
Summon Your Tesla from Your Phone - nbaksalyar
https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/summon-your-tesla-your-phone
======
aresant
"Summon"

Great word - evokes both magic and privilege in one fell swoop.

They just nail the language in their communications.

~~~
untog
Just seems like a straightforward use of language to me. What other word is
even applicable?

~~~
dsp1234
Tesla Recall

Tesla Direct

Tesla Mobilize

Tesla Hail

Tesla Greet

Tesla Whistle

And that's just looking at synonymns of summon and hail without doing any
thinking

~~~
untog
Out of those, Direct, Mobilize, Greet, Recall and Whistle are far, far more
ambiguous (with multiple meanings) than Summon. Hail is associated with taxis.
If you put them all in a list it would take all of five seconds to realise
that Summon is the best option.

~~~
TheBiv
That's assuming that someone would be looking at a list like that and not
doing what Microsoft or other companies do where they make up their own term
for features/products

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
Now introducing Nissan FetchDrive Plus Connect, a subfeature of CarWings ®
Nissan Motor Corporation.

------
FullyFunctional
"Eventually, your Tesla will be able to drive anywhere across the country to
meet you, charging itself along the way."

In there lies perhaps a hint at a business opportunity/solution to the renter
problem: Tesla charging garages and comes to pick you up when you are ready to
go.

We certainly live in a Sci-fi movie.

~~~
kcorbitt
Or, a platform for people to rent out their own driveways for migrant EVs to
pull in and (pay for a) charge during the day.

~~~
wahsd
Or simply a car club where you simply summon _a_ Tesla (or any other brand)
vehicle for transportation. I really don't even want to own a car. I would
rather just call a car that will look like any of the other cars in the
uniform fleet that will always be clean and smelling nice that I then get into
and it takes me to my destination and then goes off to pick up someone else.

I think Uber and Lyft and the established industry will start gearing up for a
war for your transportation needs. If the Auto industry is smart and has
learned something (which I really still need to be convinced of), they will
start/are working on such a shared use fleet model because one way or another,
in the future no one is going to own their own car. it's simply far too
inefficient if the vehicle can drive itself. Why would you want a vehicle that
sits idle 90% of the day?

~~~
jeffwass
"Why would you want a vehicle that sits idle 90% of the day?"

Some reasons I want my own car (note - I don't currently own one but rent
occasionally) :

\- My kids' car seats are already installed and ready to go

\- My phone is already connected to the sound system, and ready to take calls,
with contacts and built-in SatNav already knowing my home and work.

\- The car has the Accessories I prefer. Eg, the sound system I want with
Bluetooth connectivity, built-in DVD player, seating (leather vs cloth vs
vinyl) with the right amount of space and recline movement.

\- I'm familiar with all controls. How to set all lighting, interval wipers,
and know how to set the climate control, and quickly defog.

A uniform fleet addresses the 4th point only. Maybe the 3rd point if my
preferences happen to align with the fleet's administrators.

As a user of ZipCar for quick trips and traditional car rentals for longer
trips, these are general points of annoyance for me.

~~~
mrgordon
I imagine you'd be able to pick from a few options as far as car type goes and
then get a driverless car of that type. Once you knew which cars you like,
then you could set it as a default option or something. Driverless cars would
eliminate your concern about most of the controls anyway.

It'd be easy enough to have a car seat option as Uber does:
[https://newsroom.uber.com/nyc/uberfamilyfor-parents-on-
the-g...](https://newsroom.uber.com/nyc/uberfamilyfor-parents-on-the-go/)

Anyway, interesting to see your list of annoyances from real world usage of a
car sharing service!

~~~
secabeen
The issue then becomes this: "uberFAMILY provides one forward-facing car seat
for a child who is at least (a) 12 months old AND (b) 22 lbs. AND (c) 31
inches. A child is too big at 48 lbs. or 52 inches."

What if you need two car seats, or if your kid is outside those parameters?
You still need a seat. Likewise, adding these options can add significant
delay to your getting a car. Most people are used to transportation being
_reliable_. When you step out of your home or office, your car is _there_ ,
ready to go. Having to wait an extra 15 minutes for the car to show up is not
what most people want to do.

I think car-sharing services will change things, quite a lot, but I don't
think it will eliminate private car ownership. Most families will own one
"family car" for road trips, etc, etc.

------
jonathankoren
What I want is my car to go park it self on the street. And then come back and
pick me up. Parking is the main reason I hate driving in San Francisco.

Turning the car in to an Uber doesn't work for me. I don't want someone
spilling something all over the seats.

