Top
Best
New

Posted by agotterer 8 hours ago

London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service(aerospaceglobalnews.com)
251 points | 207 commentspage 2
rwmj 6 hours ago|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply...

As long as you don't want to use the toilet.

flkiwi 6 hours ago||
It's the perfect juxtaposition of stories.
gib444 5 hours ago|||
Seems it's becoming all too frequent in Kent and Sussex
ukrulez 4 hours ago||
More fun to spend millions on AI than fixing literal shit.
jryle70 3 hours ago||
Even more fun to bash AI from the comfort of HN without knowing how much AI is being used, or at all, in this case.
lrae 4 hours ago||
> Maximum weight: 2.6 tonnes

Wonder what the actual limit is and what happens when you're above it (and the other max. dimensions)? Couple of EVs out there that are heavier than 2.6 tonnes now. (Volvo EX90, Mercedes EQS, BMW iX, Ioniq 9, Rivians (not yet in the UK), ... and many more right around that weight.)

Is it getting measured in the cabin and declines you?

clort 3 hours ago|
Since you have to book in advance, I guess you give them the number plate details. They can look it up online to see what kind of vehicle it is and can decline to book if too heavy. They can cross check the number plate when you arrive.
lrae 3 hours ago||
TIL you can just look up vehicle information via number plate in the UK.

Possible I guess, but what if you don't have UK plates?

matthewpick 6 hours ago||
You could pack the cars so close together that no one could get into them. Could be seen as a bit of a theft deterrent, although I’m sure the car park itself is pretty secure.
znkynz 2 hours ago|
That's the value change right? You can park more densely as no one needs to get in our out of the vehicle.
myself248 5 hours ago||
I wonder how many people will forget to roll up their windows because they parked in a garage, then the robot leaves the car outside for a week, then the owner comes back to find the car back in the garage but inexplicably soggy and full of mold.

Does the process have a check for forgotten windows?

mjfisher 5 hours ago||
In the UK, pretty much zero. Nobody ever leaves their windows down when they leave their car.
dybber 5 hours ago||
Is parking with the windows open a normal thing to do in the UK?
hbcdbff 3 hours ago|||
I have never seen anyone ever park and leave their windows open. Ever
giobox 34 minutes ago||
I almost never see it now, but twenty to thirty years ago when there where far more cars on UK roads with no air conditioning, you would very occasionally see someone leave the window slightly open to try and keep cabin temps a little more sane in summer. In the 90s/early 2000s there where a lot of cheap cars (Ford Fiestas, Corsas etc) sold in volume on UK roads with no AC, and on hot days those things would turn to ovens if parked in the sun with the windows up. I used to have to do this occasionally myself with a crap Ford Ka I owned with no AC. It was a pretty normal thing to do back then!

I'm not even sure if it's possible to even buy a new mass-produced car with no AC anymore in the UK, or pretty much anywhere else for that matter.

myself248 5 hours ago|||
In a garage?
nfbdhdfbf 5 hours ago|||
You didn’t answer the question Is that a thing people do in the UK? I’ve never heard of anybody doing that. I’m not sure why you would do it.
clort 3 hours ago|||
Unlikely to be normal, but I have been doing it at a couple of places I park at this year, since I'm there for a while, have to park in the sun and the places are semi-enclosed (ie, it is fenced so random people not walking around but not secure compound level). Also, my car is 17yrs old, I got it for free and don't keep valuable items inside. I prefer leaving the window open to coming back to 38degC inside. No aircon.
jen20 4 hours ago||||
In a garage or not, it's not a normal thing to do in the UK.

It's also not a _normal_ thing to do in the US, though I have heard some people do it in higher-crime cities to avoid the windows being broken.

userbinator 1 hour ago||
The US is huge. In hot dry rural areas it's also perfectly normal to park with the windows down to avoid the interior getting even hotter. (And theft is not really a concern.)
ThrowawayTestr 5 hours ago|||
What difference does that make?
kkrkgbbsvjdlzn 4 hours ago||
Insurance.
jonplackett 4 hours ago||
The reality of this is a lot less exciting than the headline implies.
smnscu 7 hours ago||
I'd be curious how it handles someone parking poorly in that bay e.g. diagonally. Presumably those lines serve as a parking guide and the door won't close unless you park correctly.
throw2ih020 7 hours ago||
The local car wash has lights that help you park the car pretty precisely under the wash robot. No rails or anything, you park right underneath the robot and it moves around and over the car. The robot doesn't start until you are in position.
alt227 7 hours ago||
IMO this would be a terrible idea to let the robots park cars in the same car park as humans. They most likely have a dedicated car park for this where ever car is parked by a robot.

The article says:

"A Stanley Robotics autonomous parking robot then slides underneath the vehicle, lifts it by its tyres and transports it to a secure storage area."

Which seems to suggest this.

wildzzz 7 hours ago|||
It sounds like the actual lot will be robots only as it mentions parking cars closer together to maximize capacity.
antihero 7 hours ago||||
I think the OP was talking about humans parking weirdly in the garage the robot picks them up from, not the car park itself—the car park itself is robot only (so they can jam cars together).
cespare 7 hours ago||||
The parent is wondering about parking in the bay, before the robot picks it up.
Elhana 7 hours ago|||
Robot = some 3rd world country guy driving in remotely
oasisbob 4 hours ago||
Just in case anyone else is wondering, that article mentions that you get to keep your keys no less than eight times, while being light on all other details.

I miss publications with skilled human editors.

luciana1u 2 hours ago||
parking was the one part of the airport experience that wasn't broken. naturally, that's what they fixed first.
djhworld 5 hours ago||
It's not quite clear from the video but it looks to me like you park up in the garage, and there's a garage door on the other side. So as you 'check in', I guess the 'human' side you drove in on, that door closes, and then the other side opens for the robots to collect the car which I'm guessing is also where the car storage is.

Sort of feels like those videos you see of high tech warehouses where the human workers really only operate on the outskirts of the building, and everything central is completely automated (picking, sorting, storing, inventory etc)

harvey9 3 hours ago|
This seems like valet parking-like but drivers keep their keys. Possibly solving the untrustworthy valet problem, but unlikely to be price-competitve with the cheap off-site parking firms that usually get mentioned in the consumer problems columns.
More comments...