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
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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.

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.

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…

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Comments

dewie93

As long as you can still take 100% manual control and drive yourself if you want, I genuinely can’t say a bad thing about it. I’d prefer to sit and have my car drive me across the country than fly. Find an awesome mountain road on the way, back to manual and HOOON with that 700+bhp

01/12/2016 - 01:12 |
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[ Insert Name Here ]

Tesla us starting to scare me…

01/12/2016 - 01:34 |
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Paul Guillemette

When I see this… one thing come to mind: Ex-Driver. a japanese manga/anime about 3 young people, who have the task of catching up runaway autonomous driving cars with old school jewels (Impreza WRC, Lotus Europa, Lotus 7, Lancia Stratos). And… these guys are pretty much the only one that know how to drive. Hopefully we’re not going towards that!

01/12/2016 - 01:46 |
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Anonymous

When youre waiting for your car to come at a friend’s place:

‘ damnit tesla, you had one job!!’

01/12/2016 - 03:12 |
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Anonymous

Car thieves and car chases will be a thing of the past soon enough.
Enjoy them while you can :)

01/12/2016 - 07:46 |
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Anonymous

Don’t trust a car that drive itself, kids! It’ll snatch you in yer sleep one day and freakin’ kill ya!

01/12/2016 - 11:08 |
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Anonymous

Treat your Tesla right or she is going to run away from you while you sleep

01/12/2016 - 15:48 |
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Anonymous

well, as much as i love all these new features, isn’t it possible, that hackers could get your car to drive right to them and, well, like “steal themselfs” so when you’re comming home you’ll be like “Dude, where’s my car?”

01/12/2016 - 16:21 |
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