Tesla driver blocks windscreen on public highway – report
Yesterday at 10:02 PM
A Tesla owner in the United States has allegedly covered up the car's windscreen while driving on a public highway to beat its driver monitoring systems.
Tesla boss Elon Musk has said the car maker could offer Full Self-Driving without human supervision as soon as 2025 – but one US driver has allegedly driven their Tesla with a deliberately blocked front window already.
The owner of a red Tesla Model 3 in the US has been reported to the police after allegedly being filmed using Full Self-Driving (FSD) with a completely blocked front windscreen along a public highway.
US website Carscoops has published footage of the incident from social media channel Reddit with the electric car allegedly being driven autonomously – with the driver appearing to using a sun shield to completely block their view out of the front windscreen.
The clip shows the car changing lanes and accelerating past traffic as it travels along the highway – through heavy traffic – all while the driver seemingly cannot see out of the front of the vehicle.
As Carscoops suggests, the move means the Tesla's driver monitoring system was beaten as it should have prevented the vehicle being driven autonomously without the driver looking forward.
The US electric car maker introduced cameras to monitor driver eye movements to ensure they remain attentive at all times, even when its autonomous system is being used.
In 2024, after an investigation by US safety body NHSTA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), the system also requires the driver to contact the steering wheel at specific time intervals while FSD was engaged to ensure they were paying attention.
It's not known how the driver managed to get around these measures – and if indeed they were touching the steering wheel at all given they cannot be seen as newspaper was used to block the side windows of the vehicle, too.
The total blind faith in FSD is in contrast to Australian perceptions of such technology, with a 2024 Swinburne University survey revealing more than half of Australian drivers do not trust autonomous cars.
The footage comes as the Tesla Cybercab – a fully autonomous electric vehicle – was revealed ahead of its on-sale in the US in 2026, with yet-to-be-confirmed Australian sales of the vehicle from 2028 at the earliest.
Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) system is currently not legal in Australia but it is being tested here.
The car maker's semi-autonomous Tesla Autopilot and Enhanced Autopilot are already legal to use in Australia.
A one-month free trial of FSD for US Tesla owners with compatible models was announced in March 2024 as CEO Elon Musk looked to move on from controversy surrounding the system – and earlier iterations of its semi- and autonomous technology dating back to 2016.
A campaign during the 2024 Superbowl by 'The Dawn Project' saw two adverts pushing to ban Tesla FSD as part of the group's advocacy against what it describes as 'unsafe software'.
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