One of the features that came with my FSD subscription was Summon. This allows you to move the car from the mobile app without being in the car. I decided to test this a few times and see what happens. I ran these tests:

  • Coming out of the garage – failure
  • Backing out of a parking space at the gym – failure
  • Crossing the parking lot at the doctor – mostly OK
  • Summon to target in the gym parking lot – mixed
  • Summon to me in the gym parking lot – works

I’ve described the experiences below.

Garage

When I first subscribed, I drove home and parked the car short of coming into the garage. I walked into the garage and selected the forward arrow. The car drove very slowly into the garage, with lots of minor adjustments left and right. Not sure I loved that.

In the video of my testing, I tried to get the car to come out of the garage. It would wake up and start for an inch, and then stop. I think the right corner of the garage made the car nervous, and it didn’t quite believe it could back straight up. I didn’t test the come to me or come to target.

In a Parking Lot

I had tried this at a doctor’s office once, and stood in the middle of a parking lot, away from other cars. When I pressed come to target, the car backed up, turning out of a parking spot and then drove forward to me, though past me to a spot marked on the map. I’m not quite sure how a “target” is picked, but since I could have stopped the car near me, I wasn’t too worried.

Later I went to the large, mostly empty parking lot at my gym and did some other testing. Two tests couldn’t get the car to back out of the parking space, and I’m not sure why. No other cars around, so it was strange.

When I backed in, I could get the car to drive to me, though only with selecting “Come to Me”. The “Come to target” again picked a weird spot. Actually across a couple parking spots.

Summary

During a month of having FSD, I never really had a time when I wanted to summon the car. Of course, in Colorado in the summer, it rains rarely, and I’m not one to be worried about a little rain on the few days we have some. I also don’t quite know when I find it useful. Maybe if someone parks too close to let me get in or park.

The feature worked OK, though not great. Certainly not enough, or not consistently enough, for me to want to pay for this.

I made a video of my tests that you can check out.