Telsa Full Self Driving feature's impact on Disneyland Parking Logistics/Operations

[Andrew C]

Also why couldn't there be e-taxis for towing? I mean you need to tow your boat for the weekend, request an "e-tow" from your home to the lake, done.

I don't think an e-taxi is going to tow my travel trailer across the country to the different places we visit...at least not for now. More likely that all RVs will be automated in the future...

 

[Disney Irish]

I don't think an e-taxi is going to tow my travel trailer across the country to the different places we visit...at least not for now. More likely that all RVs will be automated in the future...

I mean any type of vehicle can have many features be automated with the right combination of software and hardware, so I don't see why a towing version couldn't be done. Several vehicle manufactures have already been working on or already released AI capable towing features that make hooking up to a tow hitch easy without much intervention, such as Ford's Pro Trailer Hitch assist in their F-Series trucks.

So yeah I don't see why one day in the near future you can't request an "e-tow" that comes and takes you and your travel trailer from location to location as you travel across country.

But yes I also do see a potential where RVs become autonomous as well.

 

[DLR92]

They should build a big structure where Toy Story is or even further away and have a monorail/peoplemover/skyliner. Trying to keep up with cars is absurd and it's what has weakened Los Angeles. In a perfect world, there wouldn't be any private vehicles within the resort district and it would all be public transit and pedestrian areas.

I really hope the automakers will see their end. We should have prioritize Public transportation from the get go. The past really screwed us big time.

 

[TP2000]

Ah, got it. City and other businesses' pressure. I recall the Leap Day gridlock.

That's my concern exactly! That was a complete disaster.

I doubt it could get that bad every weekend after fireworks, but the roads and infrastructure designed in 1995 just aren't ready to accommodate this. It will be bad in just a few years, just what level of bad is unknown.

 

[TP2000]

First Tesla Smart Summon does not reliably work in multi-level garages, they struggle and have issues with elevation changes in the garage, even crashing or just getting stuck. Now imagine 7000 of these at 10pm after fireworks, it'll be crashes like crazy and hours of grid lock, worse than anything that happens now. You'll have that tired dad waiting there until 2am for their car.

You act like the technology isn't learning and changing by the day, as thousands of real world situations are recorded and learned by the AI software in over a million Teslas already on the American roads.

Tesla sends out automatic updates over-the-air to these new self driving cars. The party host had already received his first update, and it was 14 point something. Six months ago the self driving Teslas were using a software update that was 12 point something.

If there is some reason why Smart Summon doesn't work well in parking structures in February 2026 with Software Update 14.5, by November, 2026 the parking structure issue would be upgraded and fixed by Software Update 14.9.

Here's a guy who had an issue with his Smart Summon. And.... it's in the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure!

Seriously, TDA needs to get ahead of this. It's happening, whether they know it or not.

 

[Disney Irish]

You act like the technology isn't learning and changing by the day, as thousands of real world situations are recorded and learned by the AI software in over a million Teslas already on the American roads.

Tesla sends out automatic updates over-the-air to these new self driving cars. The party host had already received his first update, and it was 14 point something. Six months ago the self driving Teslas were using a software update that was 12 point something.

If there is some reason why Smart Summon doesn't work well in parking structures in February 2026 with Software Update 14.5, by November, 2026 the parking structure issue would be upgraded and fixed by Software Update 14.9.

Here's a guy who had an issue with his Smart Summon. And.... it's in the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure!

Seriously, TDA needs to get ahead of this. It's happening, whether they know it or not.

As someone in the tech industry I can tell you this isn't an easy wave the magic wand and get an update out in 6 months type of situation that you claim it'll be, the video shows its still broken. Will it get fixed, probably. Will it be reliable, no not initially. How long will it take until its reliable, likely a few years. How long will it be before everyone trusts it, a few years after that. So you're looking at 10 years before its reliable and everyone is comfortable with it.

The point is by your fictitious 2031 timeline that you started this whole thread with, 5 years from now, I'd guess about 1% of guests heading to DLR parking garages will have Tesla's, even less than that will have any type of full autonomous car. So this isn't some big onslaught of chaos that you think it is.

