Nissan wants to sell you a self-parking dorkmobile

The Nissan Pivo essentially exists for the car maker to try out different, really bizarre technologies. The first one, from 2005, basically a car body that can rotate 360 degrees on a pivot, which means you never have to go in reverse or back into a parking space again. The second one took it one step further, with wheels that could rotate 360 degrees as well. And now the third one can park itself, on top of that.

And Nissan would like to sell you one before 2020.

This being Japan, the wackiness doesn’t stop there, either. First of all, it’s a three-seater: the driver sits in the center, while passengers sit in the back. It sounds weird, like everything else on this car, but the idea is to give the driver the maximum amount of visibility so as to avoid crashes.

Oh, also, it’s robotic. There’s a system Nissan calls “Automated Valet Parking”; you literally drive to the curb of a parking garage, get out, and tell the Pivo to go park itself. And it does, driving until it finds a parking space and tucking itself in. It even finds a charging station and plugs itself in for you. And instead of you wandering around a garage, you simply call it back to you with your smartphone. No word on whether it also brings you a stick to play fetch with when it comes back.

Oh, yeah, also, it’s an electrically powered vehicle. Nissan is understandably a bit bullish on these since it sold 20,000 of its Leaf EVs, 6,000 of those in, where else, California.

So, are these ever actually coming to America? Yeah, eventually. Nissan is apparently convinced, not unreasonably, that a car that has no gas costs and means you never, ever have to find a parking space at the mall again will sell pretty well, and is working on bringing it to market. Just don’t expect it next year: the Pivo 3 is still a concept right now.

Nissan Pivo 3 inches closer to production [Autoblog]

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