Smart Summon lets your Tesla pull itself out of a parking spot and drive to you with nobody behind the wheel. It’s a genuinely useful party trick, but it comes with real limits worth knowing before you rely on it.
What it actually does
Using the Tesla app, you choose “Come to Me” or “Go to Target” — the car either drives to your phone’s location or to a spot you drop a pin on. It uses the same cameras and sensors as Autopilot to steer around obstacles and stop for people, and it only moves while you hold a button down in the app; let go, and it stops immediately.
The limits that matter
Smart Summon caps out around 6 mph, and your phone has to stay within roughly 213 feet (65 meters) of the car with a clear line of sight the whole time. It’s built for private parking lots and driveways, not public roads. The car also needs to be unplugged with the doors and trunk closed, and if a door opens, you touch the wheel or pedals, an obstacle appears, or your phone loses connection, it stops on the spot.
Tesla’s own channel posted a short clip of Smart Summon working its way across a rain-slicked lot:
That’s one demonstration on Tesla’s official channel, not a claim that Smart Summon is rated for every wet-weather condition — the operating limits above are what actually govern how and where you can use it, rain or not.
Photo by Erik Mclean.