How to Summon Tesla with Key Fob – Amazing Driverless Tesla


It is an amazing feature to be able to summon your Tesla remotely.  You do not have to be in the vehicle, and it will drive through your private driveway driverless.  You will be the talk of the neighborhood once you have summoned your Tesla and ordered it to park itself into your closed garage. Is this function that is potentially dangerous? Will it take numerous crashes and hair-pulling sessions to get it right?

How to summon your Tesla with your key fob. To summon your Tesla using the key fob, you will need to make sure that your vehicle is turned off and that it is in park.  Now press on the center button and hold it in. After 3-4 seconds, the hazard lights will start to flicker and then they will stay on.  Simply let go of the center and the car will startup.  To reverse the vehicle, press the trunk button.  To move it forward, press the front truck button.

Now that you have an idea of how the summons function works, what if you have a Model 3?  Is the method of using summons the same?

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How to use Tesla summon on a Model 3

You will start to set up summon on a Model 3, by going to the touchscreen:

  1. First of all, you need to get to the settings screen.
  2. On the settings screen, click on autopilot.
  3. There will be a button on the right side called summon, press that button.
  4. There is a disclaimer.  Make sure that you read it since it highlights that certain objects will not be detected.  Plus, you have to ensure that you are ready to stop the vehicle at any moment.  Their biggest disclaimer is that you can only use it on private property.  You will find videos on YouTube showing people using their Tesla Summon feature in public areas to get a lot of views. Once you have read the disclaimer, just press ‘yes’ to indicate that you are aware of the hazards.
  5. You can start to use it right away, but it is best to customize it for your needs.
  6. For instance, you can set up the distances that you which to keep from objects.  Nevertheless, you should be able to park in spaces that are tight if you carefully monitor the progress of the Tesla while in this mode.
  7. If you want the clearance to be low, just set the bumper clearance to a low amount such as 12 inches (you can set it to as low as 8 inches). Once the vehicle senses that it is within that range, it will stop automatically.
  8. You can also set how far you need to be from the Tesla.  This a safeguard since if you are too far, the vehicle will stop and wait until you are within range.
  9.  The side clearance cannot be set to a number of inches, you can pick either standard or tight clearance for the sides of the Tesla Model 3.
  10. The next setting to set is a safeguard that causes you to need to hold in on the button continuously in order for the vehicle to move.  It is a nice feature, and it is best for safety reasons to have it set in the ON position.
  11. If you have HomeLink set up for your Tesla that controls your garage door, you can turn this on so that it will open the garage door automatically.
  12. Now you can use the summon function.  Just remember that the mirrors will fold in once you have it activated.  It does not need to use the mirrors to park itself in a tight space like in a tiny garage.

Now I will explain how to control the car using Summon for the Model 3:

  1. Just launch the app on your cell phone.
  2. Go to where you see the word Summon.
  3. It will connect to the car.  You will know that it has done so when you will see below the car image, the forward and reverse controls.
  4. Once you start to control the car using Summon, you are responsible completely if you were to damage your car.  You cannot complain to Tesla that the program had malfunctioned and expect to be reimbursed for the repairs.
  5. Once you are ready to go forward into a tight space, such as in a garage that already has a car parked inside, press and hold in on the forward or reverse button to move the car into the garage.
  6. To back the car out of the garage once it has been parked by Summon, just press, and hold the reverse button and it should start to slowly back out of your garage. If it senses an obstruction, it will stop right away.  If you are too close to the rear of the car, it will stop before it reaches you.

Now I will explain if there are any differences in the way that Tesla Summon works with the Model Y when compared to the guide above for Model 3

How to use Telsa Smart Summon on a Model Y

Some people like to turn on the standby mode in the autopilot section on the touchscreen.  This will place the camera, the auto-driving sensors, and the Tesla computer in ready mode.  You must be careful with this setting because it will use more of your battery charge.

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Here are the steps to follow to use the Smart summon:

  1. The come to me option with the smart summon will not be available on your phone app.  It is not available unless you have selected the standby mode.
  2. Now scroll to the summon button itself on your phone app and click on it.
  3. You will see two options.
  4. One option is to go to target. You can move the cursor within the tiny circle to select the position where you want your Tesla to drive to on its own.
  5. The other opinion is to press the target button on the top right corner. This will make the come to me option available on the screen.
  6. If you were to hit summon on the car image, it will take to a satellite view and a blue line will indicate the route that the Tesla will take to get to your selected target.
  7. You will be able to see how fast your Tesla Model Y is going, and the gear that it is currently using.
  8. Just click and hold in the come to me button and the car will drive to your selected position.
  9. If you click to come to me on the main app, the view will be different.
  10. The obstacles will be less clear, but you will see indications as to why the car is slowing down.  For instance, if it senses people in its path or when it stops at an intersection.

Here is a quick video to watch that explains how to use the smart summon. It shows the satellite view and the view that is provided when you press on the come to me option on the main app for the cell:

If you have tried to use your fob for the Tesla Summon function, and you cannot get it to work, you are having a problem with your key fob and not the function itself.

Why is my Tesla summon key fob not working?

It is frustrating when you cannot get Tesla Summon to work with a simple key fob.  You would think that using it would be less technologically challenging for Tesla.  Many owners in forums have complained that they cannot get the function to work or that their Tesla will just creep ahead a few inches and then stop dead in its tracks.

They are a few reasons as to why you cannot use Summon with your key fob:

  1.  If you have just purchased a key fob that you felt would be better with Summon, make sure that you pair it correctly with your Tesla.  It could work for opening the doors and so forth, but not work for the Summon feature.  It is best to reset it by deleting this key fob from the list of key fobs on your touchscreen.  Now try to pair again with your Tesla.  To do so, go to the Locks tab that is in the controls.  Now follow the instructions to add a new key.  Make sure that you customize the name so that you can easily find it in the list in the future.
  2. Another reason for the problem with your key fob with Summon is that you had turned on the continuous feature for Summon.  This can be found within the touchscreen settings for Summon.  You will see the phrase ‘require continuous press’.  Turn it on.

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