This could be worse.

We’ve all had the experience of parking somewhere where you think it’s totally fine to park, only to come back to a ticket on your windshield — or worse, returning to the empty spot where your car once was and getting a phone number for a towing company.

Seeing this, it’s easy to think that there’s a better way out there. Well, it turns out that there is. Rather than give you a ticket, this machine picks up your car and carries it to the next legal spot. It also gives you a fine, but at least it solves the problem of the illegally parked car.

Of course, I can see a ton of problems with this system — what if the next legal spot is super far away? What if *everyone* just starts parking their car illegally knowing that the robot will move it — but for the time being, I just say that this is “cool.”

In China, rather than towing illegally parked vehicles, the valet robot, a compact, extendable cart with wheel grippers, re-parks them in the closest legal parking spot.

pic.twitter.com/dgAASYSZpG

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) February 25, 2025