Parked like a jerk? In one Hangzhou parking lot, nobody calls a tow truck. A guard pulls out his phone, a flat robot cart slides under your car, grabs all four tires, lifts it off the ground and drops it neatly into a proper parking spot. No hook, no chains, no drama.
In China, rather than towing illegally parked vehicles, the valet robot, a compact, extendable cart with wheel grippers, re-parks them in the closest legal parking spot.
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) October 9, 2026
A skateboard that lifts SUVs
The gadget is barely thicker than a floor mat. It stretches out to match the car’s wheelbase, scoots underneath, and closes gripper arms around each tire like a jack. Then it drives off with the whole car riding on top – forward, backward, sideways, even spinning in place.
Steered from a phone
No driver’s seat required. The operator taps a phone or tablet and the robot does the heavy lifting. Local reports say a car gets shuffled into a spot in about two to three minutes.
Where this actually is
The viral “China re-parks illegal cars” clip has been bouncing around since 2023. The footage matches a June 2023 local news story from the Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Hangzhou, where security staff started using the “car-moving magic tool” because the downtown campus is jammed. Drivers with urgent medical visits can park temporarily, and the robot slides their cars into real spots once one opens up – or clears anyone blocking a fire lane or ambulance route. So it is less robo-tow-truck, more robot valet with a hospital badge.
We would pay good money to have one of these at the mall on a Saturday.