Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently teased the idea of an upcoming “Smart Parking” feature. We are not entirely sure what to expect from this upcoming capability, though Musk lightly mentioned that “it may be a little silly at first”.
The Silicon Valley-based manufacturer released a beta Tesla Autopark feature in March 2017. The addition allows for vehicles to park in both parallel and perpendicular spaces completely autonomously. Smart Parking may be a more mature version of this feature, in the same way Smart Summon was an improved version of the original Summon, which only allowed vehicles to move forward and backwards a few feet at a time.
Hopefully, a month or two, although it may be a little silly at first
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 2, 2019
The addition of Smart Summon to the V10 update has allowed owners to have their vehicles drive to them in a parking lot, negating the need to walk to the car. The convenience of this is great, and we can only speculate whether the addition of “Smart Parking” will allow for the vehicle to park itself after dropping off its owner at the front of whatever store they would be shopping at in that particular instance.
How the feature will differ from Tesla’s Autopark is unknown. Assuming that the name is similar to the recently released “Smart Summon” feature, perhaps it will be a mirror of what Summon does. Does this mean that owners will be able to have their vehicles drop them off, find an available spot and park all without the assistance of the driver? Such would indeed be a very convenient feature.
This could completely change the way that parking lots operate on a normal basis too. Tesla owners would be able to get to the store on Autopilot, have their cars park themselves and then pick them up at the end of the trip.
Details are pretty vague and relatively unknown at this point. However, Musk did clarify that owners of Enhanced Autopilot, as well as Full Self Driving, would have access to this new feature. Musk has estimated that Smart Parking will be available in “hopefully, a month or two.” This could help Tesla’s final quarter of 2019 and get the first quarter of 2020 off to a great start.
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