Of COURSE that’s correct. Mindless error on my part.
Actually, probably the best solution IS keeping an AirTag in the car itself; I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of that. However, I’m uncertain why “two is better than one” applies here.
And, there are some other small things I should “tag” as well; For example, I’ve not been able to find the heart rate monitor I took off my forearm after a bike ride a week or so ago. I KNOW it’s somewhere in my house; USUALLY, if I can reconstruct what I did immediately after putting something aside I can find it again, but as I get older I find that often that only works in reverse order; i.e., once the AirTag tells me WHERE something is I can remember how it got there
I still think, however, that the “Parked Car” bit in Apple Maps could be coded better so that it remembers WHICH car I’m talking about, and if that were the case I wouldn’t have to spend $25 for an AirTag to get a correct pointer (or $50 if there really IS something to the “two is better than one” philosophy.