L. and I are buying an apartment. I’m really excited about it. One of the things that is way more exciting than it should be to me is the parking system. Our tower has two parking garages that are totally robot garages. We have to apply for a parking space, and we need to specify the size of car because they have different sized spaces in the robot garage.

The way this system works is that you get a PIN that you type in and in about two minutes the carrier for your car shows up. You drive it into the large elevator contraption, and then you get out and the carrier takes your car to its designated spot and leaves it there. To get your car out you do the same thing. It takes on average two minutes to get your car (I’m curious what the worst case is, and whether they charge more for cars nearer the bottom of the stack since they would come faster.)

I’ve seen other versions of these things, circular ones that can store more cars than this one – this version only has storage places on the left or right of the transit tower, although the cars do rotate 180 degrees in there somehow. They go in head first, and come out head first.

There is also a nice bicycle robot parking system in Jiyugaoka near where I currently live, but I’ve never had a chance to peek in there. That one is one of the circular storage systems though. I’m a little disappointed that the bicycle storage system at our new place isn’t robot powered, but you can’t have everything.