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Elon Musk says Tesla’s Summon is ‘a fun trick’ that will only get better

Credit: YouTube/Hector Perez

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Tesla’s Smart Summon feature is one of the most notable Full Self-Driving (FSD) suite characteristics. While driving on public roads and highways with minimal interventions thanks to the newly released FSD Beta V9 is already wildly impressive due to the accuracy and incredibly confident nature it operates in, Summon is one feature that seems to capture the attention of most non-Tesla informed people more often than not. Although CEO Elon Musk said that Summon is “mostly just a fun trick” for now, improvements are coming that will make its nature more useful than a surefire way to impress people nearby.

“Current Summon is sometimes useful,” Musk said on Twitter this weekend, “but mostly just a fun trick.” Indeed, many Tesla owners have utilized Summon to bring their cars to them during torrential downpours or through tricky parking lots, and it’s quite impressive with its accuracy. However, the feature isn’t perfect. Some owners have indicated that there are definitely improvements that need to be unloaded into Summon before it becomes a mainstream and more frequently utilized way to get into a car without having to walk to it.

In mid-July 2020, one owner said that Summon wasn’t effective on his driveway due to the excessive grade. The steep nature of the owner’s driveway wouldn’t allow Summon to operate properly, and Elon Musk said that the improvements would ultimately come from “upgrading Autopilot to 4D vs. ~2.5D, then it will go up very steep slopes.”

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Musk maintains that the improvements to Summon will occur when the feature, along with highway driving functionalities, is switched to a single software stack. Currently, the two features operate on different stacks, likely because they are of a completely unrelated nature. Instead, it seems Tesla will merge multiple FSD functionalities into one stack, and Summon will depend on the Neural Network for improvements.

Watch Tesla Smart Summon react to a runaway “shopping cart” in latest obstacle test

The switch from what Musk calls ~2.5D to 4D is the main focus of the new Dojo Supercomputer. Recently, Tesla’s Senior Director of Artificial Intelligence, Andrej Karpathy, detailed the Supercomputer that Tesla is utilizing to bring in the Dojo era. What is likely the most powerful computer globally, the massive system is utilized to handle large amounts of video, clean data, and diverse scenarios that make the suite well-rounded and more complex with every mile driven. Dojo is set to be released later this year, according to Tesla.

Summon, while definitely a fun feature, would be widely beneficial if it was more accurate and could operate in various scenarios, like on steeper grades. For example, Summon has been utilized by those in a wheelchair to back out their vehicle when parked in tight quarters. Additionally, Summon has been used to bring vehicles to the entrance of a grocery store to pick up a family. The feature has some serious potential moving forward. Still, Tesla realizes the improvements it has talked about are likely the bridge that will connect Summon from a ‘fun trick’ to a beneficial characteristic.

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Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla launches new loaner program that owners will love

Tesla is now giving owners the opportunity to rent a vehicle from them, and it includes a few very attractive features that will have you second-guessing another loaner from insurance.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has launched a new loaner program that owners will love, as it resolves some concerns over a replacement vehicle while it is being repaired.

Earlier this week, Tesla launched the option to rent a Tesla loaner vehicle for just $45 per day if your vehicle is in Collision Repair. Collision repairs did not formerly warrant the issuance of loaner vehicles, as the insurance provider of the car owner would provide transportation arrangements.

Tesla is now giving owners the opportunity to rent a vehicle from them, and it includes a few very attractive features that will have you second-guessing another loaner from insurance.

The Tesla you rent while your car is in collision repair will come with free Full Self-Driving, free Supercharging, and free toll coverage, no small print included.

All things considered, this is a great deal for those who require a car for transportation while their car is being repaired.

The cost of Supercharging and Full Self-Driving alone would warrant the $45 per day price tag. Add in the tolls for those who commute on turnpikes for work or are planning an extensive trip that would require it, and it truly becomes an even more attractive deal.

Tesla has done a good job at improving its Service division over the past few years, and it truly needed it. In hopes of launching an F1-style service experience, Tesla started doing away with some of its perks, including loaner vehicles for single-day visits and even Uber credits.

