BMW Created an Automated Parking Feature That Actually Works

Automated parking systems are mostly useless. Parallel parking, in real-world circumstances, is a nightmare intersection of math and human psychology as you try to estimate the size of a spot while communicating to the driver behind you that, yes, you’ll be going into reverse soon. It’s like taking a geometry test while playing Texas Hold ’em against a guy named Switchblade, and the last complication you need is a bumbling computer sidekick wondering whether it should be looking for spaces on the right or the left.

When you finally do spy a spot that might work, you usually have about one second to create space between your car and the one behind you, then engage reverse and start backing in decisively enough to establish dominance. There’s no room for error and certainly no time for fiddly electronic demands about where to pull forward and when to engage reverse. And perpendicular spaces? If you need help pulling into one of those, you should consider taking a remedial parking course at Mr. Denty’s Valet Academy.

All of which is to say that automatic parking is a parlor trick to be deployed only when there’s zero actual pressure and for the benefit of passengers who’ve never seen it—ideally kids who will think your car is about to turn into Bumblebee.

But one exception: BMW Backup Assistant.

Backup Assistant automatically records steering inputs for roughly the last 50 yards of any given drive. So if you’re wending your way into a curvy driveway or around obstacles on your way to your parking spot, you can push one button on the center touchscreen and command the car to follow the same path on the way back out. It’s brilliant, because it doesn’t require any planning or man-machine cooperation to work. You get in, select reverse, and let the car handle the steering on your way back out to the road. And it works every time, unlike parallel and perpendicular systems. If there’s a flaw, it’s that Backup Assistant will probably have you pointing in the wrong direction if you let it do its thing all the way back out into the street. In which case, just cancel it at the end of the driveway. Or, hey, try going someplace new.

Backup Assistant might not be as sexy as remote parking, but it’s probably a feature that you’d use on a much more regular basis. Modern BMWs have earned a lot of well-deserved scorn for excessive electronic complication, menus upon menus, but Backup Assistant is everything you want a robo-driver-assist system to be: simple, elegant, and useful. It’s like having a friend stand behind your car and do that thing where they approximate distance with their hands, only much less likely to result in scuffed bumpers and recriminations. But you should still do the parallel parking yourself.

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