Also what do you expect Disney to do? The idea of the Smart Summon feature is suppose to be that it can navigate normal infrastructure that exists TODAY and not require some change in the infrastructure to incorporate it. So there isn't some magical thing that Disney needs to do to make it accessible for these cars. No need for a special parking spot, no need for a special lane, no need for a special exit, nothing.

You're thinking there is some issue, but if it works like it suppose to there is no issue, ie everything should run smoothly without any need for a change.

 

[TP2000]

Their sales have also absolutely cratered as they claim to be pivoting away from personal vehicles.

Well, once American taxpayers stopped funding $7,500 tax rebates for upper-middle class families to buy expensive electric cars, electric car sales declined quite a bit in 2025. That wasn't a concept exclusive to Tesla, it also hit Cadillac and Lincoln especially hard and other upscale EV makers from Germany and Japan and Korea.

Do you think people outside the US got or could even use US income tax credits on their vehicle purchases?

I have no idea what's going on with EV sales overseas, I was talking about the huge amount of Teslas already on the road in SoCal and their incredible breakthrough of Full Self Driving technology. Plus the upcoming Robotaxi being released this year. And it's looming impact on Disneyland's already crummy and badly managed Resort Parking operation that isn't equipped or designed for this type of technology.

Once the federal government stopped doling out $7,500 tax credits to upper-middle class buyers in Villa Park and Ladera Ranch to help them buy a swanky Tesla or Cadillac EV, the EV market in the US contracted in the last half of 2025.

Sales fell off a cliff last October for the entire EV industry in the US, not just Tesla, once wealthy buyers were no longer being subsidized up to $7,500 to buy an EV from Tesla or Cadillac or Lincoln or Mercedes or Lexus, etc.

But the market share and strength of the Tesla product line, especially with new Full Self Driving, allowed Tesla to increase its market share of the US marketplace, while the entire EV industry took a huge hit. Tesla market share in North America actually increased in 2025.

While I know Cadillac has its Super Cruise feature in its EV's, and Mercedes-Benz has Distronic (and an updated version of that), Tesla is ahead of the industry with this Full Self Driving thing happening today on American roads.

Tesla Is Set to Dominate the EV Market -- Here Are 4 Reasons Why | The Motley Fool

The company's EVs are profitable and command a formidable market presence with a value "kicker" potentially coming from robotaxis and unsupervised full-self driving; its rivals are not in the same position.

www.fool.com

 

[DrStarlander]

I'm confident the architects, engineers, and consultants Disney is working with who specialize in parking garages and transportation infrastructure, are following all the developments in vehicle technologies and doing forecasting, or future casting, of how that will affect their field. Can you imagine the seminars and round-tables they are having at their conferences around this stuff, it's probably the only thing interesting for them to talk about, haha. Anyway, they know.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I have no idea what's going on with EV sales overseas, I was talking about the huge amount of Teslas already on the road in SoCal and their incredible breakthrough of Full Self Driving technology. Plus the upcoming Robotaxi being released this year. And it's looming impact on Disneyland's already crummy and badly managed Resort Parking operation that isn't equipped or designed for this type of technology.

Once the federal government stopped doling out $7,500 tax credits to upper-middle class buyers in Villa Park and Ladera Ranch to help them buy a swanky Tesla or Cadillac EV, the EV market in the US contracted in the last half of 2025.

Sales fell off a cliff last October for the entire EV industry in the US, not just Tesla, once wealthy buyers were no longer being subsidized up to $7,500 to buy an EV from Tesla or Cadillac or Lincoln or Mercedes or Lexus, etc.

View attachment 909101

But the market share and strength of the Tesla product line, especially with new Full Self Driving, allowed Tesla to increase its market share of the US marketplace, while the entire EV industry took a huge hit. Tesla market share in North America actually increased in 2025.

