everywhere you went, saving you lots of time, hassle and walking.
The practical hindrances are government regulations, cell service limitations (specifically in multi-story and underground parking garages), and scale of adoption. Expanding upon that last element, valet companies can't exactly use this unless enough incoming cars can be remotely piloted. In other words, the system totally works but its actually viability is TBD.
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