How it works
Rolled into place. Lined up by laser. Closed from a phone.
Each Pod lives at a venue, retracted into a slim bronze box with its own solar-charged battery. When a guest asks for one, the valet unlocks its casters from the valet app, pushes it by hand to the parked car, lines it up by laser, locks it down and deploys it.
Arrival to departure
Every step, drawn to scale.
Pushed into place, aligned by laser, checked, deployed, cooled, retracted by the owner, and under cover after hours.
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01
Park and request
The car is parked at the showcase spot. The guest taps Request a Pod in the OverHalo app.
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02
The valet accepts
The request lands in the valet app. The valet pushes a Pod by hand on its casters from its spot to the parked car’s nose.
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03
Lined up by laser
The Pod projects two green laser lines along the ground either side of the car — exactly where its rails will run. The valet nudges it by hand until both lines are parallel to the car, then its stabiliser legs lower and lock.
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04
Closed, sealed, locked
Deploy stays locked until the lines are aligned, nobody is inside and the clearance sensors are clear. Then the valet holds Deploy: rails out along the ground, the clear shell closes over the car, the end wall seals and every joint locks by itself. About ninety seconds. The climate system starts the moment it is sealed.
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05
Billed in the app
$100 an hour, three-hour minimum, plus the valet’s 20% gratuity, charged in the app when the guest leaves. The payment splits automatically.
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06
On the way out
Only when the owner is back at the car: he taps Retract on his own phone, the shell telescopes into the box and he drives off. After hours the valet rolls it into its locked storage bay beside the drive and plugs it in to recharge.
The mechanism
Everything comes out of the box.
The Pod taken apart, every part named with what it does, then put back together.
Pushed into position
Four lockable casters. The valet pushes the Pod by hand to the parked car’s nose — no motors driving it around the forecourt. At its spot four stabiliser legs lower and lock, and its weight holds it there — nothing is fixed to the ground.
Lined up by laser
Two green lasers draw lines on the ground exactly where the rails will run. The rails follow those lines, so the valet nudges the Pod until both are parallel to the car; Deploy stays locked until they are.
It stops rather than hits
Clearance sensors watch the whole path of the rails and shell. An open door, a person or anything in the way pauses the deploy until the path is clear. Nothing ever goes under the car.
Closes and locks itself
Rigid segments of hard-coated polycarbonate on bronze aluminium hoops slide out over the car, the end wall drops and seals, and every joint locks automatically. It reads like glass and is far tougher than glass.
Walls that rise and fall
Each segment’s side walls telescope so the roof sets itself 15 cm above the car — a mid-engine supercar or a full-size SUV. Only the segments the car needs are deployed.
Solar-charged lithium
Each Pod carries its own lithium iron phosphate battery and solar panels across its roof, so there is no cord and no supply to install at the door. When it is stored, a locking inlet on its back takes shore power and it refills overnight.
Climate, in action
Cooled, vented and circulating, on sunshine.
Every Pod carries a compact AC unit on its roof, with filtered fans drawing air in low and out at the crown and dew-point control keeping condensation off the paint and the glass. It all runs from the Pod’s solar-charged battery. OverHalo places Pods in warm, sunny locations only. There is never an engine or a generator in or on a Pod.
- Centred on the lasers
- Wheels locked
- Nobody inside
- Shell closing
- End wall sealed
- Every joint locked
- Climate on
Safety
Built like an automatic gate, because it moves near people.
The rules that apply are the ones for powered gates and doors — UL 325 in North America and EN 12453 in Europe.
Nobody inside
Presence sensing before and during closing, and while closed. Anyone detected inside means it stops, opens and alerts.
Stops on contact
Pressure-sensitive safety edges on every moving edge. Touch one and the motion stops and reverses.
Opens without power
A manual release inside and a valet key outside.
Stability and wind
Held in place by its own weight.
No anchors. Nothing drilled. Nothing is fixed to the ground — no sockets, no pegs, no holes in anyone’s paving. The Pod holds its place with weight: about 2,000 kg sealed, including ~650 kg of steel ballast built into the unit’s base and the frame rails.
Legs down and locked. Once the valet has lined the Pod up, the casters brake and four electric screw-jack legs at the unit’s corners lower and lock, lifting the casters just clear so the whole weight sits on wide rubber-soled pads. When the frame is fully out, four more legs at the far end do the same and its small wheels lift. Every leg reports contact and lock; Deploy stays locked until all eight do.
Engineered for wind. Wind can try to slide the Pod or tip it, and it also tries to lift the roof. Both are checked with the lift included: the sealed Pod is designed to hold against gusts to about 51 mph with a 1.5 safety margin against sliding on wet paving, and tipping is never the limit — at that gust its margin against tipping is over 4 to 1. An anemometer on board stops it starting to deploy or retract above 25 mph, and if a forecast passes 45 mph the app tells the valet to retract it and roll it into storage.
When the Pod rolls away its legs come up with it: nothing is left on the ground.
OverHalo is in development. Wind and temperature figures are engineering targets until tested, and we do not claim any hail or theft rating. What we claim.