
Tesla Model S can now park itself - prostoalex
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/09/tesla-model-s-can-now-drive-without-you/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29#.xutgnk:vf2N
======
Animats
It's about time. Volkswagen had that in 2008.[1] Audi in 2012. Chevrolet in
2014.[2]

[1] [http://www.gizmag.com/volkswagen-demonstrates-fully-
automati...](http://www.gizmag.com/volkswagen-demonstrates-fully-automatic-
reverse-parking-system/9217/) [2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zh_5QGA1zw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zh_5QGA1zw)

~~~
sandworm101
BMW 2015
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDQxcvYzAog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDQxcvYzAog)

Honda 2013
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MjmRDIVxws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MjmRDIVxws)

Nissan 2014 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQZ-
UDY3lpQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQZ-UDY3lpQ)

Audi 2013
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt20UnkmkLI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt20UnkmkLI)

Lexus 2009
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ldLpPehy1k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ldLpPehy1k)
(TopGear)

~~~
sjburt
It's a bit difficult to tell from the videos, but it seems like the only one
of those that was a production vehicle was the Nissan, and there was quite a
bit of manual intervention (shifting into forward and reverse).

To be fair, I don't really understand the point of the Tesla feature either...
can it do anything but pull the car from right outside a garage to inside the
garage and vice versa?

~~~
tempestn
I don't own one, but one possibility that springs to mind is, if you wanted,
you could pack your garage with crap, leaving only a car-spaced hole. (You
know, like most people do, except for the hole.) Then you use this feature to
extract the car from the garage, without needing space to walk to it or open
doors.

I'm only partially joking. Our two-car garage is basically large enough for
two average size cars and.. that's about it. We prioritize parking over junk-
collection, but I could see the use. Of course in the winter, in some climates
at least, it removes one of the main benefits of the garage.

I guess one other benefit would be that you could always use your front door,
whether walking or driving, so your shoes and stuff could all be in one place.
Might be a minor advantage for some.

~~~
will_hughes
The Model S is a very large car, that makes it hard to fit in car parks in
buildings (apartments, offices, shopping centres).

I've seen more than one or two stories of Model S owners having to climb
in/out via the rear doors, because there's a pylon or wall in the way.

Having the car be able to pull out/park itself in those situations would
likely be a major win for some people.

------
Udo
When I took a test drive of the Model S recently, one thing that struck me
about the autopilot was that it's not (in my opinion) sufficiently clear what
mode the car is operating in at the moment. Semiautomatic mode should be a
glaringly obvious UI change, but instead it's just an icon. It reminds me of
certain fatal plane crashes that led to improvements in cockpit layout and
operation. Are we about to make the same mistakes with cars?

~~~
bsaul
Your comment made me realize it would be a great idea to provide external
signs as well, showing to people outside that the car is operating in
autonomous mode. It could be lights for examples, a bit like when the car is
going to move backward, only less powerful and with a different color.

This should also be standardized in a way across manufacturers.

~~~
cromulent
Absolutely. I would suggest that cars have two other standardised lights in
addition to turn signals:

a) Brake light on the front of the car

So that when you turn across traffic on a yellow light you can see that the
oncoming car is braking.

b) Thank-you light on the back of a car. Maybe blue.

We can already express displeasure, but wouldn't it be nice to express
pleasure with other road users.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _b) Thank-you light on the back of a car. Maybe blue._

I still wonder why those aren't popular:

[http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/d138/](http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/d138/)

Is there a regulatory reason against placing something like it behind your
rear windshield?

~~~
sandworm101
Blue in most jurisdictions is reserved for the police. Police are red-white-
blue but often just red-blue, fire/ambulance are red/white and service
vehicles are yellow.

I wonder if anyone here knows what purple lights are reserved for? A purple
light on a car is thing all drivers are meant to know.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I wonder if anyone here knows what purple lights are reserved for? A purple
> light on a car is thing all drivers are meant to know._

Apparently for anything, from funeral service to escorting oversized vehicles
to HAZMAT response to whatever you feel like - depending on which country you
live in :).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_vehicle_lighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_vehicle_lighting)

------
raldi
This is a pretty misleading headline.

    
    
        s/drive/park/
    

That said, self-parking ability is still a big deal. Imagine when, say, 35% of
the population gets them. You could have super-dense, extra-cheap parking lots
for self-parking cars only. They could be packed extraordinarily tight, with
no need for human valets.

Your car's boxed in all the way in the back? It'll just tell the ones in its
way to please get out for a moment. One car breaks down? That's probably rare
enough that you can move the ones around it and bring in a tow truck or human
driver.

~~~
sandworm101
Packed extra dense? They could no doubt shave a few inches here and there, but
the basics of parking remain.

(1) They would have to have lanes, else every car have to move every time
someone wanted out. And these lanes would have to be wide enough that the car
with the largest turning radius could still get out reasonably.

(2) There would still need to be some standard width for spaces, else a thin
car leaving would leave a 3-4' wide space that nobody else could fit into. And
a thin car moving into the gap left by a wide car wouldn't be very efficient.

