Recently, a group of bloggers evaluated automatic parking systems in various cars to see which performed best. The Denza N7 was a surprising winner. BYD is not known as a leader in intelligent driving systems, so Denza‘s win is an achievement.
Five car models participated in a series of four different tests. The competitors were the Avatr 12, Aito M7, Denza N7, Xpeng G6, and IM LS6. All of the cars are equipped with Lidar and represent the strongest intelligent driving capabilities from each brand. There were four different parking tests: a narrow backward perpendicular space, a narrow backward parallel parking space, an angled parking space with markings, and finally, a perpendicular space where a wall is blocking the front.
In the first test, which involved reversing into a narrow perpendicular space, all of the cars except the IM LS6 (see specs) successfully completed the task. The IM LS6, while able to detect the space, was unable to complete the maneuver and stopped halfway into the space. The fastest car to complete the test was the Avatr 12 (see specs), which completed all three attempts in less than a minute each. No other car managed to complete the maneuver in under a minute. Along with the Avatr 12 the Denza N7 (see specs) and Aito M7 (see specs) were very smooth at recognizing the parking space and with the actual parking. All three of those cars managed to park in the center of the space, but this was not the case with the Xpeng G6 (see specs), which, although it did successfully park on all three attempts, was parked on the right of the space each time. Furthermore, the Xpeng recorded the slowest time of 1:27.12. For some reason, the Xpeng’s first attempt was much slower than any of the other cars and also the two subsequent attempts by the G6, requiring more back-and-forth maneuvering. The Avatr 12 was the champion for this test. The parking space was 6 meters long with a width of 2.5 meters, and in this case, the road was five meters wide.
In the parallel parking test, the winner was the Xpeng G6, which managed the fastest time of 1:04.03 seconds. Also, on one of the attempts, only two switches were needed between forward and reverse. Both the Avatr 12 and Denza N7 managed to park in the center on each attempt, whereas with the Xpeng G6 and Aito M7 on one occasion each, they parked more to the left. Once again, the IM LS6 performed the worst, failing to complete the second attempt and with the other two attempts parking too far to the left. Furthermore, it recorded the slowest time of 1:39.53 seconds. The parking space was six meters long by 2.5 meters wide and the road from which the car was trying to parallel park was four meters wide.
With the angled, or fishbone parking, scenario only three cars could complete it. Both the Xpeng G6 and the IM LS6 could not recognize the space on all three attempts and so failed. The other three cars managed to park successfully on all three attempts. The Denza N7 was the resounding winner, gaining all three fastest times and needing fewer changes between forward and reverse than the other two cars, even managing with just two changes on each attempt. Testers reported the Avatr 12 to be more anthropomorphic; this car was the runner-up in the test. They also noted that the Denza N7 maintained a robust style. In this case, the parking space was slightly bigger than in the other tests, being 2.8 meters wide and 6 meters long, with the road being used for the car 4.5 meters wide.
The final test, while testing perpendicular parking, is the most complex. In it, the car was driven forward towards a wall with a parking space perpendicular to the wall at the end. This simulates a scenario in a car park with an end parking space. Neither the Xpeng G6 or the IM LS6 were able to complete the task. While the Xpeng G6 just said that the parking space was unavailable the IM LS6 did try to plan a path and make a U-turn before giving up halfway through the U-turn.
Both the Aito M7 and Avatr 12 use the Huawei system and took a similar approach to tackle the space. Each car, on one attempt, managed to park while failing the other two attempts by not being able to recognize the space. Furthermore, both cars went in forwards when they did complete the task. The only car to pass this test was the Denza N7, which successfully passed all three attempts. Unlike the Huawei-powered cars, the Denza successfully reversed in on all three attempts and was correctly centered, unlike the M7 which was parked to the right. The space itself was six meters long by 2.5 meters wide, and the road the car was approaching on was six meters wide.
Editor’s note:
The next biggest surprise of this test after the Denza N7’s victory was that the Xpeng car did so badly. SAIC’s IM brand seems to perform significantly worse than other brands when it comes to parking.
Source: Fast Technology
