Tesla is rolling out a small but smart software tweak to Summon Standby, designed to intelligently conserve your vehicle’s battery life when the feature is least likely to be used. The changes, a part of Tesla’s 2025.32 update, introduce a set of new rules that automatically disable Summon Standby during specific off-peak hours, and after long periods of your vehicle being parked.
Summon Standby is a convenience feature that keeps your vehicle’s FSD computer partially awake, allowing for a quick connection and activation of the Summon feature from the Tesla app. The trade-off is that Summon Standby keeps the vehicle awake, causing energy loss known as phantom drain.
These changes in update 2025.32 strike a balance between convenience and conserving energy by turning off the feature during certain hours of the day.
Standby to Standby
There are two new conditions under which your vehicle will automatically pause Summon Standby to conserve energy.
The first is overnight. Summon Standby will be automatically paused, allowing your vehicle to turn off its computers and conserve energy. This happens between the hours of midnight and 6 AM. It seems that, according to Tesla’s data on summon usage, this is the period when the feature is least used, hence the change. For now, you cannot turn off this automatic pause, so if you regularly use summon during that period, you’ll have to wait a few extra seconds for your vehicle to fully wake up and connect.
The second condition in which Summon Standby is automatically disabled is if your vehicle has been parked for an extended period of time. If your vehicle is parked for over 24 hours, Summon Standby is disabled until the vehicle is driven again. This will certainly reduce energy usage when parking your vehicle for longer periods, such as when going on vacation.
Tesla is also solving this long-term parking issue with its new Low Power Mode, which gives users a single button to push that will disable all of the vehicle’s high-consumption features while the car is parked. It disables features such as cabin preconditioning scheduling, Summon Stand By, Sentry Mode, Cabin Overheat Protection, and other features that cause phantom drain.
A Minor Delay for Major Savings
For owners, the practical impact of this change is fairly minimal. If you try to use Summon during these deactivation periods, you’ll face a slight delay as your car wakes up.
This change is a logical, data-driven optimization to help the vast majority of users save energy. By disabling Summon Standby during late-night hours and for vehicles left parked for extended periods, Tesla is reducing unnecessary energy consumption with very little impact to the user experience.
This slight trade-off, with a minor startup delay in off-hours, results in better overall efficiency and more energy saved for actual driving. Across the entire Tesla fleet, this could result in massive energy savings, helping reduce the strain on the electrical grid, saving owners money, and lowering pollution due to electricity production.
This update is a classic example of Tesla’s continuous refinement of features, using software to make small, intelligent improvements that improve the ownership experience - even if your vehicle is sitting still.