(3) Accommodation would still be needed for humans/pedestrians to deal with
issues or rescue stuck cars.

(4) The new nightmare of the loading area outside stores as autodrive cars
line up like cabs at the airport pickup up passengers. At least in a parking
lot everyone can load/unload without forcing everyone else to wait.

(5) The fire safety rules would still apply. Deep in building codes are
provisions for exactly how much of various dangerous things are allowed inside
parking lots. A bunch of tightly-packed, battery packed, teslas in a big
concrete box is a firefighter's nightmare.

Imho far more space could be saved in north america if parking lots had better
accommodation for motorcycles. Everyone who rides a bike rather than drive a
car effectively saves 3/4 of a parking space if spots are made for them.

~~~
JshWright
> A bunch of tightly-packed, battery packed, teslas in a big concrete box is a
> firefighter's nightmare.

That's certainly moderately concerning, but I can assure you a firefighter's
nightmares are far darker...

~~~
yen223
Our current system of packing litres of gasoline in a tight space can't be any
safer, could it?

~~~
sandworm101
Those gas tanks are never very close together and are wrapped in about
100years of safety regulations. But it isn't the tank that catches fire. It
normally starts in the interior (cigarettes) or with an electrical problem in
the engine compartment. In that respect, electric car's aren't very different.

~~~
caf
This happened just the other day:

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-06/100-cars-destroyed-
in-...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-06/100-cars-destroyed-in-a-fire-at-
a-south-west-sydney-car-yard/7070162)

------
sriram_malhar
In a few years, you will tell your smart fridge, "buy a car". The fridge will
make the appropriate selection (a Volvo if you drink Organic milk etc.), make
the payment from the appropriate account (keep the Swiss account for another
day). In about 10 minutes, the car that now belongs to you drives itself to
your home, while you go out for a walk.

~~~
jrcii
Your scenario is reminiscent of Homer Simpson's recent quote: "Siri, tell
Amazon to drone me a beer." A drone carrying a beer immediately flies through
the window and drops it in his hand.

~~~
mintplant
I could see "tell X to Y" becoming a central UI pattern for future voice
interfaces, where the system's voice agent (Siri, Cortana...) forwards
arbitrary command Y to app/service X which is responsible for interpreting Y.

------
galago
This should be interesting. If I were in a Walmart parking lot facing an empty
car and it was trying to take a space, I would probably accelerate at it
assuming it would back off, since there's no one who cares. If everyone did
this, would it end with some parade of never-parking-Teslas that just drive
around the parking lot until their owner gets done shopping? That's not
necessarily a bad thing...but it would be a weird new aspect to parking.

~~~
Caprinicus
Nobody seems to have considered the possibility of actually driverless cars.
Would not be remotely legal, but interesting to consider them just aimlessly
driving city streets or looking for parking that it will never find.

~~~
galago
OK, say you're in Manhattan. Assuming a private car, instead of paying for a
garage, should it be acceptable to just leave an automated car driving around,
or instead, driving outward until it finds a public space? Would it result in
cheaper garages, or some other crazy problem?

~~~
hayksaakian
what if the cost of having my empty car wander the city is cheaper than paying
for parking?

will parking costs go down? will there be some laws forbidding this behavior?

~~~
mintplant
It seems to me that a completely empty car wandering the city would make a
more enticing target for theft.

~~~
sandworm101
More than an empty parked car? I'd bet a car doing 80 on the highway is harder
to rob than one parked in a lot.

~~~
VLM
Problematic questions would be raised about cars that redlined certain city
neighborhoods.

There is illegal robbery and legal robbery... once neighborhood redlining
became popular, you can guarantee cities would start raising revenue by
ticketing self driving cars caught cruising residential zones, entertainment
districts, etc. We have plenty of existing laws and case law against
"cruising". You can imagine the bug reports already "Your service failed to
inform my car that the sportsball team was having a game last night, placing
the stadium district under no-cruise law, so I got ticketed, towed, impounded,
and had to pay for a taxi home"

------
intopieces
>When Autosteer is engaged on a restricted road, Model S’s speed will be
limited to the speed limit of the road, plus an additional 5 mph.

This means the car is programed to break the law. Does this have liability
implications or is 5mph not enough to matter?

~~~
mikeash
It means the car _can be commanded_ to break the law by the driver. Which is
no different from any other car on the road. It's not just spontaneously
deciding the exceed the speed limit, it does so when the driver tells it to.

~~~
intopieces
Interesting. I suppose the questions everyone is asking are: Can we
extrapolate that liability to the 'driver' of a driverless car? By pressing
the 'on' button, are you commanding the vehicle to break the law should it do
so?

------
rayiner
Just had a very low visibility landing into BWI. Feeling thankful for
autoland, but also for the unimaginative FAA bureaucrats regulating it...

~~~
jon-wood
It's entirely possible let your pilot landed manually. All major airports have
detailed instructions on how to land there even in the case of zero visibility
at ground level. Basically you fly to a specific point at a specific heading,
altitude, and speed. Once there you follow the instructions stating you should
fly n seconds, then adjust, and repeat until you touch down on the runway.

