A woman who witnessed a Tesla Model 3 using Smart Summon mistook it for a runaway vehicle and tried to save the day. Tesla Smart Summon is a convenient software feature which allows a driver to summon their vehicle in a parking lot.
A woman who was in her car parked a few spots down from the Model 3 saw it initiate the Smart Summon feature as it began to find its way to its owner. The woman proceeded to jump out of her stationary vehicle and run towards the moving Tesla, thinking it was a “runaway” and was out control.
The video was uploaded by Youtube user Thyhack who explained in the video’s description: “I was just leaving a restaurant in West Chester, PA and was summoning my Tesla Model 3. A Woman saw my Tesla moving without someone in the vehicle, she had thought that my vehicle was rolling away. She ran to catch the car and started pressing on the front left pillar to stop it. As soon as I saw what was occurring, I stopped the Tesla. Obviously the lady was very embarrassed. But I thought it was so nice of her to go well out of her way to prevent what she thought was a disaster, but also very funny.”
An event that is likely to become more and more common as the use of Tesla Smart Summon increases, but will hopefully become more recognized as people become more familiar with true autonomous driving.
It could also cause a huge safety risk as the Tesla “rescuer” could potentially put themselves in harms way while trying to stop the car. However, that wasn’t the case in this instance as the only injury was probably to the “resucer’s” pride.
Check out the full video below: