See Tesla Model 3 Owner Retrieve His EV From A Closed Garage Using Smart Summon

The parking garage closed at 10:00 PM and there was no way of gaining access from outside, apparently.

Sep 18, 2023 at 8:02am ET

When Tesla released the Smart Summon feature in September 2019, it became a feature that instantly gave the owner of a compatible EV bragging rights, but after a couple of months, the number of social media posts showing the parking assistant doing its thing slowly but surely went lower and lower.

However, that doesn’t mean that Tesla drivers don’t use Smart Summon, with the company saying back in October 2019 that the feature had been used over one million times. And now, a new video published on X (formerly Twitter) by the user @JackyHeshi shows how the semi-autonomous parking assistant got him out of a potentially uncomfortable situation.

The 20-second recording that’s embedded below shows (NSFW language, be aware) how the user’s Model 3 was parked in an underground garage that had a policy of closing its gates after 10 PM, and the EV owner got there after the closing time, unable to get to his car and drive away.

However, as Heshi says in the description of the video, he was able to get close enough to the EV to enable Smart Summon, which drove the car without anyone inside until it reached the proximity sensor that triggered the gate to open from the inside and allowed the owner and his friends to get in and drive away without having to call anyone or – worst case scenario – get a taxi and have to return the next day to get the EV.

According to the owner manual, the Summon feature can be used by owners to move their vehicle up to 39 feet into or out of parking spaces, while Smart Summon allows the vehicle to move on its own on longer distances of up to around 213 feet while avoiding obstacles and without owners manually selecting drive or reverse.

In related news, Tesla made its much-delayed “Autosteer on city streets” feature available for those who bought or have a subscription to the so-called Full Self-Driving (FSD) driving assistance system. The Elon Musk-led company also lowered the purchase price of FSD from $15,000 to $12,000.

As always, we’d like to know what you think about this, so head over to the comments section below to give us your thoughts.