S driver claims his parked car moved on its own and hit parked trailer

[ecarfan]

See Tesla Model S driver claims his car crashed into a trailer on its own, Tesla says ‘Summon’ was activated

Tesla says driver activated Summon on his parked car causing it to hit parked trailer in front of it. Driver says he didn't activate Summon and the car moved on its own while he was away from the car in a store.

It appears the S sensors could not detect the parked trailer bed because it was too high off the ground.

Hard to be sure where the blame lies here. I think possibly on both parties, but driver denies that he ever saw the car move after he parked it. Though clearly the car did move.

 

[Vitold]

Looks like summon is not using front camera - hopefully Tesla will enable it in the future.

 

[Skotty]

Looking at how Summon works, Consumer Reports says this:

To use the key fob [prior to the software upgrade], we held down the top button until the hazard lights went on, and then pressed either the front or the rear of the fob to move the car forward or backward. Pressing any button on the fob stopped the vehicle.

A new software upgrade to be deployed later this week will limit the Summon operation to the smartphone app and require the user to keep his or her finger on the phone screen—essentially operating it as a dead man’s switch. While you can’t initiate operation of Summon with the key fob—you can stop the vehicle moving by touching a button on the fob.

Source: Tesla to Fix Self-Parking Feature After Consumer Reports Raises Safety Concern

Does that all sound correct for the history of Summon?

If the operator has summon but not the software update mentioned by Consumer Reports, then I could see it being possible to "butt dial" the Summon feature from the key fob accidentally. If he did have the update, it sounds like it would be extremely unlikely to accidentally activate Summon with the dead mans switch approach.

I personally worry about what all a fob can control. I've "butt dialed" key fobs more than a few times (either unlocking, locking, activating panic alarm, or dropping all the windows) as there is no good solution to protecting the buttons in your pocket without making the fob difficult to use when not in your pocket. In my first 2 months with my S, I've already managed to pop the trunk once when exiting the car with the fob in my pocket.

 

[cgiGuy]

Dead man was provided as an option, but you can override it by accepting the risks. That is what most people probably do.

 

[Skotty]

Well I would totally use the dead man switch option and am very happy Tesla is providing that option, even though I don't currently own an autopilot model. I'm guessing the guy accepted the risks. The rest of you who have accepted the risks might double think whether or not you want to accept the risks if you have ever inadvertently triggered fob buttons in your pocket. Having your car inadvertently wander around the parking lot is a highly undesirable thought.

 

[cgiGuy]

I triggered the "windows down" option back in the early days of the Model S, but it would take a special kind of contorting to press and hold the middle FOB button and then press the trunk/frunk button while in your pocket. But not impossible, I guess. My recommendation would be to lose the skinny jeans.

 

[zambono]

Tesla has the logs, burden of proof now falls on owner and it's just his word. Tesla probably knows if it was activated via phone or fob

 

[Denarius]

Tesla logs show that he pressed the parking stalk twice, which activated auto park, it was not an accidental key fob press.

 

[Maximus8]

Tesla logs show that he pressed the parking stalk twice, which activated auto park, it was not an accidental key fob press.

If that's the case, he would have clearly seen an alert on the center stack screen notifying him to the summon feature being initiated. This is definitely something Tesla can use as another data point to improve the features. I work in the IT support space and it's common to hear end users claiming the "machine did something." It is never the fault of the user. I see this incident as another example of what I believe to be end user error...good news, no one was hurt.

 

[chillaban]

Tesla logs show that he pressed the parking stalk twice, which activated auto park, it was not an accidental key fob press.

I think it's probably worth noting that this particular AutoPark feature can be unintuitive for those who haven't carefully read the manual. If you double-tap the Park button then immediately get out of the car without touching anything, *by default* it will have activated AutoPark to pull the car forward (forward is the default direction of movement).

Of course, both LCD screens will have switched to the AutoPark UI and if you were paying attention to the dash and the car chiming, you would be clued into the fact that the car is going to autopark.

