Newer Tesla Vehicles Are Getting Upgraded 'Summon' Auto-Parking Features

cageymaru

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Elon Musk announced on Twitter that Tesla vehicles made within the past 2 years are getting upgraded auto-parking features. The new upgraded 'Summon' feature will allow Tesla vehicles to drive around a parking lot, read parking signs and find a parking spot on its own. Then the owner can summon the car to them or have it follow the owner like a pet by holding down the summon button. Also owners will be able to use the phone app to remote drive their cars like a big RC car if they are in line of sight of the vehicle.

Tesla advanced Summon ready in ~6 weeks! Just an over-the-air software upgrade, so will work on all cars made in past 2 years (Autopilot hardware V2+). Car will drive to your phone location & follow you like a pet if you hold down summon button on Tesla app. Also, you'll be able to drive it from your phone remotely like a big RC car if in line of sight. For those unfamiliar, this uses Tesla Autopark/Summon. Slightly smarter version hopefully ready soon. By next year, a Tesla should be able to drive around a parking lot, find an empty spot, read signs to confirm it's valid & park.
 
Can't drive on the highway alone, but is allowed to wander parking lots? This sounds questionable.
 
Oh man I would hope that this setup would be more adept at navigating and parking than real people, but if it isn't I am going to be annoyed.

More importantly, will it be able to recognize when someone else has dibs on a parking spot?
 
I wonder how far it will go, lets say your at a NFL football game, and the nearest free parking space is 1/4 mile away. LOL!
 
Time to make sure there are video cameras in the car.

People will start throwing themselves in front of the car for insurance claims, Chinese style.
 
I posted this in the other Tesla thread, but here is a video of it in action.
That was a now-obvious rigged demonstration from late 2016 showing capabilities far in excess of what Tesla can actually achieve.
 
This is likely illegal.
The cars insurance requires a human to be behind the wheel ready to take over.
Not sure they will be allowed to roll this out.
Car parks are not public roads but safety requirements are no less important.
 
Auto parking car sees parking spot, ignores other person with turn signal already on waiting to pull into the spot from the opposite direction, ninjas the parking spot. Profit.
 
Auto parking car sees parking spot, ignores other person with turn signal already on waiting to pull into the spot from the opposite direction, ninjas the parking spot. Profit.
Car sits in ideal parking spot with reversing lights on... for 8 hours.
 
Hmm i look forward to trying the summon-to-phone feature. Will be nice when it's raining/snowing
 
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I posted this in the other Tesla thread, but here is a video of it in action.


Where is that parking lot and why can't any of mine look that clean ... Seriously look at the width of those spaces and nobody is crooked and almost everybody is backed in.... Where are the random shopping carts from the grocery store 3 blocks up and that jackass in the F250 taking up 2 spaces with his trailer hitch half way out. And why is that paint still ledgable as being intentional, half those spaces should have enough ware that you can't tell if you are in the lines or looking at old lines from the previous paint job.
 
I don't know how the car is supposed to know where it can park in all circumstances, I expect some stories with this feature to have some highly amusing end results, like parking inside the repair garage at a station, forbidden parking spots for other than service guys etc.

It wasn't me bro! It was the car!! Yea right...
 
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Can't wait for this to be tried in Germany where the parking spots are 3/4 the width or less than the ones in the States.
 
One is done at a high rate of speed, the other is at a very low rate of speed. Questionable?

Yes. One involves nearly no unpredictable pedestrians, one is littered with moronic unpredictable pedestrians. One involves a driver at the wheel which is most likely the victim of any accident, the other involves nobody? and has the possibility of killing others first. One involves rarely negotiating obstacles, the other is basically the definition of an obstacle course.

Don't take my negativity as an aversion to change. I just don't think ANY of this is even close to a reality for at least 20 years. Sure, we need these cars to test the waters and such; but until the vast majority of vehicles have comparable systems that can talk to each other, this is all nothing more than a bong dream.
 
Can't imagine it being worse than current drivers at a supermarket. Literally saw someone an inch away from running over an older guy walking his shopping cart to his car
 
Do Teslas work well on ice and snow even with a human at the wheel?

They work very very well, motors have a couple orders of magnitude faster traction response, very responsive to slip.

BUT
you would need winter tires, the low rolling resistance all season tires it comes with wont do the job as well as dedicated winter ones, you're more interested in grip than high speed mileage at those conditions.

That's much more important than the available AWD option, but that would be another feature to look into, two independent motors that can handle traction control for each set of wheels separately to better handle terrain.
 
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sounds cool. will have to go visit my brother in a few months when it rolls out and see it first hand
 
If you believe this, buy one. But any good engineer will tell you, you can't think of everything.
It can keep track of parking lots better than any human, yet still runs itself into a barrier at highway speeds.

Right now, we can play the numbers game with self driving cars (automated driving accounts for x accidents, human driving accounts for y accidents), but they make mistakes that no reasonable human paying a minimum amount of attention would make. As the tech improves, these kinds of things will get worked out, but I still don't think we're there yet. I'm not pessimistic enough to say we're 20 years out, but a good 3-7? Absolutely.
 
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