Summon usefulness-less

[Tangible]

My garage door opener is very old. It doesn't detect objects in its path with a light beam; instead it just reverses itself if it hits something. Not good for babies and puppies, and maybe not for pano roofs.

How likely is it that the Summon system will prematurely close the door on my car? Or fail to open the door and drive right through it?

And, legally, who bears the liability if the system does damage to the car or the garage?

 

[ABC2D]

I think if your car fits lengthwise ok, then the garage gate will not be closed until the car reached its final position. If the summon fails the open the garage door, the car front sensors should detect it similarly to detecting the wall at the final location.

I find it ..... strange you ask who will be responsible for damages. Who do you think? Reading helps:

 

[brkaus]

My garage door opener is very old. It doesn't detect objects in its path with a light beam; instead it just reverses itself if it hits something. Not good for babies and puppies, and maybe not for pano roofs.

How likely is it that the Summon system will prematurely close the door on my car? Or fail to open the door and drive right through it?

And, legally, who bears the liability if the system does damage to the car or the garage?

You're responsible.

Personally, I'd replace it with a beam system. Heck, if there was s double beam system available I'd upgrade to that.

I did not enable auto homelink. What happens if wife is backing out of garage. Safety beam is below the car bumper. I pull towards the driveway and the Tesla sends the garage command. Simple, it shuts on her car.

 

[cgiGuy]

Just tried summon for the first time. I do have a narrow garage situation... but unfortunately there is a ledge entering the garage and the car is unwilling to apply enough acceleration to pass it. Does back out though.

I had this issue in my last garage. Had about a 1.75" lip. I put a 1" piece of board next to it (6" wide) to create a bit of a middle step. Worked most of the time.

 

[oktane]

Your responsible.

I think you meant to say "you're responsible."

For me, autopilot is working better than expected with a short highway run. Summon is not working well in my garage. I know it will ram the bumper incurring $20k in damages and 3 months to fix, plus fixing my exterior garage wall.

I'm surprised at how fast the car wants to move during summon. I guess we shouldn't count a feature as "working" until it's out of beta mode. If the feature works as advertised, Tesla should be responsible for any and all damage caused by a poorly implemented feature. I'll cut them some slack while they debug this, of course. AP is much more important to me.

 

[brkaus]

I think you meant to say "you're responsible."

Yes. All bets are off on the phone keyboard. Fixed.

 

[Tangible]

I find it ..... strange you ask who will be responsible for damages. Who do you think? Reading helps:

I appreciate the advice, if not the tone. I find it...strange that you feel the need to show your contempt with so little provocation.

A unilateral assertion is not an agreement. If a product malfunctions and causes harm there may be actual and/or consequential damages depending on the jurisdiction.

Beta testers are people who have agreed to accept some risk in return for early access to a product or feature. The recent idea that a vendor can escape responsibility for a poorly performing or dangerous product by simply declaring that it is "in beta" is nonsense.

What I don't know - and the point of my question - is whether as owners we somewhere along the line agreed to these responsibilites in the small print of the paperwork we signed.

 

[dprisoner]

I quite often use Summon to get the car out of the garage. I use the time it's backing out to put away the charger cable. Which does make me wonder why they bothered with the Summon w/ Homelink pairing. If you're a good little Tesla owner, your car is hooked up to the charger - so you can't operate Summon until you've unplugged it - which means the you're already likely to have opened the garage. Similarly, you are going to need to plug it in after it's pulled in (for me, if it's in the garage it's hooked up) so you don't want the garage door coming down on you.

Then there's that whole auto open door thing I have to deal with every morning before Summoning the car out in the morning. I wish holding down the top button to get Summon to activate would also close the doors (if any are open). As it is now I need to click to close, wait till it locks up, then hold down the same button. There's also a 50/50 chance that I still can't get it to move out when I hit the back button...

But, despite the little flaws, I still love using it.

 

[Tangible]

Good points, @dprisoner . I don't know why the car can't automatically connect to and disconnect from power. Heck, my Roombas can do that.

 

[oktane]

I appreciate the advice, if not the tone. I find it...strange that you feel the need to show your contempt with so little provocation.

A unilateral assertion is not an agreement. If a product malfunctions and causes harm there may be actual and/or consequential damages depending on the jurisdiction.

Beta testers are people who have agreed to accept some risk in return for early access to a product or feature. The recent idea that a vendor can escape responsibility for a poorly performing or dangerous product by simply declaring that it is "in beta" is nonsense.

What I don't know - and the point of my question - is whether as owners we somewhere along the line agreed to these responsibilites in the small print of the paperwork we signed.

You are totally correct. Tesla would likely be shown culpable in any trial. You can't sell a feature, call it "beta", and escape product liability in the process. People who assert otherwise live somewhere in candyland where they forget the real world doesn't give a *sugar* about protecting Tesla. The downside is that the costs involved in litigating will deter most people who don't have deep pockets. That's why Tesla gets away with it (over-promising) over and over.

