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Tesla Smart Summon Drives Car into Tree Day After Owner Purchases Subscription

The irony here is stacked in multiple, juicy layers. First off, there’s the name Tesla chose for its feature: Smart Summon. Is something “smart” going to drive into the only tree on a 30-feet radius, especially if said three was in the opposite direction of where the car was supposed to go? No prizes for getting that answer right.
Tesla Model Y sent into tree by Smart Summon 7 photos
Photo: Vimeo screenshot
Tesla Model Y sent into tree by Smart SummonTesla Model Y sent into tree by Smart SummonTesla Model Y sent into tree by Smart SummonTesla Model Y sent into tree by Smart SummonTesla Model Y sent into tree by Smart SummonTesla Model Y sent into tree by Smart Summon
But what is Smart Summon and why did Tesla feel the need to call it that? Well, it’s supposed to be an evolution of the (dumb) Summon. An upgrade. Whereas Summon will extract the car from the garage or a parking lot over a short distance, Smart Summon should do the same thing, but over much longer distances and execute more complicated maneuvers in the process. In theory, Smart Summon should allow you to step out of the mall and have the car pick you up instead of the old way of having to walk all the way to the vehicle.

Like most things Tesla – not its performance, though – the Smart Summon feature is in Beta, which means you use it at your own peril. The good thing is the owner needs to keep their finger pressed on the display of their phone for the car to move. Lift the finger, and the vehicle stops instantly. The bad news is the vehicle can make very sudden and unpredictable moves that can beat the owner’s reaction time and result in costly repair bills.

The system is also notorious for failing to pick up curbs and, apparently, thin vertical objects like poles or trees – hopefully not stationary slim people as well. Sadly for Tesla, the vehicle is very likely to encounter all these things in a parking lot, which is where the feature will be used for most of the time.

Back to the irony we mentioned at the start of the article, here’s the second part. The owner of the Model Y you’ll see in the clip below had purchased the Full Self-Driving suite (which includes the Smart Summon feature) only one day before he decided to give the automated parking function a try. He got it using the subscription option, meaning he only paid $200. However, that price was about to rise, as you will soon see.

With the car parked in front of a house, the owner appears to use the Smart Summon feature to have the EV reverse onto the street. A simple maneuver the AI seems to have under control. However, after reversing and turning right, it suddenly decides to steer left, which jams the right front wheel into the parking spot’s curb. With no way of going in reverse, the car switches into drive and heads forward. It starts off slowly, but then suddenly picks up speed and steers to the right at the same time, climbing over the curb and hitting a small tree.

The aftermath looks pretty bad considering it was totally avoidable, and the repair bill the Model Y owner got was $1.399.32. Add the $200 he had paid for the subscription (Tesla refused to refund him) and the $200 for replacing the film protection, and the total cost for the entire affair rises to $1,799.32. His final words? “Please do not use the Smart Summon feature.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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