Mirrors Auto-Fold Mode 2

Now Implemented!

Description

Request for a second Auto-Fold option for those that use the current Auto-Fold option at their peril. This would be useful to people with an 8-foot garage door or who park in tight spaces where there might not be room to fold out the side passenger mirror.

In a nutshell: When mirrors are manually folded in, override auto-fold behavior until the car is substantially underway after being parked.

Competitive/Pricing/Notes

When a car travels a certain distance forward (1/4 mile?) or reaches a certain speed (20 mph?) auto-fold the mirrors out and then follow the usual Auto-Fold behavior. Either distance or speed or both could be the trigger for determining that the car is substantially underway. My preference is speed.

The Problem: I have an 8-foot garage door. A typical opening for a garage with an 8-foot door is 7’8″ because the door usually overlaps the frame by 2 inches on each side. This leaves only 3 inches of clearance on either side of the car if the mirrors are folded out. I find this too close for comfort, particularly when backing out.

When parking at home I have to manually fold the mirrors in, prior to entering my garage and cannot use the existing Auto-Fold mode. The reason for this is that the current Auto-Fold mode will auto-fold the mirrors out when the car is later woken and a door opened. This would put the mirrors at risk when backing out. Worse, it could damage the passenger side mirror because there might not be any clearance for it to fold out!

Recently, after parking with mirrors folded in, I could see there was no room for the passenger mirror to auto-fold out and feared that I had forgotten to turn Auto-Fold off. I discovered there is no way out of this situation; other than towing the car because there is no way to wind down a window with the key fob or app, in order to turn Auto-Fold off before opening a door! Argh!

Without using Auto-Fold, I am often surprised when quickly trying to use the mirrors when underway and realizing they are folded in. This can be a safety issue. The second annoying thing about not using Auto-Fold is parking in a busy, crowded lot and realizing that as the car locks, the mirrors are folded out! So, when I am going to several destinations I will eventually turn Auto-Fold on. However, it is imperative that I turn it off before attempting to park at home. The problem is forgetting to manually fold mirrors out when leaving home and forgetting to turn Auto-Fold off before parking at home if I had decided to turn it on.

An elegant solution to the problems mentioned is a second Auto-Fold mode that respects a manual fold-in until the car is substantially underway after being parked, at which point it auto folds the mirrors out and follows the current Auto-Fold behavior until manually overridden. A manual fold-out should also resume the regular Auto-Fold behavior.

Earlier I had made a suggestion tying auto-fold to HomeLink. That would be more complicated to implement and one might consider auto-folding mirrors in when arriving at a location a safety issue. So, I am making this revised suggestion since it is easier to implement, useful in more situations, and 2/3 of a loaf is better than no loaf.

Status

Tesla started to roll out the new feature “Auto-folding mirrors based at location” to cars in late Q1-2019 with 2019.50.15 software.