# Autopark - What's your experience like?



## timtesla (May 9, 2018)

I've had my model 3 for a month and a half now, just curious what everyone's experience is like with auto park feature.

For me, most of the time it doesn't recognize a spot. I've had more luck getting it to recognize the spot if I angle the car before hand, so it only has to reverse in. It also doesn't read the lines super well. 

This morning it parked over a freshly painted, bright yellow line, within a few inches of the car that was actually in that spot. I hit the brake and redid it myself, I wouldn't have been able to open my door. Cool feature, but it has not been super useful so far. 

Anyone else have better luck than me? Any tips for getting it to work properly?


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## Derik (Jul 26, 2017)

My luck has been hit and miss with it. 

It only likes to find the spots between two parked cars, and normally that isn't where I want to park anyway. It also seems to miss plenty of open spots. I have had it show me the blue P a few times when I'm sitting in the middle of traffic, so I'm not exactly sure what it's criteria are for a good parking spot.

It's pretty amazing on how well it parks, but it is pretty slow if you ask me. I normally can find the spot, back up, adjust if needed, and get out before it would have finished it's first set of backing up, assuming it needs to adjust.

Haven't used the parallel park feature yet, but that is mainly because where I live no one really parallel parks.


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## timtesla (May 9, 2018)

Derik said:


> It's pretty amazing on how well it parks, but it is pretty slow if you ask me.


I agree with that. I've turned it off a couple times because I was blocking people behind me and wanted to finish parking faster. Very safe, but not very polite. Lol


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## John (Apr 16, 2016)

Very accurate every time I've used.
Too slow to use when other cars are around. May take extra back-and-forths to get perfect.
As for the recognition, drive slow, keep some separation from the line of cars, pass the spot completely + 1 car. You drive further past the spot than you think.


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## wawam3 (May 2, 2018)

Yeah, too slow for me...a few times people honk me for being too slow in auto park. I wish it is humanly fast like we all do reverse park. Hopefully future update will address that but I can deal without it for now...


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## Milo (Apr 4, 2016)

Perpendicular is fun, but too slow and I rarely use it. I don't get the opportunity to parallel often, but I find that to be quick and smooth, although I find that I have to drive further up than I'd like, and it can confuse other drivers. 

Now, if only I could get summon to work in my garage...

Model 3, 2018.24.7


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## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

I find it to be a party trick more than anything. When it works, it's painfully slow. More importantly it doesn't handle my preferred parking which is corner spots only.


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## Derik (Jul 26, 2017)

SoFlaModel3 said:


> I find it to be a party trick more than anything.


So you are saying it's the same thing as summon? (Still stuck on 21.9)


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## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

Derik said:


> So you are saying it's the same thing as summon? (Still stuck on 21.9)


Summon may be a party trick as well but some practical application...

1) In and out of tight space with no chance of opening the door

2) Parked car, pouring ran causes a flood, can't get in the car - pull it forward!

3) Summon race! Oh wait that's a party trick


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## Beagle (May 10, 2018)

Parallel is the only parking I have tried. It misses a lot of acceptable spots, and I have to stop it about half of the time as there was no way it could complete the second part of the turn without hitting the curb. Of course it might have stopped on its own, but it was backing into the curb at an angle that was beyond possible.


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## rareohs (Sep 15, 2017)

SoFlaModel3 said:


> Summon may be a party trick as well but some practical application...
> 
> 1) In and out of tight space with no chance of opening the door
> 
> ...


Posted a vid of successful summoning to my Instagram yesterday with the caption:

Tesla Summon: kind of creepy, mostly useless, and completely awesome


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## NR4P (Jul 14, 2018)

Autopark works only between two cars with an open spot in between. Not that practical. But then again, if two adjacent spots are open, any of us should be able to pull in quickly.

Where I live, parallel parking isn't too common anyway. It's all shopping centers and public parking.


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## RIP_OPEC (Jul 15, 2018)

timtesla said:


> I've had my model 3 for a month and a half now, just curious what everyone's experience is like with auto park feature.
> 
> For me, most of the time it doesn't recognize a spot. I've had more luck getting it to recognize the spot if I angle the car before hand, so it only has to reverse in. It also doesn't read the lines super well.
> 
> ...


Would not recommend autopark at the moment, as I've read many horror stories of it failing and hitting an adjacent vehicle or scraping a curb. I'd say wait until Tesla irons out the bugs.


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## ZaelFaroe (Sep 26, 2017)

I've used the parallel park successfully a few times, and think it's cool. I've tried auto parking by backing in twice, and both times stopped it because it looked from the rear view camera like I would hit the adjacent vehicle. Really wish that one worked better, but at the moment I just don't trust it.