~~~
icc97
You could just tell it to drive around the block a few times even if there
isn't a parking space.

~~~
Balgair
Dear God, I can see it now. The traffic becoming even more nightmarish as 280
is filled with cars aimlessly driving about for their masters. A child looks
out into the now fume free parking lot that is the 101 merge and sees nothing
but empty cars, bumper to bumper, for miles. She asks her mother, why are all
the ghosts driving their cars today mummy? But her mother just left the girl,
in lieu of a babysitter, in the car while she got her hair did.

~~~
jonathankoren
You and I have similar ideas about the future. ;)

------
startupfounder
This is the Uber/Lyft/Taxi killer.

Imagine paying $2-4 for a ride in a Tesla for what used to cost you $25-$30 in
an Uber or cab.

97% of the cost of an Uber ride goes towards paying the driver, fuel and Uber
fees, 3% (or less) goes towards the lease costs.

A Tesla lease is only ~$0.73/hour ($~12,000/yr), including recharging.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _This is the Uber /Lyft/Taxi killer._

Uh, what is?

This shows a car automatically backing in and out of a garage. I think it's a
stretch to call it "summoning" your car, let alone an automated, self-driving
taxi system. Yet you think _this_ is the Uber killer?

I don't understand why people act like everything Tesla does is positively
earth-shattering. Ford has had software to parallel park your car for, oh,
about 5 years. That seems a lot more practical than standing outside and
having your car pull out of the garage for you, but that's just me. I don't
even understand the use case for this, unless your garage is so narrow you
can't open the car door.

~~~
mapmap
_Eventually, your Tesla will be able to drive anywhere across the country to
meet you, charging itself along the way._

While I applaud their ambition, that statement certainly escalated quickly
from autonomously leaving a garage.

~~~
achamayou
Early demos of speech recognition software come to mind.

There's quite a big difference between a nice demo in controlled conditions
and a serious replacement for a cumbersome, thought to be obsolete, but
ultimately irreplaceable entity like a keyboard or a human driver.

As a driver, I really hope they make good on their claims. But they're not
even close at the moment.

------
VikingCoder
I'm sure many of you also dreamed of being Michael Knight, summoning KITT with
his watch.

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BxHbwy5CMAAk8eA.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BxHbwy5CMAAk8eA.jpg)

If you're looking for a cool novel with self-driving vehicles featured
prominently in it, I highly recommend "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez. It's a
techno-thriller written by an actual software security expert, where a
computer virus takes over the world. Everyone I've recommended it to has
enjoyed it. (EDITED for clarity.)

~~~
TY
"Daemon" and its sequel "Freedom TM" were awesome, totally support the
recommendation. Small nitpick, the software that took over the world (a form
on narrow AI, think scripting on steroids) was developed by a genius game
developer (in my head looking totally like John Carmack) not a security
expert.

~~~
VikingCoder
Sorry, I meant to say the author of the NOVEL is a security expert.

And I dare say, the developer of the Daemon virus proved he was a security
expert, too.

SPOILERS:

I ended up thinking of the Daemon not so much as an AI, but as an OS, with
very many sub-programs hard-coded into it... But for the most part, I thought
what made Daemon so smart, and the novel so compelling, was how much it relied
on humans to help it achieve its goals and make decisions. The depiction of
how people banded together to make the Burning Man, for instance. The OS
_allowed_ that, and exposed APIs that made that _possible,_ but the decision
to actually make it and the morality encoded into it were created by humans,
after Sobel had died. I guess I end up seeing the Daemon not so much as an AI,
but as a sufficiently well-designed Chinese Box, with very capable humans
inside. (Some willingly, some blackmailed.)

------
ohitsdom
This use case seems very strange. Why would I want to get out in my driveway
when it's more convenient to park it myself in my garage? I'm covered by any
rain, and my front door is locked (whereas the door from my garage into my
house is usually unlocked).

~~~
prawn
It's an early step towards more:

Your car has dropped you at work and returned home to avoid CBD parking fees.
You then summon it to pick you up and drive you home.

You've arrived back from holiday and summon your car to the airport to pick
you and the family up.

You are parking your car(s) in the garage so tightly that you can no longer
open the doors while inside.

The car is parked a few blocks away and you want it to come and get you from
the restaurant where you've just finished dining.

