Feature: Vertical Integration

Christian Gulliksen

August 1, 2007

Ari Milstein’s AutoMotion takes the concept a step further with an ingenious parking system that borrows warehousing technology to move cars on pallets. Completely automated, the process begins when a plasma screen and four laser scanners guide the driver onto a pallet in a specially designed entrance room that looks like a typical two-car garage from the exterior. After the driver exits the car and leaves the room, the transporter unit—an elevator that moves both vertically and laterally—lowers the car to a subterranean level, where it enters a center lane lined on either side with stacked "parking spaces" designed to accept the automobile-laden pallet. (The size of these spaces can be tailored to suit anything from a Smart to a Hummer.)

When retrieving the car, the reverse process adds a 180-spin, so that cars return to the entrance room facing outward—no one has to back out. "The system decides where to park the cars based on logical sequencing programs for the fastest retrieval times," says Milstein. Both drop-off and pick-up take about a minute and a half, from start to finish.

AutoMotion borrows warehouse technology for optimum use of space; the fully automated system can be scaled for any residential project. (Click image to enlarge)

By removing the human element from garage design—e.g. walkways, ramps and higher ceilings—this automated parking system makes more efficient use of space. The bottom line: A garage fitted with the AutoMotion system can accommodate twice as many cars as a conventional counterpart of the same size. It can also exploit long, narrow spaces, normally rendered unusable by sliding cars sideways into their spots. "No one can park a car laterally," says Milstein.

He stresses the adaptable nature of the AutoMotion design. "You can’t have a 14-level ramp system," he says. "But because of the elevator, I can go up 25 levels. And with modular design, we can go taller, skinnier, wider." The system requires only 24 feet of width to accommodate the entrance room—beyond that, everything can be built to customer specification.

For aficionados, the AutoMotion system will even play the role of museum curator. "Once you’re talking about a large collection of cars," says Milstein, "the sky’s the limit. We have designed systems in London townhouses with glass-encased entrance rooms, where cars are displayed on a turntable. You can program the system to bring each car up for display—it’s a showroom at home, and no one has to drive them into place."

Residents of condominiums and co-ops—who normally use valets—might also find special appeal in such a system. "A lot of people don’t recognize the risks when you valet park your car," says Milstein, who cites the potential for theft and damage. "They can put more trust in the machine." In these higher-density applications, he also points to the eco-friendly absence of idling engines, as cars navigate their way out of a large parking structure.

Like American Custom Lifts’ Brad Davies, Ari Milstein believes in the virtue of keeping his product’s presence under wraps. "We turn the garage into a value added component," he says. "It’s always been the black eye on every building from an aesthetic perspective—ugly. This is actually a design solution, not a band-aid."

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