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Tesla Model 3 Now Offers 'Summon' Self-Parking Feature (autoblog.com)
The "Summon" feature that the Model S and Model X have had for a while is now available in the Tesla Model 3. The feature allows the car to park autonomously without anyone in the car; it can even operate the garage door as it parks and powers down, or when it is called out of its parking spot by the owner. Autoblog reports: Tesla tweeted the news in response to a video showing a Model 3 park itself in a tight space in a home garage, before the garage door closes behind it. Elon Musk replied to Tesla's tweet by assuring viewers, "Note, no one is in the car or controlling remotely. Car is driving entirely by itself." The feature comes via an over-the-air software update.
Big liability issue and eula will not save them if it went the wrong way and run over an kid on the sidewalk.
It's only been 5 hours since the last Elon Musk article.
I was getting very nervous and feared the worse. I'm glad everything is OK.
Nothing could go wrong, unless it mistakes the garage for a police car.
At some point, you have to admit that Tesla continues to break new ground and drive auto/manmufacturing technology harder and faster than any other automaker. :-) .
Are they perfect and able (yet) to churn out 2 million vehicles a year? Nope, but they are sure as shit shaking up the traditional automakers, who desperately needed it. I'm rooting for the guy to win Bigly(TM)
This is a great milestone on the way to the feature we all want where the car avoids parking fees by reparking itself every 2 hours!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I would guess that brakes and door locks would solve most of your concerns.
The control unit has onboard redundancy. There are redundant actuators controlling all safety-related driving functions. You can see the layout here.
Re, crashing: anything that deploys the airbags also deploys the pyro fuse in the battery pack. All HV power is instantaneously cut. No driving.
What's to prevent a thief / hijacker from opening the doors and driving off? Um, the locks? The fact that touching the door handles, steering wheel, accelerator, or pretty much anything else disables Summon? The fact that (assuming we're talking about the Model 3) you have to have a paired phone or the card in the car to drive it?
Why must all aquatic villains play the organ?
Yeah, but that easter egg that they added to make the car scream "OH YEAAHH!" when it does so makes it totally worth it ;)
Why must all aquatic villains play the organ?
If this requires the parking spot to be a well defined position programmed in advance, like my garage, its a bit of a gimmick with limited practical use. A lot of people have a door straight through to their house from the garage, and in hot or cold climates they aren't going to want to get in or out of the car outside. What I really want is a car that can drop me at the door of Walmart, then go and find a parking spot by itself. And as I pull my phone out to pay at the checkout I can summon it to come and pick me up from the door again. This requires significantly better autonomous driving skills - a supermarket carpark has a lot more pedestrians stepping out from between cars than your average suburban neighborhood, and the AI needs to recognise the difference between a vacant parking spot and a lane between two blocks of parking, and it needs to make that recognition even when some asshole has already parked in half that lane. Probably a good strategy would be to drive to the outer limit of the carpark where it is generally empty except for staff cars, which would also limit the outrage from the general public about unsupervised cars driving around the lot and stealing their parks.
It doesn't. It's situation-adaptive, making use of the ultrasonic sensors
It's not perfect, though. It's slow, and when there's uncertainty it prefers to give up rather than risk hitting something (particularly noteworthy in really tight situations, where you want summon the most). And there have been some rare instances where things have been hit, although it's not common. For most people, it's just a party trick. But it does occasionally come in handy, for things like the "car parked in a puddle" situation and the like. It's not yet to the point of "drop you off at the door and then go find a parking space", and it's not clear when, if ever, it will be (self-driving optimists would say "soon"; I'm not among them). But some more speed and reliability would make summon (and autoparking) see significantly more use.
Why must all aquatic villains play the organ?
You would dismiss the vehicle when you no longer need it, you would summon it when you need it.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
I've seen a number of Model S owners complain that there was really no use-case for summon except the "gee whiz" factor of showing off your car entering or exiting the garage without you in it first .... until they needed to park in a really tight space. Saves you from having to worry about opening your door and hitting something next to you.
If the vehicle you're driving now was built in the past 10-20 years, chances are it's already drive-by-wire. You can press the brake pedal all you like, but if the traction control/electronic stability control/anti-lock brakes/etc decide not to apply any braking action due to a malfunction, you've got no brakes. And you can ease up off the accelerator pedal all you like, but if the throttle control sensor/cruise control/etc decide to throw gas into the engine, you're going to speed up right quick. And you'd best pray that steering assist doesn't malfunction in such a way that your steering becomes impossible to predict or you'll have next to no control over that either.
