MASTER THREAD: all Smart Summon-related posts go here

[Daniel in SD]

In his video, the curbing happened more or less concurrently with his having lost line of sight with the car. It also did help that the person doing the Summoning was not the person with their eyeballs on the car. There's a lot of lost time with the chain of "oh my, the car is in a dangerous spot. Better shout." leading to "Ah, I have heard a shout. I shall now remove my thumb from the button".

It does look like the person doing the summoning probably had their view obstructed by the tree right when it hit the curb. Finding appropriate parking lots for testing is tricky! You'd also have to have quick reflexes to prevent the first collision with the curb. A good thing about these videos is that hopefully they provide people with information about where not to use Smart Summon. The big problem I see is that there are many videos out there showing successful uses of Smart Summon in situations where it shouldn't be used. The very same scenario shown in this video might even work the majority of the time and someone seeing that might get the false impression that it was a proper use of Summon.

 

[Daniel in SD]

I struggle to comprehend how in house testing suggests fully autonomous driving will be ready this year, when there are so many problems with something as ‘relatively’ easy as Smart Summon

It will only be "feature complete" this year, that doesn't mean it will work well. Robotaxis will be ready by the end of next year.

 

[DopeGhoti]

I struggle to comprehend how in house testing suggests fully autonomous driving will be ready this year

It may not be ready this year, but I imagine it will be ready before the end of 2019. Days.

 

[Petrocelli]

I still fail to see how Smart Summon is a useful application. By the time the car figures out how to get to you (assuming it doesn't hit something like a curb), you could have walked to the car several times and back.

 

[DopeGhoti]

I still fail to see how Smart Summon is a useful application. By the time the car figures out how to get to you (assuming it doesn't hit something like a curb), you could have walked to the car several times and back.

You could have, and I could have, but my hypothetical 97 year old great-grandmother who insists on using a walker and doesn't like being alone would probably (after all, since she's hypothetical, I get to speak to her state of mind) prefer me to stand at her side as the car pulls up.

 

[Economite]

See Tesla owners are already doing dumb things with 'Smart Summon' - Electrek

Let’s all try to use some common sense when activating Smart Summon.

What circumstances would you consider to be "ok" for activating smart summon using "common sense"? Frankly, I'm not seeing any circumstances where it is as safe as just driving the car. Additionally, it inconveniences all the other drivers in the lot.

 

[DopeGhoti]

What circumstances would you consider to be "ok" for activating smart summon using "common sense"? Frankly, I'm not seeing any circumstances where it is as safe as just driving the car. Additionally, it inconveniences all the other drivers in the lot.

Well, a lot of the people trying it out are taking great pains to only do so in empty lots. So what other drivers are being inconvenienced?

It also would be interesting to know some (of the absolutely unknowable) statistics of how many people are using it without juggling a cell phone and a camera / accomplice at the same time, have no interest in posting things, and are just using it, and how, and how often they panickedly stop the car versus happily get in and drive off.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I still fail to see how Smart Summon is a useful application. By the time the car figures out how to get to you (assuming it doesn't hit something like a curb), you could have walked to the car several times and back.

99% of the people trying out Smart Summon aren't actually going to use it.

Like you said it has very limited use cases even if it did work solidly.

Smart Summon is simply a a checkmark that Tesla has to deliver on since they promised it to Enhanced Autopilot buyers, and FSD buyers.

It's also supposed to be followed up on with a much more useful Smart Park option.

Once we have smart summons, and smart park then the usefulness of it is greatly expanded. I do agree that only having the smart summon part doesn't provide much usefulness unless something has a disability or if it's really raining hard.

I myself tested it at work where I'll never use it, and it never passed by requirements in testing it 10/10 times. It passed with much looser requirements 5/10 times. It was a total failure 5/10 times.

 

[Economite]

Well, a lot of the people trying it out are taking great pains to only do so in empty lots. So what other drivers are being inconvenienced?

It also would be interesting to know some (of the absolutely unknowable) statistics of how many people are using it without juggling a cell phone and a camera / accomplice at the same time, have no interest in posting things, and are just using it, and how, and how often they panickedly stop the car versus happily get in and drive off.

I suppose that in an absolutely empty parking lot, playing around with this feature is harmless. But if that's the only ok use, then SS is clearly just a toy-- and not a useful driver assistance feature. And if a software feature that drives a car around is only useable in a trivial and useless setting (ie driving around a store's parking lot when the store is closed), then the feature shouldn't have been released at all.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

My recommendation to those testing smart summon would be to stop testing it from the remote location.

Use the go to target option, and do the summon from the inside of the vehicle.

That way you can take over IMMEDIATELY, and you don't have to worry about the latency between the button and the car stopping.

 

[whatthe2]

I suppose that in an absolutely empty parking lot, playing around with this feature is harmless. But if that's the only ok use, then SS is clearly just a toy-- and not a useful driver assistance feature. And if a software feature that drives a car around is only useable in a trivial and useless setting (ie driving around a store's parking lot when the store is closed), then the feature shouldn't have been released at all.

YeA, it’s a toy and a cool one at that. They have to start somewhere and this is a good first pass. Will only get better IMO. But to each their own.