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## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

rareohs said:


> Posted a vid of successful summoning to my Instagram yesterday with the caption:
> 
> Tesla Summon: kind of creepy, mostly useless, and completely awesome


And I posted this one  ...


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## Sumiguchi (Jun 3, 2018)

wawam3 said:


> Yeah, too slow for me...a few times people honk me for being too slow in auto park. I wish it is humanly fast like we all do reverse park. Hopefully future update will address that but I can deal without it for now...


I do this when I get honked at - like I _also_ wonder whats taking so long!









I don't think I've figured out how best to get into a spot to best detect the parking spot, but whe it detects it, it's always parked perfectly in parallel and perp parking spots - albeit slowly as mentioned.


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## firedfly (Sep 23, 2017)

I'm on the 26.3 release now and notice that it wanted to autopark as i was backing into a spot next to a curb (curb on one side, parked car on the other). I thought that it needed a car on both sides. Also, even though I didn't engage autopark, it was showing an outline of the spot and where my car was in the spot as I backed in.

Has anyone else seen this? I'll try to grab a picture next time this happens.


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## Silver Streak 3 (Apr 3, 2018)

timtesla said:


> I've had my model 3 for a month and a half now, just curious what everyone's experience is like with auto park feature.
> 
> For me, most of the time it doesn't recognize a spot. I've had more luck getting it to recognize the spot if I angle the car before hand, so it only has to reverse in. It also doesn't read the lines super well.
> 
> ...


I have used auto park ,both perpendicular and parallel, with no problems. I must say the first 3 times using perpendicular it seemed so close I braked. Later when I found more guts I did it and many times using both since. I do it for fun now mostly when people are watching cause I raise my hands high! LOL


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## Sumiguchi (Jun 3, 2018)

firedfly said:


> I'm on the 26.3 release now and notice that it wanted to autopark as i was backing into a spot next to a curb (curb on one side, parked car on the other). I thought that it needed a car on both sides. Also, even though I didn't engage autopark, it was showing an outline of the spot and where my car was in the spot as I backed in.
> 
> Has anyone else seen this? I'll try to grab a picture next time this happens.


Yup - I have auto-parked into a spot between a car and a curb.


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## coredumperror (Mar 23, 2018)

I've used the perpendicular auto-park numerous times, and never had an issue. In fact, I had previously _never_ backed into a perpendicular space in my entire life, so watching the auto-park actually taught me how to do it on those few places where there isn't a single space between two cars, and I have to do it myself.

Haven't used the parallel auto-park, though.


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## evannole (Jun 18, 2018)

I have used autopark for perpendicular spaces only once. I know that backing into perpendicular spaces is safer than going in nose-first, since when you go to leave the space, there's less of a chance of a collision with cross-traffic or pedestrians. However, unless no one is anywhere close to your rear bumper when you go to reverse into the space, there's a good chance you'll be unable to complete the maneuver, and and an even better chance that you'll annoy the driver(s) behind you; that chance is increased substantially with the Model 3's autopark function, which takes a while to complete its maneuvers.

With parallel spaces, however, the function really shines. We live in a small historic downtown that has quite a bit of parallel parking, and I have used the autopark function with those parallel spots several times. The car parks itself smoothly and precisely, and in this instance I think it manages to park the car faster than I would manually - and I have always considered myself a pretty good parallel parker. So, color me impressed.


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## Chris350 (Aug 8, 2017)

I haven't gotten up the guts to do this more than once...

It was impressive, but I was nervous the entire time as it was backing in so close to another car...

It didn't hit it, but it backed in very close and then corrected...

I guess I don't trust it enough yet.... To many youtube video's of Tesla's hitting cars while using it, I guess...


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## Bravedog (May 2, 2018)

Useless for me, but perhaps worth it for a really tight parallel parking.

I intentionally tried it in a perpendicular job with a car only on one side and a curb on the other. It tried pulling in and out a couple of times and it surrendered on its own. I can't imagine this car doing a full valet by itself any time soon.


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## John (Apr 16, 2016)

I will say one disadvantage of parking tail-first is that if someone scrapes you coming or going, it will be right on the side of the nose of the car.

I know this for a fact, alas.

Probably still better than parking nose first as far as avoiding a more serious collision. There's a post office near me that has people constantly backing into each other because of the all of the comings and goings. My last car got popped pretty good once doing that.


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## Rafael (Apr 6, 2016)

I'm always surprised that my Model 3 almost always wants to park between two cars when I'm creeping up slowly waiting at red lights in traffic. Anyone else has experienced this?


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## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

Rafael said:


> I'm always surprised that my Model 3 almost always wants to park between two cars when I'm creeping up slowly waiting at red lights in traffic. Anyone else has experienced this?


All the time ... would be funny to throw the car in reverse and go for it. Could you imagine the looks if your car parallel parked in-between 2 cars at a red light?


