Tesla News: Cars Getting 'Advanced Summon' Remote Driving Features Soon, Says Elon Musk

Following a strong third-quarter earnings report, Tesla Inc. (TSLA) will roll out major new features to many of its cars by the end of the year. CEO Elon Musk said the company’s electric vehicles will get some additional remote driving capabilities in roughly six weeks, in a series of tweets posted on Thursday.

According to Musk, all Tesla vehicles manufactured in the past two years will get a software update when the new features are ready to roll out. The update will give Tesla vehicles what Musk called “advanced Summon” capabilities. Tesla owners will be able to remotely summon their vehicles to their locations and the car will even “follow [owners] like a pet” if the button is held.

Musk added that Tesla owners will be able to remotely drive their cars from the mobile app as long as the car is in their line of sight. He likened it to “a big RC car.”

The original Summon feature came to the Model S and Model X vehicles in 2017 and was added to Model 3s in July. Summon mainly exists as a way for Tesla cars to automatically park themselves with no driver assistance as of now, but the upcoming update will give it a number of extra features.

It has been a tumultuous year for Tesla, due to production woes for the Model 3 and a seemingly botched take-private scheme by Musk. Tesla was apparently able to fix the former on its own with enough time, while the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had to step in to resolve the latter.

The electric car maker rebounded in later October after reporting strong results for the third quarter.

Tesla shares have risen by almost 30 percent since a low point in early October.