Tesla Rolls Out Driver Drowsiness Warning
Drowsy driving can have deadly results, so Tesla is rolling out a Driver Drowsiness Warning that will alert drivers if the car thinks they're dozing off.
The warning system engages when the car is traveling over 40mph for a minimum of 10 minutes with Autopilot disengaged. "An alert is displayed on the touch screen in the cards area and an alert is sounded," Tesla says.
If you're confident in your alertness, you can turn off the feature by going into Controls > Safety > Driver Drowsiness Warning. However, it'll re-enable each time the car is started, so it's essentially a permanent feature.
As Electrek notes, the system leverages the in-cabin cameras that Tesla started adding to cars in 2021 to make sure people's hands were on the wheel while using Autopilot. Earlier this year, a Tesla hacker known as Green also revealed that the automaker was monitoring things like yawns and eye blinks.
If you're not seeing it, Electrek notes that the warning is only appearing on the European owners' manual at the moment, not the North American one.
Tesla is not the first to experiment with this technology. Mercedes-Benz has had Attention Assist for years, while Kia, Honda, Hyundai, and others have similar warnings systems.
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