Does Autopark actually exist?

[bsd107]

Title says it all. 2020 Model 3 with FSD. I have never seen the Autopark icon show up, ever. I find it impossible to trigger...

 

[JulienW]

Many threads about how poor Auto Park is implemented by Tesla. My theory is we won't see any improvements in AP until it becomes part of the FSD neural net program.

 

[Twiglett]

It’s worth reading the manual about how auto park works.
Not trying to be funny.
You have to be going quite slowly for it to recognize a spot and offer the “P”, much slower than I drive when parking at least.

 

[raptor5244]

Yeah, from what I hear this feature is cumbersome to use. While you are navigating a crowed parking lot you are supposed to creep by available parking spots in hopes that the system will recognize them and if you get so lucky you have to wait for the car to park itself much slower than you can on your own.

 

[GPinzone]

Same.

 

[arghx7]

I just used it yesterday in a normal parking lot (not parallel parking). It's more of a party trick. You creep past a space that has two cars next to it, and you will see a "P" show up on your display, at least sometimes. I think you have to be going under about 10mph for it to show the "P". You put it in reverse and click on the screen to get it to back into the space. It will line up with the two vehicles, NOT with the parking space lines. So if one of the cars did not park straight, auto park will not park straight.

My understanding is that it is similar to other auto parking systems that other OEM's use, meaning that most of them aren't particularly good.

I don't think it's that slow, I'd say it's medium speed. It's not going to hop into a spot super quick but then again nothing FSD does is quick except slamming on the brakes.

 

[Knightshade]

You can trigger it if you follow the manual directions carefully- it's just usually not worth doing so as it's a slow process to trigger it, and even slower to actually park, while still requiring you to sit there in the car while it does it, and is still limited to only parking between 2 vehicles.

It's useful to show other people once, and that's about it.

 

[Haxster]

I agree with most of the others. It does have trouble recognizing parking opportunities. And the "P" is not obvious on the display (at least on the Model S).

IMO, it does a very good job parallel parking. (Unaware of it, my son-in-law, viewing from the sidewalk, complimented me on the excellent job. I admitted that it was the car; not me).

As far as backing into a spot, it has an even harder time recognizing an opportunity. And it takes a lot of trust to let it get uncomfortably close to other cars while it's doing its thing. I've used it a couple of times, more of a test of my blood pressure medicine than anything else.

 

[Chisale]

Where it really comes in handy is parallel parking which I don't do often enough to be good at. Then it's a snap. Yes, most parking is just a parlor trick to show your friends. Generally on regular perpendicular parking it just takes too long. By the time the car parks usually other drivers have come down your lane and are looking at you annoyed that you have been blocking the lot too long.

 

[jdcollins5]

A lot of the time the P does not show up but when I reverse it shows up. You have to go slow and close to the parked cars. The only drawback to me is that it does a two-point turn where I can do it in one turn. Other than that, it will center perfectly.

 

[dc121gw]

Something that may not be obvious is that the car completely ignores any stripes on the pavement. It only looks for a gap between cars, and then attempts to center itself between them. So if your parking neighbors were not careful, you can end up over the line. And the car will not try at all if there are two adjacent empty spots, or if the potential spot is bordered by a wall or other obstruction.

 

[Haxster]

Inspired by this thread, I tried back-in auto-park today at the local Office Depot. Between a low slung Ferrari and rather tall Rolls Royce, (actually a Prius and a non-de-script SUV), the back-up was smooth and uneventful. After pulling in, the car realized that it wasn't very well centered and so it did a little forward-backward wiggle to get centered.

I didn't like that the chipped old driver-side Prius door was close to mine, so I adjusted the car a little farther from the Prius. Maybe a little more parking A.I. could take care of this.

BTW, a similar issue in parallel parking. Rather than centering between two cars, if I can't get a front spot, I like to move the car slightly rearward. Drivers (especially without back-up cameras) can judge the distance to my rear bumper more accurately then my front. (This was especially true on my '87 Corvette).

Here's something to think about:
Auto-parking is fine for parking. But what about un-parking? Have you ever been squeezed between two cars with minimal space to wiggle out? Power steering and the tap-tap sound of bumpers helps wiggle out.

But what if the car could do this? Getting to within a fraction of an inch to each car while going maneuvering out while checking for traffic could be a pretty cool feature; especially for those who live in high density areas.

 

[Dan203]

There is a video of a guy on YouTube trying it out and his car actually parks with two wheels on the sidewalk. So it didn't see the curb at all. Luckily it didn't damage his wheels in any way.

This is why I didn't feel compelled to pay for FSD. Most of what it does seems to be more of a party trick then actually useful. At least right now. Since I'm only leasing I don't think I'll ever really get any benefit from it in the 3 years I'll have the car. Maybe by the time I'm ready for the next one it'll work well enough to actually be useful and I'll feel it's worth the extra cost.

 

[North75]

I use it quite often for parallel parking and find it works well. I used it this morning to parallel park on the left side of a one way street. Which is something I'm especially horrible at. You do have to be going kind of slow to get it to read the spots, but I typically know which spot I am going for and slow down right at the spot, so it isn't too bad.
I've used it for perpendicular parking a few times, but generally don't bother as it's easier to do that myself.