German police have charged a man with dangerous driving after he fell asleep behind the wheel of a Tesla.
Police said the 45-year-old man was driving at 110km/h on a motorway east of Frankfurt when they signalled for him to stop. A statement released by Bavarian Police said: “he did not respond to stop signals or repeated horns from the officers.”
“Officers found that the Tesla driver was reclining in the seat with his eyes closed and his hands off the steering wheel,” police said.
“This strengthened the suspicion that he had left the controls to the autopilot and had fallen asleep. After about 15 minutes, the man finally woke up and followed the instructions of the police.”
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Police said the man appeared to be affected by drugs or medication, and his seat was reportedly in a reclined position. They said they also found “a so-called steering wheel weight in the footwall”.
“This device is attached to the steering wheel to trick the vehicle’s safety system by pretending that your hand is on the wheel."
Driver assistance features such as Tesla’s Autopilot require motorists to remain alert with their hands on the wheel.
But some drivers use simple objects to fool cars into believing that they are holding the wheel.
More than a few Tesla customers have demonstrated ways of defeating their cars’ driver detection features, using household items such as water bottles or fruit to fool the car into operating without human input.
One driver who wedged an orange into his steering wheel published a video on YouTube saying it "seems to be enough pressure to override the warning, because it hasn’t asked me to grab the steering wheel".
Some Tesla vehicles now feature a driver monitoring camera to ensure motorists are paying attention to the road.
Rival companies such as Ford and General Motors, that offer similar features to Tesla’s autopilot on overseas models, automatically disengage driver assistance systems if drivers look away from the road.
- David McCowen, news.com.au