While I know Cadillac has its Super Cruise feature in its EV's, and Mercedes-Benz has Distronic (and an updated version of that), Tesla is ahead of the industry with this Full Self Driving thing happening today on American roads.

View attachment 909102

Tesla Is Set to Dominate the EV Market -- Here Are 4 Reasons Why | The Motley Fool

The company's EVs are profitable and command a formidable market presence with a value "kicker" potentially coming from robotaxis and unsupervised full-self driving; its rivals are not in the same position.

www.fool.com

Tesla’s sales have cratered globally.

You and your friend are suckers who have fallen for exaggerations and a marketing name. Full Self Driving is not an industry leader. It isn’t even classified as an autonomous system but as a Level 2 driver assist system.

 

[TP2000]

As someone in the tech industry I can tell you this isn't an easy wave the magic wand and get an update out in 6 months type of situation that you claim it'll be, the video shows its still broken.

How is it that an old coot in the flyover state boondocks (me) is aware that technology changes very fast in this future year of 2026 and that 6 months is an eternity in AI driven software updates? And I've already been driven around in a robot car as a dinner party trick.

And yet a young guy in the Bay Area who works "in the tech industry" (you) thinks they'll have to wait for the vacuum tubes to warm up before this Univac car will ever work, and why wouldn't Dad just drive home anyway?

Also what do you expect Disney to do? The idea of the Smart Summon feature is suppose to be that it can navigate normal infrastructure that exists TODAY and not require some change in the infrastructure to incorporate it. So there isn't some magical thing that Disney needs to do to make it accessible for these cars. No need for a special parking spot, no need for a special lane, no need for a special exit, nothing.

I said nothing about needing special lanes or exits. I said the existing Resort District roadways and infrastructure were not set up for robot cars to be roaming surface streets looking for their masters.

Mickey & Friends & Pals is now a 17,000 space structure, basically working as designed in 1995. As it was designed, the fireworks end, and 75,000 or more Disneyland customers all flood back to their cars and all dutifully get back on the freeway to go home via 6 lanes of prioritized exit roads and reversible flyovers to/from the freeway.

Once you exit that structure, and the 12 exit lanes condense down to 6 through lanes to the freeway, you have one shot of getting out of it and onto Ball Road and towards the Resort District as a whole. It's this single, short merge, right turn lane at the intersection of Disneyland Drive and Ball Road.

And anyone, such as me, who has tried to exit Mickey & Friends after the fireworks to get to Orange or Anaheim Hills or Villa Park due East can tell you that right turn is backed up for a mile already. It's a nightmare, and takes forever. Which is why I started Ubering to the International House of Pancakes or Panera Bread in 2018 instead of driving the 7 miles.

But now, with Full Self Driving and Auto Summon and Tesla Robotaxis (and whatever the similar tech will be from GM and Ford and Toyota, etc.) you've got the ability to avoid all that entirely. Don't fight the crowds for the overwhelmed and badly managed tram system, don't waste 45 minutes getting back to your car tired and cranky.

Instead, summon your robot car to come get you on Harbor Blvd! The future is now!

But then how does that work logistically with 15,000 cars? If even just 10% of the cars in Mickey & Friends try to go find their master waiting on Harbor Blvd., how is that going to work? With one right turn lane feeding into an already busy surface street situation in the Resort District?

The old Disneyland "Drop Off" zone on Harbor was already a crap show every single night with only a few dozen Ubers and moms picking up their kids there. Now imagine an extra 1,000 robot cars trying to get there from Mickey & Friends too.

 

[TP2000]

Tesla’s sales have cratered globally.

I have no idea what Communist China is doing with their EV subsidies, but in the US market EV sales declined substantially in late 2025 once the government stopped subsidizing relatively wealthy people buying expensive luxury cars.

Tesla grew its market share in the US during that late '25 decline.

This is currently more of a GM and Ford problem with their EV's, not a Tesla problem.

You and your friend are suckers who have fallen for exaggerations and a marketing name.

I don't own a Tesla. I own two German cars that are both relative gas guzzlers. I was just impressed with the Full Self Driving display at a dinner party.

