Elon Musk tips Tesla cars will scout free parking spots and park autonomously with a tap

Exiting a Tesla and leaving it to park itself in a free parking spot it has identified on its own is in the cards for Tesla vehicle owners, according to none other than Elon Musk. Tesla's CEO disclosed that the company's engineers are working on a sort of a "tap to park" feature where the car uses its Tesla Vision cameras and autonomous driving software to identify free parking spots where it can fit.

The Tesla car will apparently then offer a choice of potential parking spots to its driver to pick from, if any, and they will be able to tap on one, exit the vehicle, and then the Tesla will park itself in the self-identified parking spot.

Self-parking Tesla options

"We are working on a feature where the car identifies probable viable parking spaces. You tap on one, exit the vehicle and it parks there," says Elon Musk, and this sounds an awful lot like the Reverse Summon features that have been rumored for a good while now.

Besides the newly disclosed "tap to park" option, the Reverse Summon feature which may ultimately be called Smart Parking or Self-Parking in the vein of Full Self-Driving Beta, was initially said to have other abilities. Those reportedly include "closest to the door", "near cart returns", or "end of the parking lot" choices that may ultimately be joined by the less automated "tap to park" that Elon Musk mentions.

"Closest to the door" takes the driver and passengers to the entrance of a building which would come in handy when it rains, while "near cart returns" would tell the Tesla to go and wiggle into the best spot available at the Walmart parking lot, for instance. The "end of the parking lot," on the other hand, will tell the Tesla to go as far away from other vehicles as possible to minimize the potential for dings and scratches.

For all other times, the driver may be able to manually pick one of the free parking spots that their Tesla has identified in one way or another, then tap to tell the car to park there, exit the vehicle, and go on their merry way. It's not clear when will Tesla release a Reverse Summon feature with all of the potential options listed above, but the upcoming FSD v12 update is probably as good of a guess as any, while the self-parking options may very well be in beta for a long time, too.

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