~~~
bjt
> Your car has dropped you at work and returned home to avoid CBD parking
> fees. You then summon it to pick you up and drive you home.

I sure hope this doesn't become the norm. That is double the number of trips
clogging the roads.

~~~
prawn
Only for people who insist on owning their own car and avoiding paid parking.
For the majority, the car will drop you at work and re-join the pool of cars
available for use by those going in the other direction or park in a cheaper
place a suburb away, or be available for courier work or whatever else.

------
sandworm101
Have any of these cars ever gotten stuck? Accidents are one thing, but has a
car ever been able to traverse a great distance (10+km of public roads) with
the 99.9999% reliability such a product would require?

You call the car. It leaves the garage and starts heading to you. Then
something comes up, something like a construction zone or other odd situation.
Or perhaps the car breaks down. So the car is now stopped and alone. You're
sitting by the road five miles away and the car is parked blocking traffic
somewhere. Who comes to help? AAA? Wil it fight back if someone tries to tow
it away? Or push it onto the shoulder to free up the lane? I doubt the general
public would have much sympathy for the guy who's tesla is blocking an
intersection because he didn't want to pay for parking and/or bother walking
to the car himself.

I cannot see drivers using this garage/parking trick very often. It's just too
slow.

~~~
squeaky-clean
Reading the article, it sounds like the car isn't expected to travel more than
10 meters or so right now.

>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

So from your garage to the street, or from a parking spot to out of, but
adjacent to, the parking spot. Not from your home to your workplace.

~~~
sandworm101
Today. But Tesla and Musk have every intention to expand the range. What we
have now is just a gimmick, a trick that drivers will quickly bypass once the
novelty wears off. people want/expect much more very soon.

~~~
jonknee
Autonomous cars will be all over in a few years, I'm sure we'll survive an
occasional breakdown or detour much like we do now.

~~~
gambiting
I'm not seeing anything that would suggest they are that close. Automatic,
assisted driving on motorways, or very very well mapped out cities - sure. But
autonomous where you can go to sleep on the back seat or indeed summon a car
to you? Probably 50 if not 100 years away. And not only because of technical
problems.

~~~
pmx
The wright brothers made the first heavier than air human flight 113 years
ago. Look what we can do now! First mobile phone call was 43 years ago and now
we have such advanced tech that making calls is almost an afterthought. Once
tech gets a grip its momentum is huge.

~~~
gambiting
40 years ago we thought(well,some of us did) that accurate image recognition
is a matter of few months of work, at most. It's 2016, and our most advanced
image recognition software can't tell a zebra and a sofa in a zebra print
apart. It's an insanely difficult problem. We can't even do voice recognition
completely right. Automatic cars rely on that exact type of challenge -
recognising patters accurately. I'm sure in certain settings they work
exceedingly well. Spectacularly even. But to be safe for human transportation,
they need to be 100% accurate. Not 90% or 95% accurate. They need to work in
snow, rain, when a huge sinkhole appears in the ground or an infant walks into
the road. They need to consider legal, moral and ethical implications lest
they be allowed on the road - is it allowed to hit a pedestrian to save 4
passengers? Is it allowed to hit 4 pedestrians to save 1 passenger? Can you at
any time take manual control? If yes, how do you regulate insurance? If no,
how do you tell the car that you want it in _that_ particular spot and not any
other, be it your garage or a middle of a clover field?

Yes, there already is software that can drive safely on lit, dry roads, while
there is a human behind a steering wheel tracking its every move. But I still
believe we are at the very least a few decades away from fully autonomous
vehicles.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its not at all clear that the bar is that high. Humans that fail to meet that
bar spectacularly are let on the road every day by the millions.

Its more an economic issue than a moral/technical one.

~~~
gambiting
I actually met plenty of people who say "oh, they just need to have less
accidents than humans and we are good".

No, that's absolutely not true. For the most recent example - someone made a
raspberry Pi controlled insulin pump. Insulin is actually incredibly dangerous
to humans if you get the dose wrong, so making an insulin pump based on
hardware that does not conform with highest safety standards is just not
acceptable. You know what the person behind it said when it was pointed out to
them? That it doesn't matter, because raspberry Pi is still going to kill less
people than the number of those who die through incorrect injections due to
tiredness or simple mistakes. That's absolutely incorrect - even if such
machine lowered the overall number of deaths due to incorrect insulin
injections, no one would ever allow it on any market ever. No company would
ever get its way out of "poor hardware choice lead to death of Mr. Smith" by
saying "hey, but actually, our machine kills less people than would die
naturally due to similar causes each year, so you can't hold us accountable,
right??".

To me, it's the same with automatic cars - they cannot merely "have less
accidents than humans". They need to have 0 accidents or they won't be
acceptable. That's why the bar is high. If you are in a situation where a
choice is between hitting a pedestrian or running under a semi and possibly
killing everyone in your car, no one is going to blame you for doing either -
our primitive brains probably are going to go with whatever seems most logical
at the moment, you can blame anything on adrenaline. Computers don't have that
luxury. They need to make a calculated choice - and then whoever makes
them(the computers) has to live with that choice. The computer chose to hit
the pedestrian - now the company who wrote its code is being sued for millions
- no matter how they frame it, that's not a situation anyone wants to be in.
Of course I'm going off into theoreticals here, since we don't actually have
this problem yet. But I am sure it will become an actual problem and it will
need to be solved one way or another before widespread adoption.

------
sremani
As much as I love TSLA, they always time their announcements a bit cynically.
Summon is great and awesome, but as a task itself is a very niche utility
unless it can park itself lets say in malls or in public spaces. The real
story is they want to be in News cycle esp. with Detroit Auto Show going on
now and more and more mainstream Automakers getting the plugin religion.

The bigger news is the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica PHEV, which is more of a game
changer from impact perspective.

edit: Also who is going to plugin the Car, if it self-parks?

~~~
grecy
> _unless it can park itself lets say in malls or in public spaces_

It can:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic8T-kUbaRM&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic8T-kUbaRM&feature=youtu.be)

~~~
sremani
I was talking about Ability to use Summon in Malls and Public spaces.
Perpendicular parking has been around esp. in Luxury vehicles for a while.

------
jetskindo
When you miss a payment, the car will go back to motherbase.

~~~
creativityhurts
And then you can just summon it by paying from your phone.

------
ck2
Very, very slowly.
[https://youtu.be/9yqDWVLx35I](https://youtu.be/9yqDWVLx35I)

And note how of course the car cannot anticipate the lip of the garage needing
slightly more momentum to overcome like a human driver would.

But it is a start and I'd buy a Model X in a heartbeat if I won the powerball,
lol

~~~
stcredzero
_And note how of course the car cannot anticipate the lip of the garage
needing slightly more momentum to overcome like a human driver would._

Terrain scanning, a software upgrade, and the instant torque available to
electric motors could probably solve that.

------
adanto6840
This is really cool, and is obviously intended to be just the beginning of
something that could be really amazing.

I suppose this is mostly just Tesla wanting to "beta" test the technology &
collect some data to work with for future optimization...

I just don't see the practicality in this specific functionality that they're
rolling out -- sure, it's neat, and I'm sure many of us would love to show it
off to our friends for the wow factor.

But right now, you pull in the driveway, and tell your Tesla to park in the
garage. It opens the garage & parks. Now what? You've got to follow the car
into the garage & plug it in to your wall-attached charging cord.

Same thing when you leave the next day -- you've got to unplug the cord before
you summon it to the driveway ~20 feet away...

Neat for sure, though. ;-)

~~~
cjcole
Hence the snakebot:

[https://my.teslamotors.com/sv_SE/forum/forums/snakebot-
autom...](https://my.teslamotors.com/sv_SE/forum/forums/snakebot-automatic-
charging-cable-prototype)

'Without the snakebot, you can still summon your car from garage but it has to
be unattached, unplugged.

With the snakebot, it will disconnect the charging cable automatically for you
when you summon your car.'

------
doughj3
Is this the first car that will now drive itself, however small a distance,
without anyone sitting in the driver's seat?

~~~
kornish
Well, via software. There have certainly been remote-controlled cars in the
past.

------
brianbreslin
Now we just need those automated snake arm chargers [1] or giant floor
induction charging.