Accelerator, brakes, steering; all computer controlled. You've been at the mercy of computer malfunctions for years. The fact that you've still got a steering wheel to grip and pedals to press while you speed towards death in an uncontrollable malfunctioning car is giving you just enough false hope to let you believe you have some control. Tesla's just taking the next logical step. That step was and is inevitable.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
This all reminds me how nice it is to have a physical off switch in case any of these things go wrong.
Press and hold the power/start button for 3 seconds and hope it works? A lot can happen in three seconds.
There's a giant difference between "pushing on a button causes action" and "using a camera through ML algorithms to cause an action" If you were serious, I'm actually not sure how to continue the conversation, cause that's pretty insane.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Also, software can never ever be patched afterwards, so you'll have these bugs for as long as you have that Tesla.
/s
You can’t patch in a lack of hardware like lidar retard.
As of today, there isn't a single certified self-driving car on the planet available to a consumer. From any manufacturer.
They are ALL still just driver-assist. If that car kills a toddler by squishing them in that garage... STILL ALL YOUR FAULT. You go to jail. If that car hits another while pulling out of the garage. If it trashes your garage. If it doesn't stop and just drives into the road and trundles off to work on its own while you stand by the kerb baffled what happened? STILL ALL YOUR FAULT. You'll be charged for driving without due care, because you're not in charge of the vehicle.
There is no such thing as a self-driving car, because NOBODY is taking responsibility for their driving, not even the manufacturers themselves, whether by certifying them, insuring them, or putting in waivers that they'll represent you in court. Which means they have zero confidence in their ability to actually self-drive.
Such "self-driving" cars in this manner have been around since the days of filming the A-Team and driving a dummy car up a ramp and into a barrel of explosives. They are no different. The only personal responsible is the person controlling it, and even if they control it or trust it, they are fully legally liable and can get themselves jailed just by LETTING it self-drive (the guy who sat in the passenger seat while the Tesla "drove", etc.).
The irony? We could have self-driving cars as you state. We could have had 20, 30, 40 years ago. Just isolate them from "real" traffic and they can be properly self-driving, there's little enough risk to others that you can just insure against hitting another automated vehicle (rather than pedestrians, cyclists unpredictable unautomated vehicles etc.), We have self-driving (as in properly automated) trains, self-driving cars is just a train without a rail. It's actually easier to JUST PUT IN RAILS to limit disaster potential than it is to try to interpret the world via AI and other nonsense.
Of course we'll get them at some point. There are entire MINES in some countries where every vehicle and robot is fully self-driving and controlled. There have been for 20 years. But you know what? I wonder why we didn't have self-driving golf carts, self-driving in-site delivery trucks, self-driving kiddies rides around Disneyworld (not on rails, but through the normal pedestrian / vehicle routes) first. Because that's EASIER. It's cheaper. It's legally much simpler. You could prototype so much better. It's safer. It's lower speed (nowhere near as demanding) and in a controlled environment.
But, we never did. Tesla are jumping straight into on-road vehicles and then selling them as self-driving (they're technically not but look at the wording "this car has no driver", etc. - they're saying it's self-driving without actually being allowed to say the words). If they'd proven themselves first, I'd agree. But we're already picking up deaths because of self-driving modes that aren't.
P.S. Even Tesla themselves admit that they can only "self-drive" in any fashion on a freeway/motorway-like environment with clear lane markings where confusing hotspots are tracked and even then they still have "whoops, didn't see that HUGE CONCRETE DIVIDER" instantaneous deaths.
Not saying this stuff isn't POSSIBLE. It's out there. There are open mines that are entirely automated with HUGE 100-ton automated trucks moving around. What we're saying it that this stuff isn't READY, especially the consumer stuff, especially fighting against humans (the mines are generally no-go-zones for humans while in operation), especially while they CANNOT gain certification as "self-driving" from any country in the world.
But, most especially, while the manufacturers push all the liability to YOU, the driver. Until someone says "We'll pay all legal bills related to any accident deemed to be due to the error of our vehicle" then they have no confidence in their own system.
Stupid thing to do. Now the guy you blocked in keys your car because he has trouble getting into his car.
