Last month, Tesla used an over the air update to give its cars the power to move themselves into and out of parking spaces---with nobody at the wheel, or even in the car. The feature is called Summon, and it's fundamental to Tesla's goal of making its electric cars autonomous.
In this first iteration of the technology, you can make your Tesla roll forward and backward using the key or an app for your phone or smartwatch. That’s handy for getting into and out of super tight spaces, and not much else. It seems lame compared to Autopilot, which lets the car drive itself anywhere it has clearly marked lane lines to follow (it's really for highway use, as it doesn't recognize traffic lights). But it’s an equally important part of CEO Elon Musk’s vision for a world of self-driving cars.
Autonomous driving will change a lot more than what we do behind the wheel, they'll change the economics and practicalities of how we interact with our vehicles. That includes what happens when no one's in the car. Where does it go? Does it park nearby, or in a special lot? How does it know when it's time to pick the human up again, and how to find them?
Summon starts to answer those questions. And it won't remain a party trick forever. Tesla is working on a charging arm that can plug itself in, so when you car rolls into your garage, you don't need to follow it there to make sure it's getting charged. In two years, Musk says, Summon will let you call up your self-driving Tesla from just about anywhere—even across the country. "Ultimately, you’ll be able to summon your car from anywhere," as long as it can physically get to you, he said in January. Michael Knight never had it so good.
