Associated Incidents
A video was posted on Reddit Thursday that appears to show a Tesla vehicle slowly crashing into a $3.5 million private jet after being “summoned” by its owner using the automaker’s automatic parking feature.
The Reddit user (who did not immediately respond to a request for comment) said the incident took place at an event sponsored by aircraft manufacturer Cirrus at Felts Field in Spokane, Washington.
The smartphone video appears to capture security camera footage of the Tesla slowly crashing into and then actually pushing the Cirrus Vision Jet across the tarmac. A spokesperson for Felts Field also did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the poster, the Tesla owner was using the “Smart Summon” feature that enables a Tesla vehicle to leave a parking space and navigate around obstacles to its owner. Using just the Tesla app on your smartphone, you can “summon” your car to you from a maximum distance of 200 feet, as long as the car is within your line of sight.
The Reddit user said they also own a Tesla Model Y but were not the “poor soul (with poor decision making abilities) who summoned his Tesla around several expensive aircraft - only to crash it into the most expensive one ($3,500,000)!”
Smart Summon was first rolled out in 2019, and Tesla owners immediately began posting videos of near-crashes or confused, slow-moving vehicles. One Tesla owner tweeted about “front bumper damage” while another claimed their Model 3 “ran into the side of [a] garage.”
A video of a near-collision with a speeding SUV left the owner feeling their test of Smart Summon “didn’t go so well.” Another Tesla was filmed by pedestrians and people in other cars seeming confused as it tried to make its way across a Walmart parking lot.
A newer version of the feature enables owners to summon their Tesla vehicles from further away and can navigate more complex parking environments, according to Electrek. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has described Smart Summon as the company’s “most viral feature ever.”