Nissan has announced a new version of their Pivo concept car. The Pivo 3 here's a story with a video offers 4 wheel steering and automatic parking, including a claimed functionality for automated valet parking. In the AVP case, the car requires a special parking lot, though it is not said what changes are needed. A few years ago the Stanford team demonstrated Junior 3 which could valet park in a lot to which it had a map, and which had no civilian pedestrians.

The Pivo 3, it is reported, "will come and pick you up when you summon it." Presumably this involves both the parking lot and the path to the door where you summon it containing the special infrastructure it needs, but this is not described. What's also described is something fairly important -- automatic charging, where the car takes itself to a charging station and hooks up.

They say they have no commercial plans for the car, but that they do expect to put such functionality into other cars around "2016 to 2017."

With the Tokyo motor show about to start, expect new announcements from Japan in the days to come -- for example Toyota has promised a self-driving Prius at the show, in a similar parking lot mode to the Pivo.