Lifestyle
Smart Summon is here! And so is the FUD. Should Tesla do anything about it?
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Tesla’s Smart Summon is out on beta release and, as expected from videos previously published by Early Access Program participants, it’s still learning how to be as amazing as it hopes to eventually be.
Hands down, the feature is ridiculously cool and (dare I say it) finally delivering on some of the sci-fi movie promises over the decades that dangled sans-human, self-driving cars in front of our imaginations. However, Smart Summon is also being birthed into a somewhat hostile media environment that has a vendetta against its maker, particularly its CEO. Perhaps a college psychology class could (or has already) taken a dive into why people like Elon Musk inspire so much detraction and (dare I say this as well) “fake news.” But, regardless of what causes the disease, the symptoms are what they are. Have a look at this NBC Today Show headline from a segment they did and published on YouTube:
“Tesla’s Smart Summon Feature Is Causing Parking Lot Chaos.”
I hate to be a whattabout-ist, but I could do a similar video every time Microsoft forces some sort of mandatory update to my Outlook email program. “But, that’s not the same as a car hitting a person!” one might cry. Au contraire, my friend. Whereas Smart Summon is a beta release and users are warned to monitor their car’s activity using the feature, i.e., the human in charge is ultimately responsible for any bad actions just as if they were behind the wheel, Microsoft’s updates are not beta releases and impact businesses, governments, and even emergency services worldwide. The old ‘follow the money’ phrase isn’t just for political foes. If Microsoft screws up someone’s ability to do their job, someone, somewhere, could be suffering.
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Does this seem silly? I hope so, because it’s supposed to be silly.
You wouldn’t hold Microsoft responsible for a family’s financial difficulties because an administrator at an insurance company missed an email about their claim thanks to some update to their Outlook that screwed up their organizational system. So, then, why do the media try to hold Tesla (and Musk) responsible for a Smart Summon user that’s not paying attention and lets their car run into a curb or cross a street with active traffic, requiring emergency braking to avoid an accident?
Honestly, those in the Tesla community already know the answer. Aside from making sensational headlines (this is also common with Autopilot-involved accidents), there are interest groups and individuals who actively cheer Tesla’s failure. I can only understand (not condone) the groups that benefit from it financially in one way or another via Wall Street, but the rest is beyond me. Perhaps it’s political, and perhaps that’s just going to be something Tesla will always deal with as part of its politically-tied mission. For what it’s worth, I do understand politics, but I don’t understand cheering the collapse of something that consumers find desirable in the marketplace. But, I digress…
At the end of the day, one can fight against the Smart Summon headlines and become exhausted in the end, or one can focus on making the feature better. Which one can Tesla control? Which one can Tesla owners control? I think Gandhi is quoted a lot on this one – be the change you want to see in the world and so forth. Tesla’s community has a unique advantage in this problem, both because of how responsive Tesla is to its customers and via its frequent and unique over-the-air updates to its vehicle software.
Some Tesla drivers posting on Reddit have noted how huge amounts of data, to the tune of hundreds of megabytes and even gigabytes, have been uploaded to the company’s servers after using Smart Summon. Given that Smart Summon is in beta, this is a really good sign that Tesla is actively working to learn from as much data as it can as quickly as possible to improve the feature. As one part of the battle against negative headlines, if the feature merely fixes most of the indicated issues, there won’t be any issues to report.
Another set of comments I saw floating around on Reddit, other forums, and videos was whether Smart Summon should have communicative aspects while in beta to give a heads-up to other drivers and pedestrians to clear up any confusion in lieu of human driver language.
For instance, if a car stops for a pedestrian and the pedestrian isn’t sure of the car’s intentions, a human driver could wave them along. Not so with Smart Summon. There’s also the fear of a car moving without a driver that gives the impression it’s a runaway vehicle left in neutral gear. Some have suggested hazard lights be used while Smart Summon is activated, others have suggested specific noises or audio announcements. Non-verbal communication is tough, even for humans, so would updates like these help Smart Summon integrate better with humans that aren’t yet accustomed to autonomous cars? Personally, I know I pay attention to the loud beeps coming from a truck that’s reversing, but they are annoying albeit rare.
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I’m not so sure overall, but I think it’s at least worth a try.
Firmware
Tesla unlocks in-car web conferencing to extend Google Meet, Teams and beyond
Tesla’s Summer Update lets owners join Google Meet, Teams, and Discord calls via cabin camera.
Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, which just began rolling out to customer vehicles, now links the built-in web browser with the in-cabin camera feed and microphone input, thereby letting owners join video calls on nearly any browser-based service instead of just Zoom.
The change appears in Tesla’s own release notes for software version 2026.26 under “Web Browser,” which states that the vehicle can now use its interior camera and cabin microphone when a website requests access, with permission granted the same way a desktop browser handles it. As NotATeslaApp notes, this feature opens the door to Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and other webcam-enabled sites to activate the in-car cabin-facing camera. The feed automatically crops and zooms to center the driver in frame.
Tesla has offered in-car video calling before, but only through a dedicated Zoom app that launched at the end of 2022, a stripped-down browser preloaded with Zoom’s own web client and gated behind Premium Connectivity. Opening the full browser to any camera-requesting site removes that walled garden. Elon Musk first called video conferencing “definitely a future feature” back in 2020, when the pandemic pushed remote meetings into daily life, so this update effectively finishes something Tesla has been promising for six years.
Tesla Summer Update begins rolling out: a look at the new features
The feature keeps the same restrictions that applied to Zoom on Tesla vehicles. It only works while the car is parked; shifting into Drive disables the camera feed, according to the release notes. It is also limited to vehicles running Tesla’s AMD Ryzen infotainment hardware, meaning older Intel-based Model S and Model X units, along with early Model 3 and Model Y builds, don’t get it.
Turning the browser into a general entry point for the in-cabin camera, rather than routing everything through one local app, widens the number of third-party sites that can ask for access, even though Tesla’s permission prompt.
With the Summer update only days into its rollout, be sure to stay with us on TikTok and X to see the latest video demonstrations.
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Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
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Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
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It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
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