The interior is plush and full of luxury options like automatic parallel parking.

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The parallel parking feature uses ultrasonic sensors to look for suitable parking and automatically steers the car into the space.

FORBES: Automakers On The Road To Self-Driving Cars

As for rotary dials and buttons, Mr. Fisher says they make it harder to do maneuvers like parallel parking or a K-turn that require rapid and repeated shifts.

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Delaney, who admits that he "still has to concentrate" when parallel parking uses the method below and credits it with getting his daughter through her driving test when she was 18.

BBC: Who, what, why: How do you parallel park?

The new C-MAX Energi also has 60 more horsepower than the Prius plug-in hybrid considering full battery power, along with class-exclusive technologies such as hands-free liftgate and active park assist for easier parallel parking.

ENGADGET: Ford C-Max Energi pricing: $29,995 after a federal tax credit, available this fall

To balance all that adreneline, the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory at Stanford has also developed a new VW Passat "valet system" that may not win any races, but can sure do some mean parallel parking.

ENGADGET: Stanford builds robotic Audi for racing, robotic Volkswagen for parking

Side-mounted sensors detect and measure parallel-parking spaces for parking-assistance systems.

ECONOMIST: Rational consumer