And dumbass Tesla owner would deserve a good keying for being that kind of selfish prick.
My keys are mightier than your paint job, Teslassholes.
You have been warned.
...who are mad that the car doesn't appear next to them when they raise a staff in the air and shout gibberish.
There are already too many jack-wagons where I live that drop someone off in front of the store and then STAY PARKED IN THE FIRE LANE waiting for that person to come out.
If I we also had people summoning their vehicles to constantly wait in front of the building it would be impossible to access.
Parking lots work because they are spread out, if everyone were to get in/out of their vehicle directly in front of the store it would be a nightmare.
You would end up having to summon your car to meet you 50-100 yards from the store entrance. In which case, you could just leave the damn thing parked. Feel free to turn it on remotely and let the climate control make it comfortable, that seems completely reasonable.
There are already too many jack-wagons where I live that drop someone off in front of the store and then STAY PARKED IN THE FIRE LANE waiting for that person to come out.
In one small town I lived in the main grocery store got tired of that and asked the cops to ticket people parked in the fire lane. Every few months a cop would grab a lawn chair, park it in the shade of the building, and just sit there. People would drive by him, park in the fire lane, and he'd write up the ticket, wander over, hand it to them, and then head back and sit down.
It was like shooting fish in a barrel. And it didn't seem to make much difference in the long run.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Probably a good strategy would be to drive to the outer limit of the carpark where it is generally empty except for staff cars, which would also limit the outrage from the general public about unsupervised cars driving around the lot and stealing their parks.
I predict in the next 5 years someone is going to paint corners on parking spaces specifically to enable self-driving cars to pick them out easier.
Nope, no sig
If you use the Summon feature while Ludicrous mode is active, the car will do a handbrake turn when arriving at your location.
I can't believe I'm still surprised at how many Slashdot readers are essentially Luddites. "News for Nerds (who believe their experiences writing PASCAL accounting software makes them experts on modern safety critical computer systems)".
It's like every other comment is always "Never connect a computer to the internet even if it's a web service!" "If it's not mechanical, I don't trust it!" "Automation will be the death of us!"
It's like most of Slashdot fought a war against the Cylons in a past life.
If the vehicle you're driving now was built in the past 10-20 years, chances are it's already drive-by-wire. You can press the brake pedal all you like, but if the traction control/electronic stability control/anti-lock brakes/etc decide not to apply any braking action due to a malfunction, you've got no brakes.
I drive a model car that is from the year 2000:
The brakes are controlled by a cable system attached to the break pedal.
And if that don't work, there's an E-brake lever that also operates the breaks mechanically.
And I expect my next car to not have anything more prone to have loss of braking in the event of
electronics/computer malfunction, than that.
When it backs into my garage door, can I sue Tesla for a new door? What about if it doesn't pull in far enough and the garage door closes on it? Can I force Tesla to pay for new paint on the trunk?
Err... all cars that are currently on sale have hydraulic brakes.
When you push on the brake pedal, you're actually operating a piston that pushes on brake fluid, and that fluid pushes on the pistons in the brake calipers. You have vacuum assist to make it easier, but even with the engine not running you can still brake (granted it takes much more force to do it).
And only one or two car models have steering by wire, almost all cars still have mechanical rack and pinion steering, with either hydraulic or electrical assist. Again if the engine cuts out it will take more effort to steer but it's still working.
Only the gas pedal is now almost always drive by wire, you no longer have that cable running from a pulley over the pedal to the throttle body, it's just a variable resistor measuring the movement of the pedal and relaying this information to the computer, wich then operate an servor motor on the throttle body.
Even the Tesla cars have a fully mechanically connected rack & pinion steering, but there's a small electric servo that can operate it when on autopilot. For the brakes the Tesla have conventionnal hydraulic brakes for the front, and electrically actuated rear brakes.
I don't know where you got your information, but it's moslty wrong.
Try it! Library of Babel
When you push on the brake pedal, you're actually operating a piston that pushes on brake fluid, and that fluid pushes on the pistons in the brake calipers. You have vacuum assist to make it easier, but even with the engine not running you can still brake (granted it takes much more force to do it).
So my anti-lock brakes and traction control system don't take my inputs, run them against sensory inputs, and then output braking controls to the physical brakes based on (if everything's working) what will enable me to maintain control over the vehicle? Because I'm pretty sure the ABS controller has the ability to ignore my braking inputs.
