You Can Now Summon Your Tesla From The Garage And In 2 Years It'll Drive Across The Country Alone

There’s been a lot made recently of Tesla’s autopilot feature. The Palo Alto-based manufacturer made a lot of fuss about the fact its autonomous driving cars would learn from their mistakes, feeding a central database to teach other cars how to drive specific sections of road. It was only ever designed to be used on motorways where only minor steering and speed adjustments might need to be made, but a few dumb people recorded themselves using it in ways they weren’t supposed to, forcing the scaling back of its capabilities.

Elon Musk is well behind autonomous technology, though, and hasn’t let this minor setback put him off his goal to make Tesla a maker of fully autonomous vehicles. He’s just announced that a new over-the-air software update is currently being streamed into owners’ cars. The latest upgrade adds a ‘Summon’ ability, which allows drivers to call their car from the garage.

As with most of Tesla’s autonomous technology, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this; many manufacturers have offered cars that’ll park themselves for a while now, but being able to call your car to you without needing to be inside it adds an extra level of intrigue.

Musk claims that this is the first baby steps of the Summon technology, believing that you’ll be able to call your car to you across the country in the next couple of years.

So basically, so long as you’re in the same country as your car, it’ll be able to come and get you, charging itself along the way if necessary. That’s a pretty huge deal, particularly for people who have to commute into the city every day. Just imagine driving to the office, sending your car home after you arrive, then calling it to come get you when you finish; it’d solve the huge problem of finding parking in overcrowded cities. Depending on how far laws progress, it could also eventually help reduce drink driving deaths by giving people contemplating taking a risk another option.

It’s tough for car guys and girls to see how quickly autonomous driving is advancing, but there’s no denying this technology is utterly fascinating. Here’s hoping the old fashioned car has a lot of life left in it yet…