Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Auto Parallel Parking feature working for anyone?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
When you are parking on your own, you can make sure that the car is slightly in motion as you turn the wheel. I believe that's how we were all taught to drive. (Apparently, though, my mother-in-law has forgotten. We recently repaved our driveway, largely because of the new Tesla, and one of the instructions to keep it healthy a long time was to avoid turning the wheel of the car while not moving the car. My mother-in-law is having trouble with this! :) ) The Tesla, when auto parking, will turn the wheels without moving, which may be bad for both the tires and the power steering system. I actually haven't even tried the auto parking feature for this reason.
This plus the risk of curbing the wheels.
 
This plus the risk of curbing the wheels.

Have you curbed your wheels with auto-park?

My wife was in the passenger seat, and she was sure the car would curb the wheel as it was autoparking. But I watch it carefully when I use it, as I'm cautious about it hitting the curb, and it comes close, but so far (I've only used it less than a dozen times) it's never curbed.
 
I have only had one opportunity to use parallel parking. In Atlanta, it is not common. Two weeks ago I saw a large space on the street in front of my golf club. I followed the instructions, and after I was past the space I saw the P indicator. I put the car in reverse and pressed the autopark button. The car parked perfectly. A few seconds after the parking was completed, I heard a loud thud. A shanked golf ball from the first tee hit my car. Minor damage near the charge port. Repaired and covered by the kind golfer who admitted his responsibility.
 
I have only had one opportunity to use parallel parking. In Atlanta, it is not common. Two weeks ago I saw a large space on the street in front of my golf club. I followed the instructions, and after I was past the space I saw the P indicator. I put the car in reverse and pressed the autopark button. The car parked perfectly. A few seconds after the parking was completed, I heard a loud thud. A shanked golf ball from the first tee hit my car. Minor damage near the charge port. Repaired and covered by the kind golfer who admitted his responsibility.

Are the sensors capable of detecting a flying golf ball while parking? Kind of sounds like a design issue ;-)
 
This weekend, AutoPark impressed me with its ability to read parking space limits.

I was about to parallel park in a parking space that had an SUV parked in front, but behind it was a fire hydrant, then another parked car behind the hydrant. So the total space was really large, and I was surprised the AutoPark "P" symbol even came on.

So I engaged it, fully expecting that it would park about halfway between the parked cars, meaning the back end of my car would spill over the rear limit of the parking space and end up next to the fire hydrant.

To my great surprise, AutoPark ended up pulling up close to the SUV parked in front of my space, avoiding the fire hydrant altogether! My theory is that it was able to read the inverted T that is painted on the ground to define the limits of each parking space.

I took a picture of where I ended up parking, noting that I actually backed up a bit to give the parked SUV in front of me more space to back up and exit their spot. AutoPark had left me just about halfway between the two T's.


IMG_2194.jpg
 
This plus the risk of curbing the wheels.

This seems to be a common sentiment on this forum but I haven't actually heard of anyone saying that auto-park has actually curbed someone. Despite the oohs and aaahs, auto-parking is a commodity off the shelf technology that has been around for ever. Heck, even the 2016 Kia Optima has this as an option. As long as Tesla didn't try to re-invent the wheel, I would imagine that this is a well tested and bullet proof piece of tech that has been sourced from Bosch, mobile-eye or a similar vendor and is already available in tens of millions of cars on the road today.
 
While pulling straight into my garage the auto-park P appeared on the instrument panel. This while half way into the garage with my other car parked on the left and the wall of the garage on the right. I considered activating auto-park just to see what would happen but decided not to risk it.

Anyone else had this happen?
 
While pulling straight into my garage the auto-park P appeared on the instrument panel. This while half way into the garage with my other car parked on the left and the wall of the garage on the right. I considered activating auto-park just to see what would happen but decided not to risk it.

Anyone else had this happen?

I wonder if it would have tried to park behind the car to the left. Where was the P?
 
I wonder if it would have tried to park behind the car to the left. Where was the P?

Interesting thought. I had not thought of it wanting to park on the left.

The P was on the right side of the instrument panel.

I don't remember this happening before. I'll watch for it the next few times I pull into the garage to see if it happens again. If it does maybe I'll engage auto-park (with foot riding over the brake pedal) just to see what happens.
 
Today, I got it to work on a 2-inch high curb. Serious. It was amazing.

20151123_085250.jpg


It has gotten a lot better over time. On the first day, I was only successful 1/20 times to get it to P on a 6 inch blocky curb. I think the sensor are adequately "calibrated" now with some experience and works every time.

- K
 
I've now had the AutoPark work on snow-filled curbs - scared the heck out of me as I could hear what I thought was my wheel scraping along the curb but it was just the wheel going over snow beside the curb. The car parks uncomfortably close to the curb for me but I've learned to trust AutoPark (a little more than AutoPilot for now).