Summons feature flaw

[AnxietyRanger]

@TechOps Not to relitigate what probably has already been beaten to death, beyond that, the interesting part about this incident remains: why did Summon stop responding to smartphone commands and especially why did it not stop when doing so? Why did it keep moving?

That would seem like a dangerous situation even when used responsibly.

 

[Joe F]

Assuming parking brake failure mentioned up-thread, which I doubt given the OP stated a reverse summon was attempted, on loss of signal from the app, assuming summon was coded responsibly, a logical cause would be the phone went brain dead and somehow queued up bogus key presses which continued to stream out. I believe that was also mentioned. Lots of assumptions with not much to go on. That the logs were reported to show "no failures" it would have been interesting to push them further to see if the summon was noted (it should have been as it's reported to the app if enabled) and what the summon duration and distance was. Perhaps not too late if the OP is still around...

Would have been interesting to see pics of the path I asked to see early on. Would have given insight in driveway slope, but sadly it was misunderstood by the OP and was received as a dumb idea. Probably should have request it differently.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Would have been interesting to see pics of the path I asked to see early on. Would have given insight in driveway slope, but sadly it was misunderstood by the OP and was received as a dumb idea. Probably should have request it differently.

Hand drawn picture of the area/slope and how the car moved would be useful too, if @wussy does not wish to post home/neighbourhood photos.

Assuming parking brake failure mentioned up-thread, which I doubt given the OP stated a reverse summon was attempted, on loss of signal from the app, assuming summon was coded responsibly, a logical cause would be the phone went brain dead and somehow queued up bogus key presses which continued to stream out. I believe that was also mentioned. Lots of assumptions with not much to go on. That the logs were reported to show "no failures" it would have been interesting to push them further to see if the summon was noted (it should have been as it's reported to the app if enabled) and what the summon duration and distance was. Perhaps not too late if the OP is still around...

Good points all around. Shows the complexity of the issue too.

 

[wussy]

Hand drawn picture of the area/slope and how the car moved would be useful too, if @wussy does not wish to post home/neighbourhood photos.



Good points all around. Shows the complexity of the issue too.

Just enjoyed a nice weekend in New York. Checking out the more recent posts and was interested in the idea of a loop from the app. Lost connectivity certainly is likely given my location and the car transitioning out of the WiFi zone but the car should have stopped. if, however, the phone was in fact still connecting to the car and some issue with the app was continuously sending a signal telling the car to keep moving, that would actually explain what happened. The straw man as pointed out may not have been dense enough or low enough to the ground to recognize and we know the curb is just low enough to only scrape the underside so may also have not been detected. The tires never reached which is where the 1/2 inch lip to enter my garage would often stop the car. A continuous loop of forward from the phone despite me not pressing that makes sense much more than connectivity loss.
As stated, I did not know about pressing the handle. This makes me think of an experiement where I would like to try holding the forward on the app and try pushing the handle to see if the handle over-rides the summon feature. Hopefully it does but that is probably useful to try. It is not rare that sometimes I approach my car and the handles don’t automatically open and don’t respond to my touch. Once every few months I have to pull out the fob from my pocket or use the app to get the handles to open. I don’t think I am alone in this as a few of my neighbors own a Tesla and have also had this happen. So I am wondering how reliable touching the handle is to override the summons feature? Probably very reliable but like most tech it can also malfunction is my guess.
Distance wise, I never measured the width of my street but it is a private residential street and less than standard. There is only room for one car to pass and a parked car but not for three cars across. The car started from just in front of the sidewalk near the driveway end and there is a small downhill to the street but then level to the curb. I don’t think it was more than 30 feet.

 

[efusco]

6 pages of posts snipped. Sorry if some legitimate content got tossed with the bath water, sorry if there's still some inflammatory off topic stuff I missed.

Lessons: 1) a Newbie needs to be VERY careful and accurate, and precise and as non-inflammatory as possible when posting something like this that is negative toward a fan page. 2) Older members need to take it easy, piling on ruins a thread and makes it almost impossible to salvage even if the OP was honest (though hyperbolic).

Please keep on-topic from here out. Spent WAY too much time fixing this thread.

 

[BerTX]

Once every few months I have to pull out the fob from my pocket or use the app to get the handles to open. I don’t think I am alone in this as a few of my neighbors own a Tesla and have also had this happen.

It's a known problem that having the fob in close proximity to a cell phone (same pocket or purse) often disables its ability to be recognized by the car. That is usually the issue with failure to present handles. Or low battery in the fob, but that would be consistently not functioning...

 

[wussy]

It's a known problem that having the fob in close proximity to a cell phone (same pocket or purse) often disables its ability to be recognized by the car. That is usually the issue with failure to present handles. Or low battery in the fob, but that would be consistently not functioning...

