How CARIAD enables a more convenient way to park your car

Parking in tight spaces can be challenging. What’s even worse: Trying to exit your vehicle in a cramped spot. This is where a remote parking function comes into play. Allowing you to park your vehicle remotely using your smartphone makes parking more accessible and efficient. 

Safety and ease of use must go hand in hand for customers when it comes to remote parking functions. To achieve this, CARIAD provides the remote park assist function as a plugin that already contains the complete logic, enabling safety-critical functions to be easily and reliably integrated into vehicles. The dedicated protocol allows vehicles to be safely controlled via smartphone, and all brands within the Volkswagen Group can incorporate this solution into their own apps and adapt it to their specific brand design. This approach ensures scalable and brand-consistent remote parking features for production vehicles from Volkswagen, Audi, and other brands within the Group.

Designed to assist drivers in everyday parking situations, remote parking can offer support in various ways: 

• Smartphone-Controlled Parking: Park your vehicle remotely using your phone, whether into a designated parking space or a garage.
• Versatile Maneuvering Options: Execute parallel and perpendicular parking maneuvers or even pull out of a parking spot remotely.
• Trained Parking for Repetitive Scenarios: The system can memorize and repeat pre-recorded parking maneuvers up to 50 meters long, useful for frequently used parking spaces.

The Benefits: Convenience, Safety, and Precision

Simplified Parking in Tight Spaces

When using a remote parking function, you can exit your vehicle before parking and use your smartphone to guide it into position. This helps avoid tight squeezes and reduces the risk of accidental scratches or dirt on clothing. (1)

Enhanced Safety and Control

The system handles steering, acceleration, and braking autonomously while allowing users to pause, stop, or cancel the parking process at any time. Communication between the smartphone and vehicle is secured via the Car2Phone protocol. This ensures reliable and safe remote operation.

Stefan Zeidler, Product Owner for Remote Park Assist Pro at CARIAD, explains: "Car2Phone opens up many other possible applications, such as light control, calendars, or showing the brands’ smartphone apps on the vehicle display. The exchange between the Park Assist Pro app and the vehicle is enabled by Bluetooth Low Energy, a wireless technology specifically for low-energy applications."

The feature is used across multiple Volkswagen Group brands. Remote-controlled parking is of course subject to high safety requirements, which the function meets fully.

(1) The driver must be prepared to always override the assistance system and is not relieved of their responsibility to drive the vehicle prudently.