Anybody old enough to remember David Hasselhoff telling his wristwatch, "Kitt, come get me!" will get a giggle out of Renault's latest foray into artificial automotive intelligence, the Urban Mobility Advanced Platform (Pamu).
The rest of us can just think of it as an automated parking valet.
Renault's first autonomous driving project is based on a Fluence ZE electric car - well, it would be, wouldn't it? - that's able to park itself and then, later, meet you at a pre-arranged place.
We kid you not.
Give the car a call using the Pamu app on your smartphone, and it will drive out of the garage, where it has been sitting over a wireless charging pad all night to ensure a fully charged battery, and meet you at your front door - but it'll stay locked until you swipe an RFID 'smart card' over the windscreen.
GO PARK YOURSELF!
Then you get in and drive it to work (or the shopping mall). When you get there, tell Pamu to go and park - and hop out. The car will lock itself, go and find an open parking bay, avoiding obstacles along the way, and drive into it.
Then it simply waits until you call it up again, either to the spot where you got out or another, pre-programmed position. It will come to you, wait while you 'swipe' and get in, then let you do the driving on the way home.
PERSONAL HOT SPOT
And then it'll quietly park itself in its own personal 'hot spot' and wait until the next time you tell it "Pamu, let's go to town!"
And of course, if a group of local subscribers all have access to the app, the Pamu becomes a very effective car-sharing platform, which is the premise the community-minded Renault developers started from.
None of them ever watched Knight Rider.