 

[brucet999]

My garage door opener is very old. It doesn't detect objects in its path with a light beam; instead it just reverses itself if it hits something. Not good for babies and puppies, and maybe not for pano roofs.

How likely is it that the Summon system will prematurely close the door on my car? Or fail to open the door and drive right through it?

And, legally, who bears the liability if the system does damage to the car or the garage?

I had such an old garage door opener (30+ years) when summon first came out in AP1. I tested it with garage door closed and it worked just fine, opening the door, then backing out. Three more open/close trials in succession resulted in the garage door controller exploding from too frequent use, apparently.

My new direct-drive opener has light beam sensors and it is very quiet, but it opens the heavy door very slowly, so I haven't had the courage to try summon again for fear that bumper sensors would signal "go ahead" as soon as the door cleared them but the roof of the car would hit the slowly rising garage door on the way out.

 

[wesley888]

My new direct-drive opener has light beam sensors and it is very quiet, but it opens the heavy door very slowly, so I haven't had the courage to try summon again for fear that bumper sensors would signal "go ahead" as soon as the door cleared them but the roof of the car would hit the slowly rising garage door on the way out.

It waited quite a bit after the door clear the sensor. Did you see my summon video in page 1? See if the time is enough for your door to clear.

Summon usefulness-less

 

[Tangible]

Thanks for the door opener info, folks. I'm just going to buy a new one, as it appears that the light beam cutoffs can't be retrofitted.

Has anyone used the gear shift lever button double-press method for activating Summon? I tried it as my first attempt, figuring a foot ready to hit the brake was a better fail-safe than the fob or the app. It's supposed to pop something up on the screen asking which direction to move. Absolutely nothing happened. Summon is activated, I know, because I then got out of the car and used the app successfully.

I do have a lip at the edge of the doorway. The car stopped as the front tires touched it, thought for a few seconds, and then moved forward again. (My finger was still holding the button.) Then it did the same thing for the rear tires.

I think my main use for this feature would be backing into the garage when I'm in the car. I've never been really good at doing that and keeping everything aligned, and I'm more than ready to turn the thinking over to the Tesla. That's why I want the gear shift lever button option to work.

Thoughts?

 

[wesley888]

Has anyone used the gear shift lever button double-press method for activating Summon?

(My finger was still holding the button.)

If you use the holding button option, you can't use the FOB or double-press method to summon. You have to disable the holding option.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I use it all the time to finish backing into a Supercharger stall. Back in most of the way, get out and watch to verify it is far enough back but not hitting anything. Same with curbs in front of perpendicular parking spots. Sorry, sensors just don't see some of them. I pull up as close as I feel comfortable with, then get out and do the rest with Summon.

I hope that you first grab the Supercharger cable, take it to where you want the charge port, and then summon the car to line it up. Anything else would be missing a potential for coolness.

 

[BerTX]

I
My new direct-drive opener has light beam sensors and it is very quiet, but it opens the heavy door very slowly, ...

If your garage door is heavy, then I think there is a problem

I hope that you first grab the Supercharger cable, take it to where you want the charge port, and then summon the car to line it up. Anything else would be missing a potential for coolness.

Maybe giving the car fake hand signals, waving it to back up, then raising a hand to tell it to stop? Then plug it in and walk away.

 

[Tangible]

If you use the holding button option, you can't use the FOB or double-press method to summon. You have to disable the holding option.

Ah, I knew that about the fob, but not about the shift button. Thanks.

 

[Swift]

I tried three times, and all times it almost crashes the front left corner into the entrance of the garage. Not impressed, unfortunately. Much more stressful to watch the car flounder than to simply park myself and squeeze out.

This.

Happened to me too. Front left on the way in. No issues coming out.

 

[Swift]

I think you meant to say "you're responsible."

For me, autopilot is working better than expected with a short highway run. Summon is not working well in my garage. I know it will ram the bumper incurring $20k in damages and 3 months to fix, plus fixing my exterior garage wall.

I'm surprised at how fast the car wants to move during summon. I guess we shouldn't count a feature as "working" until it's out of beta mode. If the feature works as advertised, Tesla should be responsible for any and all damage caused by a poorly implemented feature. I'll cut them some slack while they debug this, of course. AP is much more important to me.

Completely agree.

 

[DaddyP713]

What I don't know - and the point of my question - is whether as owners we somewhere along the line agreed to these responsibilites in the small print of the paperwork we signed.

You are signing your agreement to accept responsibility by enabling each beta feature and choosing to use it. If you do not wish to accept responsibility, then you should disable it and/or not use it.

If the feature was enabled by default, and operated without input from you, and a problem occurred, then you might have a legal leg to stand on.