The rise of the robo garage

In 2006 Yair Goldberg was sure automated parking was about to take off. As an executive at Israeli industrial-automation firm Unitronics, he had just led its first project in the United States, a retrofit of a troubled robotic garage in Hoboken.

The technology had gained notoriety for snafus including cars being dropped off platforms. But the kinks were being ironed out. The systems offered convenience to customers and let developers build garages that could accommodate twice as many parking spots as a conventional arrangement in the same footprint.