However, even I must admit, the first time I activated that UI was by accident, and my assumption was that the car was going to wait for me to tap forward or reverse, and if I did nothing, the car would cancel and not autopark.


IMO you should have to tap a big OK button or something on the screen before getting out. Don't get me wrong, I still think this is a good feature, but I think the UI could use a little tweaking too. Note that other folks on the forum have made similar mistakes in the past: Disable auto park on double tap

 

[ecarfan]

Tesla logs show that he pressed the parking stalk twice, which activated auto park, it was not an accidental key fob press.

Where did you read that? I've read the Electrek article three times and I do not see anything about Tesla saying the driver activated AutoPark.

That article says that Tesla stated the following:
"Tesla has reviewed the vehicle’s logs, which show that the incident occurred as a 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,"

So according to Tesla the driver was using Summon, not AutoPark.

The car appears to be on a street, close to and parallel to a curb.

 

[msnow]

Tesla logs show that he pressed the parking stalk twice, which activated auto park, it was not an accidental key fob press.

Is this speculation? I didn't read that in the article.

 

[mikeash]

The original article (which the Electrek article links to) has a statement from Tesla that Summon was activated by double-pressing the Park button: Man says Tesla car started on its own, crashed into trailer | KSL.com

 

[cman8]

he needed a Dashcam installed

 

[Skotty]

Interesting. So double clicking the park starts auto-park, and it works automatically after getting out? If so, I see that as a problem. People are going to occasionally double click the park button by accident. There needs to be a stronger confirmation. What is the time delay for a double click to be registered? That plays into this as well.

 

[liuping]

Interesting. So double clicking the park starts auto-park, and it works automatically after getting out? If so, I see that as a problem. People are going to occasionally double click the park button by accident. There needs to be a stronger confirmation. What is the time delay for a double click to be registered? That plays into this as well.

It chimes and displays a message on the dash and a large image on the center console immediately when you double tap the park button.

It starts parking fairly soon (less than 10 seconds) after all you exit the vehicle and the door is closed, so if he stood around talking about the car as described, it definitely should have started moved before they left.

 

[chillaban]

Interesting. So double clicking the park starts auto-park, and it works automatically after getting out? If so, I see that as a problem. People are going to occasionally double click the park button by accident. There needs to be a stronger confirmation. What is the time delay for a double click to be registered? That plays into this as well.

It chimes and displays a message on the dash and a large image on the center console immediately when you double tap the park button.

It starts parking fairly soon (less than 10 seconds) after all you exit the vehicle and the door is closed, so if he stood around talking about the car as described, it definitely should have started moved before they left.

I 100% agree with both of you, and I've sent an email to Tesla with my feedback that the feature should require more user input (even just tapping forward vs reverse and not defaulting to forward).

It definitely starts parking pretty soon after you get out (definitely less than 20 seconds the guy claims), and also, before you exit, you get distinctive chimes and both screens switch to the Summon/Autopark UI. There are plenty of visual cues that clue you into what the car is going to do. However, they're also very easy to ignore/misunderstand if you are unfamiliar with the car, or if you were in a hurry.

 

[Skotty]

The question is whether or not the chimes and prompts are sufficiently obtrusive. There's a chime and prompt for not having the key in the car, but that didn't stop my wife from driving off without the key one day resulting in a later incident. The key thing is relatively minor, but auto-park actually moves the car and it needs to be nearly impossible to go unnoticed.

 

[mikeash]

I'm betting that this fellow didn't quite close the door all the way when he get out. After he was done talking, then he noticed it wasn't properly latched and closed it fully, then immediately left, allowing Summon to do its work alone. It would be easy not to remember that this happened afterwards.

 

[zambono]

If the double tap can be activated accidentally like many have posted and the user did leave without knowing or realizing I think Tesla should handle the repair since it's Beta. If we are going to be guinea pigs and the UX allows for mistakes they need to cover the possible outcomes.