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## Rafael (Apr 6, 2016)

SoFlaModel3 said:


> All the time ... would be funny to throw the car in reverse and go for it. Could you imagine the looks if your car parallel parked in-between 2 cars at a red light?


Oh, good, I'm not the only one.


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## Silver Streak 3 (Apr 3, 2018)

firedfly said:


> I'm on the 26.3 release now and notice that it wanted to autopark as i was backing into a spot next to a curb (curb on one side, parked car on the other). I thought that it needed a car on both sides. Also, even though I didn't engage autopark, it was showing an outline of the spot and where my car was in the spot as I backed in.
> 
> Has anyone else seen this? I'll try to grab a picture next time this happens.


So when I saw your post I went out and tried and had success! Check out this video. Notice there is no car behind me. I'm thinking the Tesla Model 3 is MAGIC!!!


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## GDN (Oct 30, 2017)

Rafael said:


> I'm always surprised that my Model 3 almost always wants to park between two cars when I'm creeping up slowly waiting at red lights in traffic. Anyone else has experienced this?


Have never seen this, only once have I ever seen the car to offer to park and it was when I had already started to back in to a spot. I wasn't sure what it was even telling me at the time, I just finished parking.

In TX. I've never seen anyone leave enough room between them and the car in front for the car to want to park. They are on your bumper all the time here.

And as far as backing in to a spot, I do it about 95% of the time. Daily driver for over 25 years has been a pickup. They are much easier to park backing in rather than going forward. Have perfected that skill over the years and it's fun to hear friends say that I parked easier going backward than they do going forward. And it is much easier to get out of the spot as well, especially if you are in a busy parking lot, like after a concert or something when the lot is really busy.


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## Silver Streak 3 (Apr 3, 2018)

Rafael said:


> I'm always surprised that my Model 3 almost always wants to park between two cars when I'm creeping up slowly waiting at red lights in traffic. Anyone else has experienced this?


Yes, I've had this happen several times!


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## Ken Voss (Feb 2, 2017)

For me AutoPark in its current state is fairly useless, it only detect's about 10% of available spaces and its way too slow. It needs improvement in detection and speed before I will be using it.


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## Travelwolf (Jun 8, 2016)

So I have had my car for a little over 3 months and just over 9k miles. Perpendicular autopark has never worked. I have called Tesla and they keep saying it is a firmware issue, but they have updated it several times now and I am currently on 32.2 which was just released a couple days ago. 

History: 

prior to 28.5: I tried about a million times & autopark did not work in perpendicular OR parallel parking. 
28.5: Autopark works fine now for parallel parking but perpendicular still wont work. It will back up, stop, turn the wheel to pull forward/straighten out, then quit completely and say "autopark canceled"
32.2 autopark in parallel still works, perpendicular has worked three times out of about 50 tries

Anyone else having this issue? I had another Model 3 autopark in the same spot a couple times and he was successful in several spots when I was not. This was before 28.5


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## Travelwolf (Jun 8, 2016)

also as an FYI- 32.3 seems to have fixed the issue of the screen randomly blacking out and the rearview camera delay, as well as the echo in calls. yay!


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## AugustaDriver (Jul 21, 2017)

Just upgraded to 32.3 last night so no recent testing, but I've only gotten perpendicular mode to work one time when it was supposed to, I think there is a sweet spot in terms of distance and speed which the speed is listed in the manual, but otherwise I see the "P" at the strangest times for parallel parking, like when I'm at a stop light, and there is a lane to my right with a significant enough gap to activate the symbol. Another of what I call my party tricks, fun to show off when it works but unreliable in everyday use. I'm hoping 32.3 fixes the summon connection issue.


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## Travelwolf (Jun 8, 2016)

mine never worked in perpendicular until 32.3 software and has now worked 3 times out of about 50 :-( they are trying to analyze timestamps of code to figure out why. very sad :-( parallel works finally since this update though so thats good


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## Travelwolf (Jun 8, 2016)

it did not fix the connection issue for summon, sorry


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## SalisburySam (Jun 6, 2018)

Travelwolf said:


> So I have had my car for a little over 3 months and just over 9k miles. Perpendicular autopark has never worked. I have called Tesla and they keep saying it is a firmware issue, but they have updated it several times now and I am currently on 32.2 which was just released a couple days ago.
> 
> History:
> 
> ...


My experiences have been different:
24.8 (at delivery) - Perpendicular worked every time, very reliable
28.1 (first upgrade) - Perpendicular worked every time, very reliable
32.2 (second upgrade) - Perpendicular worked every time, but only 3 tries so far since upgrade

On all three versions, parallel park has been available. I tried it on each version and it worked each time. That said, I just don't like it. For me, you have to go too far forward of the open spot to actually begin the process. Then, it takes too long and too many steps to get parked, though it does park the car very well in terms of distance to curb and front/back clearance. I'm too impatient though, and pretty good at parallel parking.

