Just learned that summon should not be used to back the car out of a tight garage. I had used it many times before without incident. This time I don’t know why it failed. The passenger front fender and bumper was damaged by the side of the garage door. I was watching the driver’s side because that’s where the other car was parked. I was using summon because my wife cannot get in the passenger side easily in the garage and it has been my perception that using summon was safer than me backing it out. Have to re-evaluate that assumption. Pretty bummed out about the whole thing. I imagine Tesla will probably not cover the damages. I really wish they would be a bit more proactive in letting us know about the limitations of summon. Now that it has happened to me I have read it has been an issue. Not wanting Tesla to restrict any more features for which we bought the car in the first place. I definitely feel like a dufus for not just getting in and backing it out.
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Summon Danger
- Thread starter Fergieone
- Start date
whitex
Well-Known Member
That is why I've never used summon ever, and stopped using AutoPilot almost completely - I'm one of the few who read the fine print on those features, which basically says "Use at your own risk, it will fail multiple times in the lifetime of your car, and if you don't stop it in time any damages are 100% on you".
I've been using summons for 1-1/2 years with only about 10 inches of space on either side of the car and have had no contact with walls or objects nor have I had to stop the summons to keep it from hitting something. I think the issue is that it needs to see relatively contiguous boundaries on either side of the car when pulling in/out.
As an example, my garage is pretty well packed with storage boxes on shelves due to a lack of a basement. Everything was fine until I put a table saw with open legs at the end of the shelves on the right side. Now, the car would sometimes steer to the right during summons (painfully close to the saw). I draped a rag over the table saw and everything was fine again.
If you have a two car garage but no wall between the cars, I could see it steering towards the open space between the cars to equalize the spacing on either side of the car.
By the way, I always stand next to the car and watch it every time I use summons. Summons has its limitations!
As an example, my garage is pretty well packed with storage boxes on shelves due to a lack of a basement. Everything was fine until I put a table saw with open legs at the end of the shelves on the right side. Now, the car would sometimes steer to the right during summons (painfully close to the saw). I draped a rag over the table saw and everything was fine again.
If you have a two car garage but no wall between the cars, I could see it steering towards the open space between the cars to equalize the spacing on either side of the car.
By the way, I always stand next to the car and watch it every time I use summons. Summons has its limitations!
Have you seen this thread? Do you have AP1 or AP2.5?
Summon failure - sudden turn as reversing out of garage crushed mirror
Summon failure - sudden turn as reversing out of garage crushed mirror
Need, I just read that post and I suspect that summons uses the proximity sensors on the front and back of the car. I have to wonder if there is a blind spot between the front and back. If there's an empty space just before the garage opening, summons may have decided that it had space on that side. Just guessing!
By the way, I have AP1 and recently upgraded to 14.2
By the way, I have AP1 and recently upgraded to 14.2
I trust autopilot way more than summon for the simple reason that I'm in the driver's seat, holding the steering wheel, when autopilot is engaged. Summon, on the other hand, is happening remotely, out of my control. I have zero apprehension about using AP and have done so for more than 50,000 miles. Summon? I find it useful only as a technology demonstration, and rarely at that.
this is not meant to bash you at all... but there are dozens of regretful owners on this board who let summon screw them over in their garage and made a thread about it. Its a parlor trick that works most of the time, and when it doesnt, its gonna cost you thousands (to which tesla disclaims liability). Not worth it in my personal opinion.
I don't have any issues with AutoPilot since I'm in control with the steering wheel. For summon, I tend to only use the keyfob and pay close attention to it. Typically if it's going to mess up (for my usage pulling out of the garage) it will start to turn the wheels, and that's when I cancel it. Note this hasn't happened in months (there were a few software versions where it was pretty bad), but it was super easy to catch just by paying attention if the front wheel was starting to turn or not.
On the other hand, I pretty much never use AutoPark for parallel parking since I don't think I could stop it in time from messing up and hitting the curb. I don't get too many opportunities to use perpendicular park since I'm always trying to find an end spot in a parking lot/structure.
I use summon to drive the car out of my garage on a regular basis. I do have to watch it very closely as about 15% of the time, the wheel would crank to one side directly into the pillar separating the garage doors. I don’t know if it will correct before it hits but I do abort and climb awakardly in to drive it out.
Useful for adjusting car front or back a bit in the open, tight spaces, watch out!
Useful for adjusting car front or back a bit in the open, tight spaces, watch out!
Kant.Ing
Member
Summon, TACC, Autosteer, and Autowipers are all BETA features highlighted in the Tesla manual. Beta simply means to use at your own risks. A feature being called beta by its hardware or software developer really intends to say the feature is not intended to be used in critical or life-and-death situations like medical, aerospace, and military. Before you want to enable the beta features for your convenience and enjoyment, make sure you have assessed all the backups including your bank account. 
steve841
Active Member
Summons. What's that? j/k
Sorry, but any summons fail is totally on the owner ...
Just like assuming the car on AP will stop in time for a fire engine parked in the road...
Sorry, but any summons fail is totally on the owner ...
Just like assuming the car on AP will stop in time for a fire engine parked in the road...
We unfortunately also have a tiny garage and stopped using summon after reading about all the stories of cars getting damaged.
The problem is that the clearance for us is very little on BOTH sides. You'd think this would be the whole point of summon but after seeing videos of vehicles hitting garage doors and walls we don't trust it.
While I understand that you are supposed to watch the car, it is almost impossible to watch all 4 corners of the car at the same time when the garage is so small. A shame though because this feature would have been incredible for us but the current software and the ultrasonics can;t be trusted to not hit anything.
The problem is that the clearance for us is very little on BOTH sides. You'd think this would be the whole point of summon but after seeing videos of vehicles hitting garage doors and walls we don't trust it.
While I understand that you are supposed to watch the car, it is almost impossible to watch all 4 corners of the car at the same time when the garage is so small. A shame though because this feature would have been incredible for us but the current software and the ultrasonics can;t be trusted to not hit anything.
What we did with our garage is to place two full length mirrors on the left and right side of the garage wall we drive towards, as we need to fold the mirrors to fit in our tiny garage. With the full length mirrors straight ahead we have a good view of the amount of space on either side of the car.
What really concerned us looking at some of the summon fails is that there would sometime be damage just inches away from the actual ultrasonic sensor that did not/could not detect a hard object before hitting it.
What really concerned us looking at some of the summon fails is that there would sometime be damage just inches away from the actual ultrasonic sensor that did not/could not detect a hard object before hitting it.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Proper way to use summon is to either use it with plenty of space on each side (showing off to friends in an open lot) or in tight spaces have 4 people, one in each corner, watching to make sure the car clears everything and yell out fast to the person with their "finger on the button" if there is trouble (car hitting anything or driving over anyone's foot).
I would so much have preferred surround view over summon, like the 2013 Leaf even. I also would have preferred radar based (i.e. proven and reliable) blind spot monitoring over the parking sensor based joke.
I would so much have preferred surround view over summon, like the 2013 Leaf even. I also would have preferred radar based (i.e. proven and reliable) blind spot monitoring over the parking sensor based joke.
RogerHScott
Active Member
It would be interesting to see if some authority forced Tesla to disable anything in their cars labeled as "beta" how much of the current claimed capability would remain. Surely just because they can't guarantee that everything works always that doesn't imply they're unable to guarantee that anything works always.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Go to settings, turn off anything that says Beta. See what remains.
PS> Tesla took BSM as a feature off their website a while back, after they realized Elon was wrong and parking sensors cannot be considered official BSM. This means it's not a beta feature, it's a non-feature.
