You Can Now Summon Your Tesla From The Garage And In 2 Years It'll Drive Across The Country Alone

Elon Musk has announced that a new update available now for the Tesla Model S will allow your car to leave the garage under its own power. Furthermore, he reckons it'll only be a couple of years before you can summon your Tesla from across the country

Darren Cassey

11 Jan 2016

There’s been a lot made recently of Tesla’s autopilot feature. The Palo Alto-based manufacturer made a lot of fuss about the fact its autonomous driving cars would learn from their mistakes, feeding a central database to teach other cars how to drive specific sections of road. It was only ever designed to be used on motorways where only minor steering and speed adjustments might need to be made, but a few dumb people recorded themselves using it in ways they weren’t supposed to, forcing the scaling back of its capabilities.

Elon Musk is well behind autonomous technology, though, and hasn’t let this minor setback put him off his goal to make Tesla a maker of fully autonomous vehicles. He’s just announced that a new over-the-air software update is currently being streamed into owners’ cars. The latest upgrade adds a ‘Summon’ ability, which allows drivers to call their car from the garage.

Tap your phone or key and your car will open the garage door, exit, close the door and come to you. Will do same in reverse for unsummon.;— elonmusk

As with most of Tesla’s autonomous technology, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this; many manufacturers have offered cars that’ll park themselves for a while now, but being able to call your car to you without needing to be inside it adds an extra level of intrigue.

Musk claims that this is the first baby steps of the Summon technology, believing that you’ll be able to call your car to you across the country in the next couple of years.

In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY;— elonmusk

So basically, so long as you’re in the same country as your car, it’ll be able to come and get you, charging itself along the way if necessary. That’s a pretty huge deal, particularly for people who have to commute into the city every day. Just imagine driving to the office, sending your car home after you arrive, then calling it to come get you when you finish; it’d solve the huge problem of finding parking in overcrowded cities. Depending on how far laws progress, it could also eventually help reduce drink driving deaths by giving people contemplating taking a risk another option.

It’s tough for car guys and girls to see how quickly autonomous driving is advancing, but there’s no denying this technology is utterly fascinating. Here’s hoping the old fashioned car has a lot of life left in it yet…

Comments

Didn’t California start bitchin and make a law saying a person has to be in a car for it to be driving?

They are not bitching, they are right. Who will take consequences if that car kills someone? Or do some damage?

I would imagine the caveat is that you can only do this on private property right now. In the not to distant future, empty driverless cars will be everywhere. From a logical, non-petrolhead point of view, getting rid of the driver will actually be beneficial (as you’ve stated below). Doubt it’ll take long for lawmakers to catch up.

What happens is police trys to stop it?

“sir, does your car know why I pulled it over?”

Phone beeps Model S has detected a pursuit vehicle attempting to halt it. Initiating evasive maneuvers.

Man’s a legend.

A pioneer. Huge respect for Elon.

He’s one seriously intelligent man

This is just the Real Life equivalent of the GTA V mechanic.

Usually I oppose self-driving cars, but this is actually pretty cool. I don’t mind having a manually operated car that can also drive itself. And being able to summon your car from across the country is just awesome.