Cars and Drivers

Tesla Releases Ultra-Modern Parking Feature

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: November 1, 2018 4:50 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 3:33 pm

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) has released a new parking feature for some of its cars. Elon Musk took to Twitter to make an announcement instead of via press releases or media appearance.

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In a series of tweets, he wrote:

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

Presumably, RC stands for radio controlled.

When the feature was first announced two years ago, Tesla engineers wrote:

Last Fall, Tesla Version 7.0 software introduced a range of new Autopilot active safety and convenience features to give you more confidence behind the wheel, increase your safety on the road, and make highway driving more enjoyable. The release of Tesla Version 7.1 software continues our improvements to self-driving technology. This release expands Autopilot functionality and introduces the first iteration of Summon.

Using Summon, once you arrive home and exit Model S or Model X, you can prompt it to do the rest: open your garage door, enter your garage, park itself, and shut down. In the morning, you wake up, walk out the front door, and summon your car. It will open the garage door and come to greet you. More broadly, Summon also eliminates the burden of having to squeeze in and out of tight parking spots

As with other advanced Tesla features, drivers will need some time to see if it works.