[1] [http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/211865-check-out-this-
sca...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/211865-check-out-this-scary-
robotic-arm-charger-for-the-tesla-model-s)

------
tbabb
I wonder how city congestion will be affected by thousands of empty cars
driving around a few years from now.

~~~
gotothrowaway
I wonder how long before New York City walkers realize they can safely cross
in front of Teslas without worrying about getting hit.

~~~
abruzzi
I've been wondering, when we get to the point that there is a mix of
autonomous and human driven vehicles on the road, if we will see the human
driven vehicles start to game the autonomous vehicles' collision avoidance
systems? For example, the main reason not to cut off traffic is because the
driver might not react quickly enough (ok, the other reason is no to be a
jerk.) but with autonomous vehicles, human driver may be able to become
significantly more aggressive, knowing that the autonomous vehicle will get
out of the way.

(As a side note, I wonder how autonomous vehicles will handle lane splitting
motorcycles? They get pretty close to the cars to either side.)

~~~
jonknee
The autonomous car could automatically send the video and sensor data of
illegal human driving behavior to the appropriate authorities. It seems pretty
stupid to drive dangerously around a car that's recording so much information.

~~~
daveloyall
Did you just suggest that these drones should be programmed to record our
activities and report them to the police?

------
joeyspn
Really cool, but it's worrying the increasing capabilities that bad actors
will have at their disposal if they get access to your mobile device... Why
not use a single purpose device instead of a phone for this?

~~~
troycarlson
1\. I don't want a single purpose device for every connected device I own.

2\. I don't want my phone to be the single point of failure for every
connected device I own.

Both alternatives get worse as you connect more devices. Somebody will need to
think of a high-level solution to this problem (most likely Apple) for more
granular access control of connected devices from your phone.

------
stcredzero
Just the ability to have it pull out or back into tight parking spaces is
worthy all by itself.

------
Keyframe
I thought it was still a far-fetched concept when I saw this video 3 years
ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt20UnkmkLI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt20UnkmkLI)

------
jason_slack
am I the only one thinking about the old tv show "Knight Rider"
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083437/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083437/)

~~~
usrusr
You are not alone. Was about time that somebody invented a legitimate reason
to wear a smartwatch.

~~~
jason_slack
I feel like Elon is Amazing. He is taking our boyhood dream (at least mine)
and making them a reality. How many of us wanted a Knight Rider car and to
goto space and enjoyed racing our matchbox cars as fast as possible.

Now, if he would just answer my e-mail on if he is planning a USS Enterprise
style existence for us. I'd volunteer to empty the trash just to be on board.

------
an4rchy
If/When Tesla achieves a full self-driving car, I feel like the Uber's of the
world would go bankrupt (perhaps a little drastic). Tesla can just as easily
cut out the middleman and create the complete experience.

------
OopsCriticality
Can anyone speak to the limitations for the tight spot the car will park into?
Could there be a situation where the spot is tight enough that you can't get
into the driver's seat?

~~~
frogpelt
And are people really going to park their $130k car in a spot that tight?

------
joshuaheard
Wouldn't this be true of all self-driving cars eventually? I mean, no one has
fully contemplated all of the possible applications of self-driving cars, this
being one of them.

------
mtgx
Wait until someone _else_ will summon _your_ Tesla from their phone!

How strong will the security be for this?

~~~
FullyFunctional
The iPhone and Android app has been out for many years. It currently relies on
a password (1FA), but I haven't heard about it being exploited.

------
Arnor
Accio Tesla

------
hyperbovine
What happens when this runs over somebody's dog? (Or worse...) Sure, they have
safeguards in place, but systems fail. It's like they have never heard the
term "liability" before.

~~~
prawn
Their entire job, every business hour, is dedicated to pushing the future of
driverless cars. Do you seriously think they've not considered liability
implications and safeguards, something you commented on in your spare time? Do
you honestly think that they haven't considered these sorts of things in great
depth?

~~~
hyperbovine
The fact that no startup has failed, ever, clearly illustrates your point that
thinking about things in great depth, during every business hour, is a perfect
safeguard against failure. For my part, I think the hype surrounding
driverless cars has gotten way ahead of where the technology actually is.
Also, there is a strong undercurrent of "laws which interfere with my product
launch are stupid" (cf. Uber, AirBnb) suffusing the valley, and this move by
Tesla definitely has an element of that.

~~~
prawn
You've missed my point. I'm pitting their vast team of dedicated professionals
against you as an armchair pundit who doesn't think they've considered
liability or accidents.

