Tesla Autos Will Now Warn Drowsy & Inattentive Drivers

Tesla automobiles maintain getting smarter over time with the assistance of free over-the-air (OTA) software program updates. A brand new and attention-grabbing characteristic has simply began rolling out to Tesla automobiles in Europe that warns drivers if they’re inattentive or drowsy.

A Tesla automobile displays a driver’s eye motion and indicators from the steering wheel to calculate the motive force’s attentiveness. If the system thinks the motive force just isn’t paying consideration or is drowsy, it should generate an audio-visual warning to get again driver’s consideration to driving.

Details about the Driver Drowsiness Warning characteristic has been added to the brand new Tesla Mannequin 3 Highland Proprietor’s Handbook for Europe. In response to the handbook, this warning is just triggered when a Tesla automobile goes over 65 km/h (~40 mph) when pushed for no less than 10 minutes and Autopilot just isn’t engaged.

Tesla is rolling out this characteristic with the newest software program replace, model 2023.31.600. This new OTA replace seemingly is particular to the brand new Mannequin 3 Highland automobiles in Europe.

I checked the Mannequin 3 Highland Proprietor’s Manuals for the Center East and China. Tesla didn’t add the data for the Driver Drowsiness Warning characteristic for these international locations. Tesla is maybe testing it on a restricted scale first on the newest mannequin automobiles after which the characteristic will transition to older automobiles and broaden to different areas.

The Proprietor’s Handbook describes the characteristic as follows:

“Driver Drowsiness Warning is designed to inform drivers who seem like drowsy. Driver Drowsiness Warning displays driver attentiveness in addition to driving habits to find out patterns indicative of drowsiness. When driver drowsiness is detected, an alert is displayed on the touchscreen within the playing cards space and an alert is sounded.

“When enabled, the Driver Drowsiness Warning programs prompts over 65 km/h when pushed for no less than 10 minutes and Autopilot just isn’t engaged.

“Observe: This energetic security characteristic makes use of cabin digital camera to watch driver attentiveness. Cabin digital camera doesn’t carry out facial recognition or every other technique of identification verification. By default, pictures and video from the digital camera don’t go away the automobile itself and should not transmitted to anybody, together with Tesla, except you allow information sharing. To regulate your information sharing preferences contact Controls > Software program > Information Sharing > Permit Cabin Digicam Analytics. You’ll be able to change your information sharing settings at any time.”

Tesla Mannequin 3 Highland Proprietor’s Handbook (Europe) / Full characteristic particulars under.

Tesla software program replace 2023.21.600 has additionally rolled out on a restricted scale. Tesla software program monitoring web site TeslaFi.com doesn’t present any contributing customers having this replace on their Tesla automobile as of this writing.

A Tesla Mannequin 3 Highland proprietor from Europe shared the next screenshot of the Driver Drowsiness Warning characteristic. He purchased his new Tesla Mannequin 3 simply a few weeks in the past. The proprietor was driving his automotive for round 3 hours in darkish and wet circumstances. The Tesla system most likely calculated all of the components and triggered this warning.

Stunned nobody has requested this but. Have been you drowsy? Was it correct?

— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) October 31, 2023

Improvement of the Driver Drowsiness Warning Function

Tesla initially designed this characteristic for Autopilot to help in detecting if the motive force is paying consideration or not. Now Tesla is rolling it out as a security characteristic for homeowners who didn’t buy the Autopilot Full Self-Driving bundle.

In 2021, Tesla moral hacker “inexperienced” shared the video clips recorded by a Tesla automobile’s cabin digital camera. This offered a imaginative and prescient of how this in-cabin digital camera works and the way it’s angled to watch the motive force and passengers (sooner or later it is going to be used for Robotaxis).

Earlier this yr, “inexperienced” revealed that Tesla is engaged on a characteristic that can have the ability to calculate driver attentiveness. “Seems like Tesla is planning a giant increase to (camera-based) driver monitoring,” inexperienced posted on X (Twitter).

“They’re now monitoring further issues like what number of yawns the motive force had lately, what number of blinks and the way lengthy they had been, leaning. All that is to calculate how drowsy the motive force is,” he additional defined the in-development driver monitoring system.

Seems like Tesla is planning a giant increase to (digital camera based mostly) driver monitoring.
They’re now monitoring further issues like what number of yawns the motive force had lately, what number of blinks and the way lengthy they had been, leaning. All that is to calculate how drowsy the motive force is.

— inexperienced (@greentheonly) Could 13, 2023

Article initially printed on Tesla Oracle. By @Iqtidar.