Back in the days when we were kids, we used to play with our remote-controlled plastic cars until our fingers hurt. Now we’re grown-ups, and those plastic toy cars have morphed in life-size, functioning vehicles, that can be controlled via a smartphone app.
All week long, parking lots across America have been the scene of intense activity, with a considerable number of Tesla cars driving by themselves from where they were parked to wherever their owners needed them.
This frenzy was made possible by the rollout of Tesla’s most significant update ever, version 10.0. Of all the new exciting things it brings, the Smart Summon feature is the one that gets most of the attention.
Smart Summon is a feature that allows full-self driving-equipped Teslas to navigate on their own, based on a command sent from a phone, to wherever its owner summons it. Since everyone went out to test it, the Internet got flooded in the past few days with reports of fender-benders, near-misses, navigation mistakes, and pranks.
And now this.
One of the videos now online shows the guy running a Youtube channel called DragTimes testing the Smart Summon feature. He turns and twists the car every which way remotely, trying to see what makes it tick.
All goes great until a police SUV drops by and tries picking a fight with the Tesla. At first, the police officer stops behind the car, waiting to see what it does next. When the Tesla moves away, so does the police SUV, briefly engaging the sirens and signaling the Tesla to pull over, allegedly for running a stop sign.
A few short moments of apparent surprise follow, then the driver of the Tesla is identified by the clever police officer as the only guy in the area, the one holding the big, professional-looking camera in his hands.
The entire “incident” has a vague staged scent to it, but we’ll let you be the judge of that after you watch the video below. All the police action starts at minute 5:30.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News