Self parking in a very tight garage - doable?

[xilex]

You will be fine. I have maybe three inches clearance at the door edge on each side with mirrors unfolded, but inside the garage I am able to open the front driver door one stop without it hitting the wall. Just take your time and park slowly and carefully, have someone sit on the passenger side for a few trials. Stop and back out and try again if you are too far off center and the mirror is going to hit the edge of the garage door. Maneuver to make sure you are going straight forward (or backwards) into the garage otherwise it will get complicated. If you line up the car you might as well do it yourself. It's easier with this car because you can have very fine control over movement with one pedal driving. Summon is going to screw up and drive itself into the wall.

 

[GPinzone]

I've tried in the past to use the summon to get it into my narrow garage and it was pointless. My garage floor is a half-inch higher than the driveway. This little difference is enough to freak-out summon from entering the garage. I almost had a nightmare situation where the car got stuck halfway in and wouldn't go forward nor backward. I wouldn't have been able to open the car door and get inside to take over and my windows were closed.

The radar sensitivity is set to normal, so it thinks the garage is too narrow. I could change it to be less sensitive, but I'm too afraid to try that.

 

[Steve_T]

Hi everybody,

My wife is taking delivery of our Stealth tomorrow.

We had agreed that we wouldn't even try to park it in our tiny tiny garage. I'd be too scared to try to park it in there. I used to own an old Accord and it was a nightmare.

But then wife smartly asked: what about that self-parking feature?

Does anyone know how reliable that is? Can I trust the software to back into a very tight garage by itself? Anyone has any experience with that?

Thank you!

Yes it can work, I’ve attached a short video of mine so you see what I do. Also, on the right side of the garage I've added some shelving that narrows the garage a little bit even more. So it will definitely do tight quarters if you sett the summon settings to the tightest possible setting.

One tip, if you pull into the garage enough so that you can get out but have put the car in a good position to go straight forward it will work a lot faster and better. For example, If I pull in so that the crease of the drivers door and front quarter panel is even with the end of exhaust on the motorcycle then I have set the car in a good position and can still get out of the car. If you get out before the car has entered the garage at all it takes longer trying to figure things out and sometimes needs multiple tries to get it right. Pay particular attention in those cases.

 

[jboy210]

I have a very slim garage, and it would be the perfect scenario for normal summon, but it almost never works even when the car is perfectly aligned. Instead it moves an inch, pauses, and shifts to park.

I highly recommend taking the time to learn to park it manually. Reflective parks aids can be really useful especially if you have tight turns.

Agreed. I back into my parking spot with my X. I have tape down on the floor and the great backup camera makes it trivial to get the car in with 3 inches clearance on one side.

 

[boaterva]

Agreed. I back into my parking spot with my X. I have tape down on the floor and the great backup camera makes it trivial to get the car in with 3 inches clearance on one side.

We have an X and a 3 in an 18 x 18 garage (I just measured it again to see why the Cybertruck won't fit. The X barely fits... . So the extra three feet, forget it... there's about 18 inches in front of the X....)

We have colored duct tape running all the way down the two lanes that are where the left tires run (it's the black and yellow hazard/danger pattern, but anything would work) and we also use the tire stop parking locators that tape to the floor (you can drill screw then into concrete also) so you know exactly where to stop when you get the right spot.

My point is using these and either looking out the side window or using a mirror on the wall in front of you, you should be able to repeatedly park in *any* size garage within a few inches of the same spot each time. Mirrors will fold automatically each time as you approach the garage door (and Homelink will open the door...).

I like to lean out the window on approach and line up with the 'carrier deck' My GF uses the mirror we have on the wall (it's like the ones you see in hallways to look around corners to see that nothing's coming the other way) to see where she is lined up.

We also have a 'bumper' between the two cars tied to the door opener track (single large garage door) to keep the right car's door from hitting the left car.

If anyone wants links for any of these items on Amazon, let me know. But with garage door frames and the variability of what is inside a garage, I think this is more reliable than Summon. (We also thought we'd have to use Summon when we got the two cars. Have never even tried it.)

 

[Tonybvi]

I summon my car out of the garage but can’t summon it in as the minimum distance from the front wall you can set is 8”. I need to just touch the front wall so I can close the door!

 

[Tam]

...But then wife smartly asked: what about that self-parking feature?

Does anyone know how reliable that is? Can I trust the software to back into a very tight garage by itself? Anyone has any experience with that?

Be aware that current Smart Summon to get your car in and out of your garage can still crash.

My guess for the crash issue is because it has relied on sonars. The problem is there's no sonar for your side doors.

That means to get a reliable summon, you need to have your garage constructed according to how the sonars work for the front and back bumper but zero for your sides.

