You Can Soon Walk Your Tesla Like A Pet — New Tesla Summon Features Coming

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

Tesla Summon isn’t new, but it’s getting better — and we might even say a tad creepier. There’s a mixture of exuberant thrill and a “this is creeping me out” feeling from progress with autonomous technology, and it appears that’s even the case with AI leader Elon Musk. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

First of all, the big news — Tesla Summon is getting much better in approximately 6 weeks, and that includes being able to drive to wherever* your phone is and even follow you down the street like a dog if you so wish. (Note: Get ready for another round of massive crowdsourced advertising for Tesla as owners take to the streets to play with the new feature and then throw the highlights onto YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.)

Think that “walking your Tesla” is the only hilarious thing Tesla owners will be doing? Think again.

That’s right — you will also get the largest remote-controlled car on the market if you have a Tesla with Summon. You will be able to drive the car around remotely with your phone as you wish.

We can pretty much bet on Tesla owners racing their cars around parking lots and skating rinks. The big question on many of your minds: Will a Model S P100D still be able to smoke a Tesla Model 3 Mid Range? (That’s obviously just a joke, as I assume the cars will all be limited to the same slow speeds while being remotely driven.)

Engineers working on Tesla advanced Summon pic.twitter.com/ZQYhoOxCye

— Akos Duna (@akosduna) November 1, 2018

Naturally, aside from the extra fun — which I’m convinced is just behind “save humanity” in Tesla’s overall mission — the new Summon feature should be quite useful for some owners. They can get picked up curbside in the rain via their ghostly driver. They can bring the car to themselves and their 3 wild kids rather than trying to get all of those kids across a busy street and through a crowded parking lot. And perhaps they can even “game the system” to avoid parking tickets while at work.

I was not sure when I would use this feature… till today. @elonmusk @tesla pic.twitter.com/bC6rFt2SuW

— DShawnK (@rarelyserious) October 31, 2018

Hmm.

Okay, maybe the first thoughts to come to mind following the news were not hosting a Model S P100D vs. Model 3 Mid Range race in a parking lot or tricking the parking police. However, chances are good you got a little tingle up your spine — a mixture of happy excitement and “OMG, creepy!” in your heart. you are not alone.

Before closing down shop, there was one more tweet about the new Summon features that clarified some of the tech behind the new abilities.

Elon clarified that, technically, you didn’t need to be near the car in order to control it with these features. The car could be controlled from “very far away.” The Tesla team simply put a invisible fence around the operational zone in order to — hopefully — keep things from getting out of hand.

Will some hackers get control of their cars from much further away by disabling some code in the Tesla firmware? I imagine you’d have to be a superb hacker to break through whatever security guards tesla has in place. That said, if it’s possible, I’d bet my money on a certain Jason getting it done. (And not just because it’s Halloween night.)

Btw, WTF is Elon doing rolling out this news on Halloween? Srsly?

*Naturally, Summon will not let you drive your car through a building, into a Maple View Farm ice cream shop to get you some ice cream, or over your neighbor’s laughing Halloween lawn toy. That’s sort of the point — Tesla has gotten the tech to the level where it can follow traffic rules and avoid a million and one potential problems without flinching, or at least with minimal flinching.

If you’re looking to buy a Tesla, appreciate my work, and need a referral code, here you go: http://ts.la/tomasz7234