Similar systems are also used a car factories to store finished cars. This is how it looks like at Volkswagen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Autoturm_von_Innen.jpg

Very cool.

http://www.robopark.com/ they have some installations in the US. A great way to go as you can really cram cars into that thing (not to mention the security aspect). But cities are still nervous of what happens when the software goes down and hundreds of people can't get their cars. That's about the only downside.

Note: "software goes down" is a euphemism for "the corrupt city government decided not to pay for the software license, and the company shut it down."

At least that's what happened in Hoboken.

Well yes, but I was speaking in general. The system could go down (software problem, extended power outage, broken robots, etc etc). I think the benefits outweigh that though.

They have those on a small scale here in Italy too. I guess they become economically feasible when space is tight.

They used to have one in Ann Arbor Michigan next to the U of M Hospital.