Woman is filmed ‘asleep’ at the wheel of her Tesla for 15 minutes on a California highway
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Woman is filmed ‘asleep’ at the wheel of her Tesla for 15 minutes on a California highway
- California motorists horrified when Tesla driver appears to be asleep at the wheel
- Motorist wears sunglasses and appears unconscious on video
- It is not the first time that a Tesla driver has been recorded asleep at the wheel abusing the car’s autopilot system
Horrifying video footage captured the moment a Tesla driver is filmed asleep at the wheel on a California highway.
The motorist can be seen wearing a pink shirt and sunglasses, while her body appears limp and unconscious behind the wheel.
Tesla’s Autopilot system can help drivers, but it doesn’t make the vehicle fully autonomous, the company’s website claims.
The incident was captured by a fellow motorist who asked ‘are you crazy?’
Users must keep their hands on the wheel to maintain control.
The sleeping driver was caught on video by a fellow motorist around 4 p.m. on the 15 Freeway near Temecula.
The person filming is said to have followed the vehicle for 15 minutes, honking and trying to get the driver’s attention, the local station reports. KTLA 5.
He then called 911 to report the incident.
A voice is heard on the video saying: ‘Look how dangerous that is. Guys, sorry, that’s too dangerous.
‘Sleeping and this car drives you. You’re crazy?’
It is not the first time that a Tesla driver has been caught sleeping at the wheel and abusing the vehicle’s autopilot system.
In 2019, a man wearing sunglasses driving a white Tesla was filmed unconscious next to the car, also in California.
It comes after Tesla’s new self-driving feature was criticized even by its owner lawyers, who said it made them “nervous”.
In December, Tesla offered its new Enhanced Autopilot safety assist feature to owners to try for 30 days free of charge before having the option to purchase it for $5,100.
The feature was made available to Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X owners.
Enhanced autopilot provides automatic lane change assist, auto park, and the ability to call the car to your location.
“None of the ‘features’ really worked well,” wrote one person on the Tesla Owners Australia Facebook group.
“Instead of making life easier, they made me nervous and, in my experience, dangerous.”
Tesla also recently came under fire after a 2016 promotional video surfaced that misled viewers about the capabilities of its self-driving technology.
Testimony from a senior engineer at the firm said the video falsely suggested the car could stop at a red light and accelerate at a green light.
The video, which remains archived on Tesla’s website, was released in October 2016 and promoted on Twitter by CEO Elon Musk as evidence that ‘Tesla drives itself’.
But the Model X didn’t drive itself with the technology Tesla had implemented, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s director of autopilot software, said in the transcript of a July deposition taken as evidence in a lawsuit against Tesla over a fatal accident at 2018 involving a former Apple engineer. .