And only one or two car models have steering by wire, almost all cars still have mechanical rack and pinion steering, with either hydraulic or electrical assist. Again if the engine cuts out it will take more effort to steer but it's still working.
Sure, and when the steering assist malfunctions in such a way that it's "assisting" in the opposite direction from where I'm trying to turn the wheel? Or randomly "assisting" in different directions? There's still sensors that detect the torque on the wheel and feed that input into a controller, and all that still connects into any electronic stability control system, which can easily vary the assist in such a way that steering becomes practically impossible. Even a simpler malfunction such as the steering assist randomly turning on and off at the wrong time (such that you go from under-torquing to over-torquing the steering wheel because you never know how hard to steer) would easily make even small adjustments turn into extreme risk scenarios.
I don't know where you got your information, but it's moslty wrong.
It's coming from the manufacturers of cars. Modern cars have a lot of technology with a lot of control over how the car responds to the driver's input. Considering how few things need to go wrong for a modern car to become uncontrollable at even moderate speeds, it's a wonder we don't hear more about accidents where the onboard computer systems malfunctioned. That's a testament to the level of engineering going into the code and failure modes of that equipment.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Kind of a narrow-minded assumption that it would be another car on each side making the space tight, though, isn't it?
I love how all the Tesla haters jumped on this to rant about keying the car or ruining its whole paint job....
I'm thinking more of situations I've been in, in the past, where there might have been just enough space to fit my car between a concrete wall on one side and something like a trash dumpster on the other. Nobody parked there, even though the rest of the lot was packed, because it was too difficult to get out. But if you can slot the car in there automatically, cool .... You just took advantage of the space.
You can’t patch in a lack of hardware like lidar retard.
1: Other car manufacturers have been "patching" hardware for decades. It's called a product recall. Sure, patching in a whole new and improved piece of hardware such as Lidar to replace their existing tech is a big costly thing to do, but it would have to be done if Lidar were actually needed.
2: These cars don't seem to need Lidar (consider that ALL of them should be failing quite often without a required piece of navigation hardware)
3: dumbass
You cannot save and restore to avoid an accident in real life, idiot. Once a pedestrian is maimed or dead, they stay that way.
Fucking gamers, do you ever go out of that basement?
No shit Sherlock.
But I missed the part where I stated any of that
Are you trying to imply that the traffic related death rate for autonomous drivers is higher than the death rate from human drivers?
Or are you trying to imply that Tesla should get their shit together and release an absolutely perfect car on day one just like every other car manufacturer?
What are you? A stable genius®?
Because no piece of software has ever had a bug.
ISO 26262. *
Trying to argue why "software may theoretically have bugs" is a bad argument will take too much time. It is a lot easier for both of us if you just read the standard. (Or IEC 61508 if you want to, the safety related parts should be fairly equivalent.)
Just to get an idea of the scope, a system developed according to the standard will be able to manage a situation where a transistor in the CPU stops working, for example if the ALU no longer can set the zero-flag and conditional branches no longer is possible. Yep, you so called "safe" high level languages means jack shit when it comes to designing safe systems. Your built in super-automatic buffer overrun check isn't guaranteed to work.
The software should be bug-free, but even if it isn't then it shouldn't cause a safety issue.
Completely agree
However, my snark was more to do with the way certain internet commenters have this incredibly high standard placed upon Tesla, yet if an existing car manufacturer for example has a tech flaw, there isn't nearly the same level of outrage/concern/whatever
Could it be that "electric cars" and "autonomous driving" are a threat to people who's ePeen is attached to their ability to own and operate a big V8?
Note: I'm not saying that Tesla should get a pass for whatever may be wrong in their cars. I'm saying that the level of wrath directed towards Tesla seems to be people getting defensive over their toys being slowly taken away. I suspect that most of these people have never even heard of Lidar until it became a talking point for Tesla
* I do not assume that Tesla actually follows the standard even if they are legally required to.
I just hope that they're doing a better job of it than Toyota
and I say all of this while I tend to avoid American cars due to hardware reliability concerns (hoping Tesla will be the exception here)
And another perk, is that they can park on handicap-spots.
Because compared to (most) human drivers, they are definitely differently abled.
Super Cruise is a feature of Cadillac vehicles, not Tesla. I believe the Tesla feature is called Autopilot.
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