Thanks. That’s another new thing I learned

 

[unbelievable]

It's a known problem that having the fob in close proximity to a cell phone (same pocket or purse) often disables its ability to be recognized by the car. That is usually the issue with failure to present handles. Or low battery in the fob, but that would be consistently not functioning...

Am I right in thinking that a hard press of a handle halts a summoning car regardless of whether the handles are presented or not?

 

[BerTX]

Am I right in thinking that a hard press of a handle halts a summoning car regardless of whether the handles are presented or not?

Yes, except for the "hard" press. It reacts to the conductivity of your skin, AFAIK, so making more contact, not hard contact, should be more effective. Gloves=bad.

 

[RogerHScott]

Gloves=bad

"If you're wearin' a glove
Your car may give someone a shove"

 

[Joe F]

Am I right in thinking that a hard press of a handle halts a summoning car regardless of whether the handles are presented or not?

Handles should not be presented during summon, at least I've never seen that.

 

[croman]

Handles should not be presented during summon, at least I've never seen that.

Exactly. No way handles are extended during summon.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

Many thanks for the update and summarizing thoughts, @wussy!

As stated, I did not know about pressing the handle. This makes me think of an experiement where I would like to try holding the forward on the app and try pushing the handle to see if the handle over-rides the summon feature.

I already tried earlier in the thread. Pressing the handle (or pressing keyfob) does override the smartphone app. I kept the app button pressed and both the handle and the keyfob stopped the car despite of it.

 

[Matutino]

Today I had a similar issue, I was getting my car out of the garage using summon and after the car was out I hit the fob to stop the car and wouldn't do it, did it several times with no luck, run towards the car and hit the door handle to stop it form moving.
I then tried it again with the same result... I decided to call Tesla, spoke to them over the phone, they had me reset the car and try it again with same result.
I was told not to use the key fob anymore and use the app, they will be calling me within 48hs with an update.
After I hang up I decided to use my other key and this time around it works fine, seems odd as the key that summon is having issues with works perfectly fine opening, closing doors and activating summon... I will update this post once Tesla gets back to me, but at this point appears to be a key fob issue.

 

[Joe F]

Odd. Summon is programmed to move the car the same distance that moved the car into the garage in the first place. There should never be a need to tell it to stop.

 

[drklain]

@Joe F - I don't believe that is correct. Summon can be set for a distance to move on the settings page. It will move that distance (which could be farther than what it used to go into the garage since when entering the garage it can be stopped by a distance proximity alert before it has moved all the way listed in the settings page).

 

[Economite]

That's an interesting point. What's the reason the fob can't by used but the phone can? Personally, I would think the fob would be safer, since it provides a direct signal to the car and would be safer as a dead-man switch? The phone has to rely on traversing the internet and cell service twice and would be more prone to lag.

I supposed the contact in the fob could fail at just the wrong time and keep transmitting the signal as well, but it seems it'd be more reliable than the phone.

Wasn't the reason why the fob can't be used in Europe that European regulators insisted on a true "dead man's switch" for activation (ie car only moves while "move" button is held down) but the fob only transmits when a button is pressed (and perhaps when a button is released) but cannot transit a continuous "button down" message?

Seems like both the fob and the app have problems, but they're different problems:

1) the fob lacks dead man functionality (and the EU worries that the car might keep moving even if the user drops the fob (or the user is somehow incapacitated/distracted)).

but

2) the app lacks a guaranteed continuous connection (since other apps can temporarily knock out the Tesla App and/or the app can briefly loose connectivity, especially when moving from a wifi to a non-wifi area). In EU a temporary break in connectivity will stop the car from moving (since the feature is in permanent "dead man's mode"), but this might not be true in certain settings in US.

 

[Joe F]

@Joe F - I don't believe that is correct. Summon can be set for a distance to move on the settings page. It will move that distance (which could be farther than what it used to go into the garage since when entering the garage it can be stopped by a distance proximity alert before it has moved all the way listed in the settings page).

Possibly, but going from my own experience, if I initiate summon forward into my garage, it always returns to the same position later when summoning back out of the garage, despite the initial position.

This is also consistent with the manual blurb on summon on page 80:

"You can summon Model S back to its original position if you previously auto parked it and the

vehicle has remained in the Park gear. Then, using the mobile app or key, simply specify the
opposite direction. Summon moves the vehicle along the original path provided the environment
has not changed (i.e. no obstructions have been introduced). If obstacles are detected, Summon
attempts to avoid the obstacles while staying as close as possible to its original path."

Will test later by increasing max distance to 39 feet and see what happens.
​

 

[drklain]

@Joe F Look forward to results of your test. My understanding may be flawed...

 

[Max*]

From my experience, summon works like this:

If I summon into a space, it goes up to 39 feet (or whatever you have it set it). Summon into, could be nose in or nose out.
If I then summon out of the space (again, nose in or out), it'll only go the same distance in the previous step, not the full 39 feet.