Have you ridden in one of these Teslas yet? If not, you really should try it! It's mind blowing, especially for us folks of a certain age (ahem).

Full Self Driving is not an industry leader. It isn’t even classified as an autonomous system but as a Level 2 driver assist system.

Call it Chopped Liver On Toast, I don't care. It's still absolutely mind blowingly incredible to experience first hand!

And this technology is going to cause havoc with Disneyland's Resort Parking Operation, I can guarantee it.

 

[TP2000]

That's where he lives.

Have you ridden in one of these self driving cars yet?

It's one of those "I Can't Believe This Is Happening" sort of moments. And it's going to wreak havoc on Harbor Blvd. before we know it.

 

[lazyboy97o]

How is it that an old coot in the flyover state boondocks (me) is aware that technology changes very fast in this future year of 2026 and that 6 months is an eternity in AI driven software updates? And I've already been driven around in a robot car as a dinner party trick.

And yet a young guy in the Bay Area who works "in the tech industry" (you) thinks they'll have to wait for the vacuum tubes to warm up before this Univac car will ever work, and why wouldn't Dad just drive home anyway?

Probably because you’re not providing any new information. Full Self Driving was supposed to be autonomous years ago and still isn’t. Nobody who is seriously working on the technology thinks autonomy is near future, especially for personal vehicles. Nobody has a Level 5, much less a fully autonomous Level 6, vehicle operating on the roads today.

But now, with Full Self Driving and Auto Summon and Tesla Robotaxis (and whatever the similar tech will be from GM and Ford and Toyota, etc.) you've got the ability to avoid all that entirely. Don't fight the crowds for the overwhelmed and badly managed tram system, don't waste 45 minutes getting back to your car tired and cranky.

Instead, summon your robot car to come get you on Harbor Blvd! The future is now!

The future is not now. No commercially available car is capable, either technologically or legally, of driving itself from anywhere in the vicinity to pick you up on Harbor Blvd.

Have you ridden in one of these Teslas yet? If not, you really should try it! It's mind blowing, especially for us folks of a certain age (ahem).

Yes, I’ve been in a Tesla. I’ve also been in an actual autonomous car (Waymo) that was legally operating without a driver.

 

[PiratesMansion]

So confident in their tech, but can't even spell the name 'Tesla' correctly in the thread title.

 

[TP2000]

So confident in their tech, but can't even spell the name 'Tesla' correctly in the thread title.

Oh, my gosh! You're right! So stupid.

I hadn't caught that. But... I think I'm going to keep it.

 

[DrStarlander]

It's not likely to "cause havoc" because it will happen so slowly that Disney and Anaheim traffic engineers will be able to see the phenomenon and make adjustments if needed. Isn't your theory that these cars would be wanting to turn right instead of going straight...so couldn't they change the next lane over into a right-turn optional lane to recognize that shift in demand toward right turns rather than going straight?

You're not talking about more cars, just cars behaving differently. And I don't see a challenge in accommodating that with some adjustments, like:

As for where people get picked up, Panera or whatever, that's up to the people doing this to figure out, not Disney. If people are waiting for their car to come and get tired of waiting two hours or being told they need to buy more cookies to keep sitting in Panera or they start breaking traffic laws by having their car pull over to a stop in a traffic lane, that's on those people.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Oh, I get it now.

Okay, forget that this company is owned by a certain person. Call him Elon Musk, or Henry Ford, or Walter Chrysler, or whomever. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, even.

The robot driving technology now available to middle class Americans isn't going to go away because of that one company owner. It will only grow and evolve and be adapted by more automakers in the future. It will filter down into the entry-level cars like a Corolla or a Malibu.

You can't uninvent self-driving cars, even if you hate the businessman whose company invented it.

And 1,000 or more self-driving cars that can go out onto surface streets and look for their masters all on their own after the Disneyland fireworks is going to be a real mess for TDA and the City of Anaheim's Resort District.