This below is an example of a tight space that's designed for Tesla Sonars design for 2017 Model S:

This below is an example for a garage that is not built to accommodate Tesla Sonars design as of September 2019:

What's the difference?

For an average consumer's garage door opening, your garage walls/door are not all flushed.

That means once a bumper is out of the garage door with its sides are still dangerously close to the sides of the garage door, the bumpers say they see lots of clearance outside and the walls inside are quite a distance from them. The car ignores that its sides are right next to the side of the garage door and it's ready to crash if it doesn't know that fact.





Opening to the outside

<-----Front bumper sees lots of space here on the outside

------Blind narrowest part of the door.-----|
|...........................................|
|<---Rear bumper sees lots of space here....|
|...........................................|
|...........................................|
|...........................................|
|...........................................|
|...........................................|Wall on the right
--------------------------------------------
Wall on the left



Since the car is ultrasonically blind on its sides, your garage walls/door should be all flushed.

Tesla's garage door opening is flushed with the walls. So at least one bumper knows the distance between the car and the wall while the car is getting out of the opening door:



Opening to the outside

|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|Wall on the right
---------------------------
Wall on the left

I expect the system will get better but I wouldn't put my guards down until it will graduate from a "beta" program.

 

[boaterva]

Be aware that current Smart Summon to get your car in and out of your garage can still crash.

My guess for the crash issue is because it has relied on sonars. The problem is there's no sonar for your side doors.

That means to get a reliable summon, you need to have your garage constructed according to how the sonars work for the front and back bumper but zero for your sides.

This below is an example of a tight space that's designed for Tesla Sonars design for 2017 Model S:

This below is an example for a garage that is not built to accommodate Tesla Sonars design as of September 2019:

What's the difference?

For an average consumer's garage door opening, your garage walls/door are not all flushed.

That means once a bumper is out of the garage door with its sides are still dangerously close to the sides of the garage door, the bumpers say they see lots of clearance outside and the walls inside are quite a distance from them. The car ignores that its sides are right next to the side of the garage door and it's ready to crash if it doesn't know that fact.





Opening to the outside

<-----Front bumper sees lots of space here on the outside

------Blind narrowest part of the door.-----|
|...........................................|
|<---Rear bumper sees lots of space here....|
|...........................................|
|...........................................|
|...........................................|
|...........................................|
|...........................................|Wall on the right
--------------------------------------------
Wall on the left



Since the car is ultrasonically blind on its sides, your garage walls/door should be all flushed.

Tesla's garage door opening is flushed with the walls. So at least one bumper knows the distance between the car and the wall while the car is getting out of the opening door:



Opening to the outside

|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|
|.........................|Wall on the right
---------------------------
Wall on the left

I expect the system will get better but I wouldn't put my guards down until it will graduate from a "beta" program.

This is sorta the problem we have. With a two car garage and another car inside, the inside surface is too variable. What we really need is a way to map out the surface of the garage like you can do with a home robot vacuum. Tell it what the boundaries are. Then it would be able to tell where it can/should go properly.

 

[Tam]

This is sorta the problem we have. With a two car garage and another car inside, the inside surface is too variable. What we really need is a way to map out the surface of the garage like you can do with a home robot vacuum. Tell it what the boundaries are. Then it would be able to tell where it can/should go properly.

Indeed! Even with front and back bumper sonars alone, the software should be updated to memorize what those bumpers sense and keep track and calculate where are the narrowest part that the car is passing correlated with the moving distance.

Also, although there is no sonar on the car's sides, there are side 2 cameras on each side to cover those sonar's blindspot.

My guess is, the software is not catching up with what the cameras can see.

 

[trisk]

Our previous apartment had a garage built a century ago. The door was 7 feet wide, which gave exactly 6 inches of clearance on each side with the mirrors folded. The interior was only 8 feet wide so we couldn't even open the doors and get out of the car on both sides.

This was not a problem as Summon worked very reliably to park and pull out of the garage. I would step out of the car facing into the garage, 2-3 feet from the entrance (sonar didn't detect the entrance properly beyond 3 feet). I've also backed into the garage with Summon several times but it was harder to line up the starting position.

 

[WilliamG]

You will be fine. I have maybe three inches clearance at the door edge on each side with mirrors unfolded, but inside the garage I am able to open the front driver door one stop without it hitting the wall. Just take your time and park slowly and carefully, have someone sit on the passenger side for a few trials. Stop and back out and try again if you are too far off center and the mirror is going to hit the edge of the garage door. Maneuver to make sure you are going straight forward (or backwards) into the garage otherwise it will get complicated. If you line up the car you might as well do it yourself. It's easier with this car because you can have very fine control over movement with one pedal driving. Summon is going to screw up and drive itself into the wall.

You have way more control with creep for parking. Just an fyi, and that's from someone who drives in one-pedal mode 100% of the time.