UK-based car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover today unveiled an app that allows drivers to manoeuvre their cars remotely using their smartphone.
The company says that the app, which is still a prototype, will enable drivers to pilot their vehicle out of tight spaces in urban areas or over rough terrain, potentially coming to the aid of anyone for whom parallel parking is like putting a square peg in a round hole, particularly when the car in question is a gigantic Land Rover.
However, before you go tearing your Jag around the car park like a life-sized remote control racer, it should be noted that the speed in external control mode is limited a mere 4mph, making it more designed for the hyper-careful driver than the boy racer, as Jaguar Land Rover amply demonstrate in the accompanying video.
The company also unveiled a second prototype - a Range Rover Sport that can successfully execute a 180-degree turn in tight spaces autonomously without any driver input. After all, turning the steering wheel can be so tedious sometimes.
Jaguar Land Rover says it is also undertaking research to design another prototype car that will be able to automatically scan the car's surrounding environment, alerting the driver if it safe for the car to execute a manoeuvre.
If all this sounds a little like driving for those who don't really like driving, then that's exactly what it is. Both the technologies represent Jaguar Land Rover's steps toward developing self-driving cars.
"Research into technologies like these won't only help us deliver an autonomous car," Jaguar Land Rover director of research and technology Wolfgang Epple said, they will also help to "make driving safer and more enjoyable".
Like many other car manufacturers across Europe such as Mercedes, Ford and BMW, Jaguar Land Rover are following the trend and are working on building autonomous cars.
BMW for example, recently added remote-controlled parking to its new 7-Series which will allow drivers to park their cars using just their key fob. By 2016, Mercedes plans to introduce "Autobahn Pilot", which is a system that allows hands-free driving - even with autonomous overtaking of other vehicles.
Jaguar Land Rover says that future versions of the technology could soon include a function that allows drivers to control their cars just by speaking to it, but with both of the new technologies unveiled today still in the early stages of their own test and design, there is little risk of your in-car singalong accidentally sending you to Heartbreak Avenue.
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