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Comments (201)

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  pontus
  So I'll have to park my car in a garage first, then take a bus to the terminal just so that a robot can move my car from the place where I parked it to a different place? I was hoping it'd be something where I'd pull up to the curb, grab my bags and head in while the robot parked the car for me but apparently I'll still have to take a bus to the terminal?
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  jalada
  Simultaneously - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply...
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  longsangstan
  I am quite surprised by the amount of negative comments here. My immediate reaction after watching the video is that this is pretty cool and I want to try it, even though I expect issues given that it is the first service of this kind in London.
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  ajay-b
  "Unlike traditional valet parking, passengers retain possession of their keys throughout their trip.""If passengers accidentally leave an essential item in the vehicle after drop-off, on-site staff will be available to retrieve emergency items."But.. how would they get that emergency item if they don't have the keys?
• PaulRobinson
  As a general rule, you should take the train to Gatwick if you can, but this is reasonably priced and next time I'm flying from Gatwick I'll probably drive and do this - the train route for me is a bit fiddly, and the worst bit of any London airport for a local is long-stay parking. I'm much closer to Heathrow but the flights from LGW are so much cheaper, it more than covers two weeks of parking at this price.
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  djhworld
  I always wonder with solutions like these how stuff like alarm systems on the car cope with the car being lifted, the vibrations encountered as its being towed.Unless they tell you to switch the alarm system off I guess.
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  walthamstow
  It's quite reasonably priced too (for airport parking), about £80 a week booking for September today. I paid that for short stay parking at Stansted earlier this summer.
• amiga386
  Will it meet the same fate as the gimmicky Autosafe SkyPark that opened in 2001 and went bankrupt in 2003, and still had cars in it when the building was demolished nearly 20 years later?https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-4...
• ashayh
  Meanwhile, Gatwick currently doesn't have running toilets: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdew2dnxlzzoHow about we fix basic issue as a species first, before going all robots and AI and trips to Mars?
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  rwmj
  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply...As long as you don't want to use the toilet.
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  lrae
  > Maximum weight: 2.6 tonnesWonder 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?
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  myself248
  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?
• jonplackett
  The reality of this is a lot less exciting than the headline implies.
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  matthewpick
  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.
• oasisbob
  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.
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  smnscu
  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.
• harvey9
  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.
• djhworld
  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)
• jankcorn
  This seems little different from the Automated Parking Systems that I saw in widespread use in Japan from the 1980's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system(The main difference being 3D in Japan and 2D at Gatwick)
• artisinal
  Will probably not be long until a YouTuber tries to hide in their car while it gets picked up. Would make for a fun video.Tom Scott perhaps? Though he will likely get full access to the system.
• OptionOfT
  This is interesting for the point of saving space. You need a lot less space between cars and can easily park multiple rows without having to leave egress space. All you then need to do is move 3 other cars.Give a buffer that should be feasible.
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  kioleanu
  Are these not the guys that ask like 7 pounds to drive up to kiss & fly? Good to see that money’s put to good use!
• ukrulez
  This problem has already been solved, better. 100 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_elevator
• lucb1e
  15 quid that it won't work without installing an app that could have been a website or a card swipe terminal
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  pkulak
  I guess we can add this to the ever-growing list of extremely expensive, complicated, inefficient and convoluted solutions to problems that end with the final specification: "but it can't be a train".
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  dgellow
  I never thought about this, can you steal cars by lifting them like that in the air? Not that I think that will happen, but it would be really funny to hack such a robot and just collect cars around
• simonbarker87
  Of all the airports to do it at in the UK this is probably the one that doesn’t need it. Parking at Gatwick is a breeze, lots of options close and far from the airport and quite reasonably priced. Now Luton, that’s another story.
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  embedding-shape
  > The service must be booked in advance. Same-day drive-up parking is not available.Interesting, I wonder if this is just a "Like to be able to see availability and cross-reference data to set individual pricing" or if it's because of a technical limitation, and if so, what could that possibly be?
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  flipbrad
  I wonder what the failure mode for something like this is (e.g. in bad weather, after a power cut, a car catches fire, etc). Nobody in the country with keys, cars parked so close together you probably couldn't get in anyway... could be interesting!
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  beardyw
  I remember parking in central London where you left your car in a single space inside a building and it would whisk it up onto some unseen location. I think that was under human control but maybe it will make a comeback with automation.
• bookofjoe
  >Gatwick Airport left without running water after major outagehttps://archive.ph/IrBH8#selection-575.0-575.61
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  inigyou
  There are systems where you park your car on a moving platform and the whole platform slots into an underground warehouse. That seems simpler and safer.
• ryanmcbride
  Wow finally something capable of parking cars! I'm sure it'll be so much better and cheaper than just paying valets to do it too!
• reenorap
  The cookie screen for this web site is the most deceitful I’ve come across in a long time. How do I report this?
• jauntywundrkind
  A sci-fi dream i have is that cars and their engines decouple. That you just own a shell, an egg, and the town owns all the engines. (This dream also includes warehouses and delivery robots of many sizes owned by the town too).In a funny way, this sort of does that. Sure your car still has an engine but this very much is the car-shell tractor, in practice. This is really neat to see.I wish them luck. I hope it is reliable enough! It looks pretty straightforwards in how it picks up wheels, which is neat.
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  mfldkjgkfl
  In what way is this better than an uber?
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  trebligdivad
  I wonder what their secure parking area looks like.
• Onavo
  Can it handle EVs safely? The bottom battery often causes...issues if you don't have a lifting puck to spread the weight.
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  pj_mukh
  Great, now let's (gradually) get rid of all surface parking lots and build hyper-optimized multi-floor parking setups not made for human driving. A sort of Ocado Grocery Warehouse [1] for cars.[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZ_8cqfBlEAs always, yes I know this already exists in Japan.
• Finnucane
  So robots: yes. Water: no.
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  blondie9x
  This is so unnecessary. Just make better transit options and make it more affordable for people to go to airport.
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  varispeed
  I heard horror stories, where "secure storage area" was actually a field without any security. Not saying this is the case here, but one must be mad to give a car like that without knowing exact location it is going.It's one of the things where I can't see what is there robot's role here.
• txomon
  Am I the only one bothered because the license plate masking they have used is so bad that you can see the License plate whole several times?
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