I came across a discussion type web site that had brought up about the Toyota prius self parking feature as being a hoax. I could not find any articles on this whether true or false.

Does anyone know if the self parking car is a hoax or the real thing?

I doubt that it is a hoax. There was a demonstration by the president of Toyota in front of reporters about a week ago. That's possible to fake (remote control), but it require something elaborate and would not be in the best interest of the company when it got out that it was a hoax, and it would surely get out as soon as the first consumer tried to use the feature. That's the bigger reason that I doubt it's a hoax. Tomorrow, it will have been for sale (in Japan) for a week. I find it unlikely that someone who bought it (or even just test-drove it) wouldn't have noticed by now.