‘Summoned’ Tesla Hits VisionJet

Video has emerged of the collision of a driverless Tesla that collided with the tail of Cirrus VisionJet at a small airport in Washington State. Initial reports via a Reddit video suggest the car was being operated on its “Summon” feature in which the operator calls the car on a cellphone to move it to a more convenient location. The operator had to be on hand when this happened because the function apparently only works within line of sight. In this case, the Tesla apparently decided the way to its master's preferred location was through the Cirrus and that will no doubt be of interest to a variety of regulators.

The incident reportedly happened at Felts Field, near Spokane, at an event last week to celebrate the opening of a new hangar for Northwest Flight Service, the regional service and training center for Cirrus. Speculation on sites and forums that specialize in Tesla topics is that the sensors that normally keep Teslas from bumping into things don’t look up high enough to see the tail of an airplane four feet above the ground. The car’s windshield hit the tail and spun the plane about 90 degrees, but it’s not clear how much damage was done to the machines.