Given my experience, you may wish to push back a bit more with Tesla.


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## Bokonon (Apr 13, 2017)

Note from the field: when Auto-parking into a perpendicular space between two cars.... if one of the cars moves during the process, it gets kind of confused and starts wiggling as it backs in.


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## Rick Steinwand (May 19, 2018)

I know how to park (been driving for 50 years) so never tried it for the 9 months I owned a '18 Volt or the 5 months I owned my '18 M3.

That said, the two times I remember seeing the autopark available icon were stopped at at stop light, surrounded by vehicles, and after backing into the garage. What came to my mind in the garage incident of 2019, was, _"oh, you think you can do better?"_.


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## tmw (Apr 16, 2018)

Auto park is too slow and you want to take over to speed things up. Imo


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## TheHairyOne (Nov 28, 2018)

I stopped using it after it drove up a low curb while I was demonstrating it to a coworker.


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## Jay79 (Aug 18, 2018)

Its not their yet, I won't use it until it can park better than me. I'd imagine with the Hardware 3 upgrade Autopark and Summons should finally become useful features


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## TheHairyOne (Nov 28, 2018)

I would trade auto park for auto rear camera clean!

I'll ask my mechanical engineers if they can design something cheap that can run off of the license plate light power source.


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## avramd (Jan 23, 2021)

I realize this is an old thread, but I just went on an autoparking expedition & figured I'd share my results. I have an MYP with v2021.4.6.

What everyone said about it being slow was also my experience. I aborted a few times b/c I was holding somebody else up. 

In terms of being afraid it was going to hit other vehicles, I decided to be gutsy and trust it. It was going so slow that I was willing to let it get super-close. I did three parallels and three perpendiculars. In all of the perpendicular cases, what made it so uncomfortable to experience was not so much how close it got, but that it got that close parking in a way that I never would. It did not cut the wheel enough to begin with, so what could have been a one-move job was three. On the first move, it got the corner of my car insanely close to the middle of the outside car - like maybe two inches. But it did not hit it. Then it pulled forward, straightened out, and backed in fine. 

For perpendicular, I can't see a real world application for it yet. 

For parallel, I found that it left plenty of room for the curb. I can see using this for real. But it is still slow. 

I did learn a couple tricks from a friend at helping the car recognize spaces. First. don't bother with double-spaces, it's not interested. Second, apparently it does make a difference to have the turn signal on as you approach the space, to indicate that you intend to park. Third you have to go farther past it than you expect - he said "make sure your rear camera can see *both* sides of the space. Lastly, it makes a difference how close you are to the parked cars. 1.5-2' for parallel, around 3 feet for perpendicular.


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

I haven't tried it since this was a new thread. Might be an indication of how valuable this function is[n't] to me.


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## JWardell (May 9, 2016)

Sadly, I don't Tesla has paid ANY attention to autopark. It's just as bad as it was two years ago. Nearly impossible to get it to trigger, and then way too slow for the patience of other traffic.


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## SalisburySam (Jun 6, 2018)

I supposedly have had AutoPark since acquiring my M3 in July 2018. It has never once recognized an opportunity to park except twice while in traffic and not parking. Yes, I’ve RTFM, I’ve seen and heeded the many suggestions in the forums (fora?), and even have a printed list of the steps required with me to ensure I do it right whatever that is. Now 62 software updates later on 2021.4.3, it still doesn’t recognize an acceptable parking opportunity. Soooo not glad I paid the extra $3k for FSD at the time. Sadly, I believe JWardell summed it up most succinctly and best.


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## evannole (Jun 18, 2018)

I find that it does a good job with parallel parking, though it doesn't always spot available spaces, and for some reason it insists on finishing by pulling far forward in the space, rather than centering itself between either the lines or the two other cars. I always end up reversing a foot or two after the car has decided that its task is complete, so as to give the car in front of me plenty of space.

For perpendicular spaces, it's really quite useless: slow and indecisive. It's also hard to understand why it takes three moves to do something that could often be accomplished in one. 

Finally, I don't like backing into perpendicular spaces; I know that studies have shown it can be safer, but those fail to take into account the fact that when parked between two cars, if you have a rear view camera, you can often see better backing out than you can when pulling forward out of a space, particularly if the cars either side of you are tall SUVs or trucks.


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## RickO2018 (Mar 13, 2018)

I’ve owned mine since 2018 and only tried to use parallel parking twice. Results: 50% successful. First time worked like a charm, second time, took two tries and was still about 2-3 feet from curb when completed! As for perpendicular parking, the car has only offered at my driveway and that is rarely. When it has tried to back in, like others have commented, it took several attempts and was way too slow. I could have parked it three times in the same span of time.


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