“Difference between Tesla and Benz …”
A Tesla driver is warning folks not to trust the automaker’s Smart Summon feature after his car scraped against a parked vehicle.
The owner, who goes by Mr. Wang (@iamxw99), shared pictures of the accident on social media.
The first image in his slideshow of despair shows the Tesla sitting in a parking lot at a weird angle. It’s jutting out of a spot, and while the damage isn’t immediately visible, it’s clear that it collided with an adjacent vehicle. “Don’t trust Tesla summon too much, mine hit a parked car,” he writes in the first slide.
Once the next picture appears in the clip, the extent of the harm his EV sustained is evident. Large scratches and paint swapping spoil the ride’s rear driver’s side door, which extends to just above the wheel well. The Mitsubishi SUV beside it is clearly damaged too.
Wang divulges more information about the vehicle and the situation surrounding the accident. “2020 Model X. Smart summon. Clear line of sight. Stationary car next [to] me. Still made contact,” he wrote.
Then, it gets worse. The third picture shows the Mitsubishi’s bumper is significantly crumpled. Upon further inspection, it looks like the scuffs on his Tesla even reach the driver’s door handle. What’s more is that Wang says he was monitoring the situation. And if he hadn’t, the damage to both vehicles could’ve been far greater.
“I was watching the car the entire time. The moment I saw contact, I stopped summon immediately,” he says.
In a caption appended to his post, Wang wrote that he isn’t the only person who has questioned the safety of Tesla’s Smart Summon and that he’s issued a safety complaint to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration.
“Insurance claim filed. Tesla case opened. NHTSA safety complaint filed. Even if you have a 2026 model with HW4, don’t trust it too much. In a NHTSA complaint involving a 2026 Model X, the owner reported that while using Actually Smart Summon to pull out of a parking space, the Tesla turned toward a nearby BMW M5, scraping the Tesla’s door against the BMW’s bumper. The owner said they were watching the vehicle the entire time but couldn’t stop it quickly enough,” Wang wrote.
He added, “The complaint also mentioned people nearby were getting in and out of their cars, so this could have easily become a safety issue involving pedestrians, not just vehicle damage. There have already been more than 100 similar complaints in the U.S.”
There’ve been a bevy of Smart Summon complaints made by drivers over the years. In 2025, Teslarati highlighted that the NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation was looking into “crashes linked to Tesla’s Actually Smart Summon” feature.
InsideEVs broke down the difference between Tesla’s Smart Summon and Actually Smart Summon. Previous iterations of the technology were temporarily introduced before being pulled. That’s because they relied on older Tesla ultrasonic sensors. But because electric vehicles don’t sport this technology any longer, Tesla went back to the drawing board and brought the feature back.
The article states that Actually Smart Summon functions much better than its predecessor. But that hasn’t stopped folks from airing their grievances with the updated technology.
Vehicle-Safety reported on the NHTSA’s findings with regard to Smart Summon: “159 incidents. 97 actual crashes. Zero injuries. Zero deaths.” The report refers to worries regarding Smart Summon as having “low incident occurrence and low incident severity.”
Ultimately, the NHTSA closed investigations on Smart Summon incidents that all culminated in what Electrek called “minor property damage.” The consequence of the agency’s findings:
“Zero injuries and zero fatalities linked to the feature … determined that Tesla’s six over-the-air software updates adequately addressed the issues. No recall was issued.”
Moreover, the 159 incidents highlighted in NHTSA research were from “millions of sessions.” I.e., showcasing that the probability for failure is statistically very low.
In short, the non-injurious, non-fatal nature of the low-speed accidents wasn’t enough to warrant a recall by the NHTSA’s assessment.
This news may not be all that comforting to folks who’ve been burned by Tesla’s automated car-fetching service. The AI Incident Database chronicled an alleged incident where a Tesla was Smart Summoned right into a private jet in Spokane, Washington.
In 2019, InsideEVs also penned a piece on what may very well be the first accident reported from a Tesla driver using its Smart Summon function. Also, there was this chiropractor’s office that published a write-up about a woman whose car was hit by a Smart Summoned Tesla. She “described the crash as startling: ‘There was no driver, no passenger — it just kept going.’”
Would you avoid Tesla’s Smart Summon after seeing these incidents? Or is the convenience worth the potential auto body repair bill?
Motor1 has reached out to Wang via TikTok direct message for further comment. We will update this story if he responds.
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– The Motor1.com Team