- Tesla's Actual Smart Summon was released last week.
- Compared to the old Smart Summon, which was canned after receiving negative reviews, the new system uses cameras instead of ultrasonic sensors.
Last week, Tesla started pushing a feature called “Actual Smart Summon” to its cars with software version 2024.26.20. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the second iteration of a system that was first released a few years ago, only to be removed because it wasn’t ready for prime time.
The old version used the electric cars’ ultrasonic sensors, but since new Tesla EVs don’t have ultrasonic sensors anymore, the feature had to be reworked. Now, the cheekily named “Actual Smart Summon” (ASS for short) uses the car’s cameras to figure out where to go and how to get to the owner.
Just like the first version, the owner has to press a virtual button on the Tesla smartphone app to convince the car to come to them. There are two modes of operation called “come to me” and “go to target,” which don’t really need an explanation. Additionally, there’s a so-called “Dumb Summon” mode which allows the owner to move the car forward or backward by simply pressing some arrows on the smartphone app.
But how does ASS perform in the real world? As it turns out, it’s much better than the version that was canned. First off, there’s a live feed in the app to see what the car sees.
Then, the system is much more confident in what it needs to do, even in tricky situations. The speed is limited to 6 miles per hour and there seems to be “a huge bias toward pedestrian safety,” according to Tesla enthusiast and avid driver assistance systems tester AI Drivr, who put Actual Smart Summon to the test in a variety of scenarios in the video embedded at the top of this page.
The old Smart Summon used to stop abruptly after 400 feet no matter what you did, whereas the new Actual Smart Summon seems perfectly comfortable driving much longer distances, as long as the owner stays inside the blue circle in the app. Even if the driver moves away from the initial location, the car will still figure out a way to get to the owner in real-time
With ASS, Teslas can even back out of parking spots, but as we mentioned last week, they still can’t park themselves. Instead, the vehicle simply pulls to the right, stops and puts on the hazards.
But it’s not perfect. In one instance during testing, the car was stuck for a few minutes when trying to back out of a parking spot. in another instance, it engaged the emergency braking because it thought it would run over a curb, even though there was plenty of space to pass safely.
The conclusion of the video is quite simple. While the old version was about “50% magical” and “50% awkward,” Actual Smart Summon is “80% magical” and “20% awkward.” But what do you think? Let us know in the comments.