There are no Level 4 or above autonomous vehicles available for personal purchase. Waymo’s hardware stack runs in the six figures which is why they long ago stopping promising commercial availability of their technology and pivoted to their taxi service.

Neither Tesla nor Elon Musk had anything to do with the development of self-driving cars. They don’t even have any autonomous vehicles operating. The Robotaxi service in Austin has human monitors. Tesla claimed last month to have started offering service without monitors but those cars were in fact being tailed by another vehicle with human monitors.

 

[TP2000]

Probably because you’re not providing any new information. Full Self Driving was supposed to be autonomous years ago and still isn’t. Nobody who is seriously working on the technology thinks autonomy is near future, especially for personal vehicles. Nobody has a Level 5, much less a fully autonomous Level 6, vehicle operating on the roads today.

I'm not quite sure what all the "Levels" mean, I just know what I witnessed at a party last weekend. And it got me thinking...

Is Disneyland's notoriously bad Parking operation with 25,000+ cars per day ready for this brave, new world?!?

I don't think they are.

The future is not now. No commercially available car is capable, either technologically or legally, of driving itself from anywhere in the vicinity to pick you up on Harbor Blvd.

But it's on the way soon.

In 2022 anyone would have said "No commercially available car is capable, either technologically or legally, of driving itself through rush hour traffic with its driver sitting motionless with no hands on the wheel or feet on the pedals".

And then in 2025 it started happening. The future is now.

Yes, I’ve been in a Tesla. I’ve also been in an actual autonomous car (Waymo) that was legally operating without a driver.

I'm kind of like Parteecia on this one. I'm not quite ready to be in a robot car with no driver. The dinner party gag was fun because the owner was sitting behind the wheel the whole time letting the car auto drive. He could have taken over or slammed on the brakes had anything gone wrong.

I'd need some time to adjust to not having a driver in my taxi. I'm happy to be a late adopter on this one. Let the kids test it.

But then, I remember when we got our first Amana RadarRange my grandmother absolutely refused to eat anything that got near it and was mad at my mom for installing it in the kitchen. Because of the atomic radiation and dying and everything.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I'm not quite sure what all the "Levels" mean, I just know what I witnessed at a party last weekend. And it got me thinking...

Exactly. You’re telling everyone they don’t what’s out there while not even knowing the basics.

But it's on the way soon.

In 2022 anyone would have said "No commercially available car is capable, either technologically or legally, of driving itself through rush hour traffic with its driver sitting motionless with no hands on the wheel or feet on the pedals".

And then in 2025 it started happening. The future is now.

The future was at least eight years ago when Waymo started offering passenger service in their actual driverless vehicles.

 

[TP2000]

There are no Level 4 or above autonomous vehicles available for personal purchase. Waymo’s hardware stack runs in the six figures which is why they long ago stopping promising commercial availability of their technology and pivoted to their taxi service.

Neither Tesla nor Elon Musk had anything to do with the development of self-driving cars. They don’t even have any autonomous vehicles operating. The Robotaxi service in Austin has human monitors. Tesla claimed last month to have started offering service without monitors but those cars were in fact being tailed by another vehicle with human monitors.

Hell, just thinking out loud... Is there any reason why a new car with a gas V8 engine couldn't also be fully self driving??? It doesn't just have to be EV's, right? It just came to Tesla's first because of all the cameras they had built into their bodywork.

American commerce and industry moves forward constantly. You are not going to be able to un-invent self driving cars and Robotaxis at this point. What's most telling us that they are operating first in some of the most heavily regulated states in the union, like California.

This isn't a crazy Florida thing with a robot car blasting Free Bird out of its T-Tops as it takes you to Cracker Barrel.

The technology is here, and it's being automatically updated and improved over-the-air to America's fleet weekly. The Genie of self driving cars is not going back into the bottle.

Swap out the Tesla logo on the hood for the Ford oval or the Honda H or whatever you'd like. But put a couple thousand of those cars per day into the Disneyland Parking Operation capacity of 30,000+ parking spaces in giant structures around the perimeter of the Resort, and then watch what happens once the fireworks are over.... Yikes!