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Tesla’s ‘F1’ Service strategy eliminates same-day loaner vehicles, Uber credits

However, it has listened to the complaints of its owners and tried to cater an experience that is more advantageous and less of a hassle. It’s already made tremendous steps in the past few years, and this is the icing on the cake.

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SpaceX Starship Flight 10: What to expect

SpaceX implemented hardware and operational changes aimed at improving Starship’s reliability.

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX is preparing to launch the tenth test flight of its Starship vehicle as early as Sunday, August 24, with the launch window opening at 6:30 p.m. CT. 

The mission follows investigations into anomalies from earlier flights, including the loss of Starship on its ninth test and a Ship 36 static fire issue. SpaceX has since implemented hardware and operational changes aimed at improving Starship’s reliability.

Booster landing burns and flight experiments

The upcoming Starship Flight 10 will expand Super Heavy’s flight envelope with multiple landing burn trials. Following stage separation, the booster will attempt a controlled flip and boostback burn before heading to an offshore splashdown in the Gulf of America. One of the three center engines typically used for landing will be intentionally disabled, allowing engineers to evaluate whether a backup engine can complete the maneuver, according to a post from SpaceX.

The booster will also transition to a two-engine configuration for the final phase, hovering briefly above the water before shutdown and drop. These experiments are designed to simulate off-nominal scenarios and generate real-world data on performance under varying conditions, while maximizing propellant use during ascent to enable heavier payloads.

Starship upper stage reentry tests

The Starship upper stage will attempt multiple in-space objectives, including deployment of eight Starlink simulators and a planned Raptor engine relight. SpaceX will also continue testing reentry systems with several modifications. A section of thermal protection tiles has been removed to expose vulnerable areas, while new metallic tile designs, including one with active cooling, will be trialed.

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Catch fittings have been installed to evaluate their thermal and structural performance, and adjustments to the tile line will address hot spots observed on Flight 6. The reentry profile is expected to push the structural limits of Starship’s rear flaps at maximum entry pressure.

SpaceX says lessons from these tests are critical to refining the next-generation Starship and Super Heavy vehicles. With Starfactory production ramping in Texas and new launch infrastructure under development in Florida, the company is pushing to hit its goal of achieving a fully reusable orbital launch system.

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Elon Musk takes aim at Bill Gates’ Microsoft with new AI venture “Macrohard”

It is quite an appropriate name for a company that’s designed to rival Microsoft.

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Credit: xAI/X

Elon Musk has set his sights on Microsoft with a new company called “Macrohard,” a software venture tied to his AI startup, xAI. 

Musk described the project as a “purely AI software company” that’s designed to generate hundreds of specialized coding and generative AI agents that could one day simulate products from companies like Microsoft entirely through artificial intelligence.

Macrohard‘s Purpose

Musk announced Macrohard on Friday, though xAI had already registered the trademark with the US Patent Office a few weeks ago, as noted in a PC Mag report. Interestingly enough, this is not the first time that Musk has mentioned such an initiative.

Just last month, he stated that xAI was “creating a multi-agent AI software company, where Grok spawns hundreds of specialized coding and image/video generation/understanding agents all working together and then emulates humans interacting with the software in virtual machines until the result is excellent.”

At the time, Musk stated that “This is a macro challenge and a hard problem with stiff competition,” hinting at the venture’s “Macrohard” moniker. A few years ago, Musk also posted “Macrohard >> Microsoft” on X. 

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Powered by xAI and Colossus

Macrohard appears to be closely linked to xAI’s Colossus 2 supercomputer project in Memphis. Musk has confirmed plans to acquire millions of Nvidia GPUs, joining rivals such as OpenAI and Meta in a high-stakes race for AI computing power. Colossus is already one of the most powerful supercomputer clusters in the world, and it is still being expanded.

xAI is only a couple of years old, having been founded in March 2023. During its Engineering Open House event in San Francisco, Elon Musk highlighted that the company’s speed will be its primary competitive edge. “No SR-71 Blackbird was ever shot down and it only had one strategy: to accelerate,” Musk said.

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