#HTE

Volkswagen’s Trailer Assist System Makes Backing Up That Caravan Easier

Europe has so many neat things that aren’t offered in the ‘States: Beer at McDonald’s, constitutional monarchies, Volkswagen’s Trailer Assist system. On the recommendation of reader Jeremy Mears, I looked up the latter to see what it’s all about.

Backing up a trailer is like parallel parking set at difficulty level Expert. Imagine steering your front wheels in an effort to aim the rear two corners of your caravan, which might be more than an entire car length behind you, trickily pivoting around a point just aft of your rear bumper. It’s such an oddly specific task that there’s probably a videogame about it in Japan.

Volkswagen’s engineers have thus developed software that works out the trajectories for you. By providing visual aids on a screen, adding user input knobs on the door and allowing the software to do the steering for you, their Trailer Assist system makes the process virtually foolproof.

I realize it’s not a terribly sexy video, but the feature is one of those going-the-extra-mile (er, kilometer) UX improvements that manufacturers ought be lauded for. If I ever ran into the engineers who devised Trailer Assist, I’d buy them a round of McBeers.

http://www.core77.com/posts/78338/Volkswagens-Trailer-Assist-System-Makes-Backing-Up-That-Caravan-Easier