Elon Musk: “Your car will drive to your phone location and follow you like a pet if you hold down summon button on Tesla app.”
A Tesla will soon be able to drive itself for short distances, or it could be driven from a smartphone in some cases, and even follow its driver “like a pet,” CEO Elon Musk said Thursday on Twitter. However, it is not clear if a vehicle operating in a public space would be legally allowed to park itself.
Driving while using your phone is about to take on a whole new level, as Tesla starts to roll out an enhanced “Summon” feature that will allow drivers to operate their car via a smartphone app.
The electric carmaker will introduce for the first time new software, dubbed “Summon” that will let its cars park themselves, without having a driver behind the wheel, according to a tweet from Musk late Wednesday. A further upgrade to the feature will eventually enable vehicles to read and follow parking signs, find their own parking space, and pull into it, according to the CEO.
However, it is still unclear whether anyone will legally be able to use the new feature. The Congress is currently working on new autonomous vehicle rules and state regulators generally require a driver to remain behind the wheel whenever a vehicle is in motion. Individual states and some municipalities set guidelines for how an autonomous car can operate. More than half of the states now permit testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads. However, in all cases, a licensed driver must remain behind the wheel ready to take control in an emergency.
According to Forbes.