~~~
mikeash
Pilots do not manually land without visibility. The procedure you describe
would result is a lot of airliner parts suddenly occupying the runway.

------
jakobegger
I expected a bit more from the much hyped Auto-Park feature. It seems that all
that the new "Summon" feature does is move up to 13m forward or backward in a
straight line.

I can imagine that there are some cases where this is useful, but in general
you'll still need to do that annoying 3-point turn yourself...

~~~
mikeash
It does steer a bit to avoid obstacles. If you have it go forward into a
garage, for example, it will center itself within as it goes.

The options for automatic parking while you're in the car are broader. It can
parallel park or reverse into a perpendicular space for you in that situation.

------
dschiptsov
This is actually very clever. Your car could drive itself in a sandbox before
stable technology has been evolved or even legislations on self-driven cars
were passed.

And of course now you could _really_ show off with that Summon feature before
all those losers.

This is what we call "clever".

------
ck2
I'm curious what happens when there are two dozens of these in an active
parking lot (or near each other on a highway) and they get false sensor echos.

Then one day there will be half a dozen brands with slightly different sensors
messing with each other via accidental interference and echos.

Public has no idea how this stuff works and starts putting a little too much
faith into it can lead to some horrible accidents.

------
sandworm101
Not exactly the batmobile / car on command I was hoping for. The 'driver' is
still responsible for the car's behavior. My standard for "without you"
remains either no person in sight, or the driver in the back seat sleeping off
a night at the bar.

~~~
Consultant32452
If they're releasing this to the public then the truth of the matter is that
the technology is "there" for driverless parking but the regulatory bits are
not. "There" in this case meaning the AI is less likely to get into an
accident than a human.

~~~
sandworm101
Have they said that? I don't see anything from tesla saying that these cars
are allowed to move without the driver watching. In fact Musk has made more
than a few statement denouncing the behavior of tesla owners who have let
their cars loose as unsafe.

~~~
TeMPOraL
The _technology_ is there. The car doesn't require a human watching it while
it moves. The government does.

~~~
Consultant32452
More specifically, even if the AI gets in only 50% of the accidents a human
driver would get into Musk simply cannot recommend relying on it until the
regulatory bodies determine he (or Tesla) is not financially responsible for
those accidents. We're still a ways off from that.

------
neximo4
Aren't there a number of cars that can already do this? I recall watching an
episode of Top Gear where the car parked itself while the driver was not in
it.

I only wondered what happens when it can't find parking?

~~~
pearjuice
The door will automatically open and a soothing, motherly voice will tell you
to please get back in the car and find an appropriate spot to park.

------
BinaryIdiot
I'm surprised there isn't any news from Tesla about this change. This is
pretty cool. Yeah, technically it is driving without you but that's a bit
misleading. Still really cool!

------
kevan
The pull into garage feature seems targeted towards people who have tiny
carports like you see everywhere in SF.

~~~
the-dude
Tiny? Watch this:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QksqWRqEfy0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QksqWRqEfy0)

~~~
flexie
Haha - wonderful :-)

More than 3 cm on each side is a waste of space :-)

------
lqdc13
I am actually happy it doesn't drive without the driver.

Not that I have a Tesla, but I would never want to own a performance vehicle
that drives without me. The whole point is to enjoy the experience.

They already took away engine noise and manual transmission. Now might as well
just have someone else drive you.

~~~
vvanders
If you've never driven a Tesla then you really have no idea what you're
talking about.

You know how you get the best 0-60 time on the P90DL? You take your foot and
kick the accelerator. Anything less and you lose 1-2 tenths of a second
because the car is already moving by the time your foot is halfway down.

Take a test-drive, I guarantee you'll be singing a different tune afterwards.

~~~
sandworm101
Telsas don't have launch control?

~~~
disillusioned
They do. As of last month. It helps a bit, but it's almost entirely
unnecessary.

~~~
mikeash
From the way the procedure works, it sounds like it's just a way to shave off
that delay from getting the pedal to the floor.

Launch control in a more typical car gets the engine to the best RPM and sets
everything up to transfer that energy to the wheels in the best way possible
without breaking traction. In a electric car with no clutch or transmission
where it's just a matter of sending the proper massive amounts of current to
the motors on command, there isn't much else needed.

~~~
sandworm101
From a standing start, an electric often needs to limit the power to the
motors else they start snapping parts. That certainly happened in the tesla
from day one. Then once the wheels are turning, launch control manages the
traction control settings to maintain maximum acceleration, perhaps allowing
for more/less slip than would be otherwise. It isn't as simple as just
powering the motors.

~~~
mikeash
Power limits apply to all driving, and that's why I said "proper" rather than
"maximum." For slip, there's a separate "slip start" setting that gives better
acceleration. There really isn't much else for launch control to do that you
don't get already.

