Tesla Summon Feature Updated, Making It Harder To Crash The Car

Following reports of Tesla’s Summon feature possibly going rogue (Tesla disputes this), it seems that the company has decided to ensure that such occurrences aren’t possible — by forcing those initiating Summon with the parking brake to select a direction through the car’s interactive display before exiting the car (if the feature is to engage).

The changes are being implemented through a new over-the-air software update, of course, showcasing yet again one of the real but often unrecognized advantages that Tesla holds over its rivals — if there’s a problem, all that the company usually has to do is send out an update.

Teslarati provides more:

Tesla began pushing a small software update which forces selection of the Summon direction prior to exiting the car when Summon is initiated by the Parking Brake. Though Tesla did not specify the reason behind the latest change, there’s little doubt this latest Firmware update is in response to the recent accident where a Tesla Model S allegedly drove itself into a parked trailer, causing $700 worth of damage to its windshield.

…As seen now in the screenshot from the software update, the driver must now select a Summon direction prior to exiting the vehicle, as it no longer defaults to Forward.

As mentioned at the start of the article, the version of events described by the Model S owner that complained about the Summon feature “going rogue” is one disputed by Tesla.

After analyzing the car’s logs, the company stated that it had determined that the accident was the result of “the driver not being properly attentive to the vehicle’s surroundings while using the Summon feature or maintaining responsibility for safely controlling the vehicle at all times.” And that the Summon feature “was initiated by a double-press of the gear selector stalk button, shifting from Drive to Park and requesting Summon activation.” (The Summon feature was initiated 3 seconds after the door closed, according to Tesla.)

Given that the Summon feature is currently in a Beta iteration, none of this should be too surprising.

Good that Tesla is constantly working to improve the technology — no doubt why it is now leading the pack, as far as the direction of the industry goes.

Image Credit: Teslarati/Michael Kidd