The actual car hasn’t been revealed to the public just yet — at least without its camo wrapping — but that hasn’t stopped BMW from announcing that its new 7 Series will be the first car that can be parked remotely using its key fob, without anyone actually having to be inside the vehicle.
Other car makers have talked about and demonstrated similar passengerless self-parking technologies designed to let a vehicle squeeze into a space too small for its doors to be opened. But BMW is the first to include it on a production vehicle, allowing the driver to use the car’s touchscreen Display Key fob to either have it pull into a tight spot, or out of one.
At CES 2014, Bosch, a maker of automotive components, was showing off a similar feature the company had developed that allowed drivers to autonomously park a vehicle using a smartphone, but there’s no word if BMW is using the same technology for its new 7 Series. And while the new feature isn’t quite the completely autonomous self-driving car we’ve all been anticipating, it’s still a great sneak peek at the technology, especially for those of us who don’t exactly excel at parking.