 

[Economite]

They have to start somewhere and this is a good first pass.

Not really. Tesla shouldn't have released SS until SS was safe and useful. Since this version has no legitimate useful applications, its release in the wild is just encouraging misuse (ie use in a lot with other cars). And it's not like Tesla is explicitly saying this version is "for use only in empty lots." So it's hard to say why Tesla owners should "know" that empty lots are the only ok use.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Well, a lot of the people trying it out are taking great pains to only do so in empty lots. So what other drivers are being inconvenienced?

It also would be interesting to know some (of the absolutely unknowable) statistics of how many people are using it without juggling a cell phone and a camera / accomplice at the same time, have no interest in posting things, and are just using it, and how, and how often they panickedly stop the car versus happily get in and drive off.

Smart Summon is beginning to look a lot like a Black Mirror episode where you have people purposely using their $50K car as a YouTube star.

The focus seems to be on getting attention versus testing a new feature out to see if their comfortable using it.

The first thing I did was to test it in a completely empty lot on a Saturday. It failed to meet my expectation so I didn't bother testing it further than the 10 times I tried it.

I could see how it would be a pass for other people, but everyone has their own line that they set.

I'm going to do some additional testing now that I have a slightly never rev, but I've decided that I'm going to test from inside the car so I can immediately hit the brakes instead of relying on it stopping after I remove my finger.

 

[whatthe2]

Not really. Tesla shouldn't have released SS until SS was safe and useful. Since this version has no legitimate useful applications, its release in the wild is just encouraging misuse (ie use in a lot with other cars). And it's not like Tesla is explicitly saying this version is "for use only in empty lots." So it's hard to say why Tesla owners should "know" that empty lots are the only ok use.

Like I said, to each their own. I’ll use it for fun in acceptable situations without inconveniencing others. If Tesla waited to release until everyone did that, it would never be released.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Not really. Tesla shouldn't have released SS until SS was safe and useful. Since this version has no legitimate useful applications, its release in the wild is just encouraging misuse (ie use in a lot with other cars). And it's not like Tesla is explicitly saying this version is "for use only in empty lots." So it's hard to say why Tesla owners should "know" that empty lots are the only ok use.

The promise for SS on HW2/HW2.5 was a mistake Elon made a long time ago. Where it was on the list of features for Enhanced Autopilot.

This meant that Tesla had to release SS for HW2/HW2.5 or they'd have to upgrade Enhanced Autopilot owners for free to HW3

Time was also running out for them to continue to release features for HW2/HW2.5 as quite a few of them are FSD owners who will get the HW3 upgrade.

Keep in mind this is far from the first time that Tesla has released a very unfinished product.

It wasn't that long ago that Tesla released NoA which was pretty horrendous. It's been quite awhile since that was released, and NoA stil fails my testing.

Tesla is simply a company who releases things very prematurely, and relies on a combination of hoping the user will exhibit common sense when using it along with putting all the liability on the owner.

They accept no liability, and it's completely on the owner if any of these features does something stupid.

It's going to be this way for another 2-3 years. The exact same thing will happen with HW3 so it's something we have to get used to.

We're Americans and we live in the wild west anyways.

The Europeans likely won't get any of this stuff any time soon. They're protected from this level of crazy. Some of them will likely get refunds even.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Like I said, to each their own. I’ll use it for fun in acceptable situations without inconveniencing others. If Tesla waited to release until everyone did that, it would never be released.

No, it would be released next year with the robotaxis.

 

[SanDiegoM3]

I still fail to see how Smart Summon is a useful application. By the time the car figures out how to get to you (assuming it doesn't hit something like a curb), you could have walked to the car several times and back.

Not in my single use last night. I had a long aisle where I parked at the end. As I was leaving I set my drop point to edge of bubble straight down the aisle. As I got in range I summoned the car and it came to me faster than I could’ve walked.

That being said, it’s not like I saved 5 minutes, i probably saved 10-20 seconds max.

 

[ljbad4life]

Just because you can't see a use for it doesn't mean it's not useful. Having to carry heavy bags to the car , it would be useful for the car to come to me. If it's raining and I don't have my umbrella. If I'm tired of walking all day.

Remember the "I don't see the use in this" Fallacy. Most of the time people don't see a use for things until people start to use it.
Just turn to the exciting tales of:
Kodak and the digital camera
8-track player
Laser Disc
Beta-Max
Minidisc
Cable TV and the angry streamers
Sprint and the wayward Wimax

 

[whatthe2]

Not in my single use last night. I had a long aisle where I parked at the end. As I was leaving I set my drop point to edge of bubble straight down the aisle. As I got in range I summoned the car and it came to me faster than I could’ve walked.

That being said, it’s not like I saved 5 minutes, i probably saved 10-20 seconds max.

Queue the people that say "time it both ways or it isn't true". Glad to hear of your success, I really enjoy it and use it even when it doesn't save me time. I just think it's a cool feature (when used right) and will only get better.

 

[Az_Rael]

Here is a good demo of how not to use Smart Summon:
Version 10.0 summons in a real situation : teslamotors

Looks like the car didn't hit anything, luckily, despite the owner not having it in view much at all. It just stopped itself in a busy thoroughfare through the parking lot. LOL.