Hacker claims: Teslas have a secret “Elon mode” – autopilot is always on

Certain Tesla models have an “Elon Musk Mode”. So claims a hacker known as @greentheonly. He saw the setting in Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) function, American tech website The Verge reported this week.

Under this mode, the affected Tesla cars can drive autonomously – without the driver being asked to touch the steering wheel or look at the road. But that’s exactly what the cars are not allowed to do.

Autopilot features such as automatic steering are usually disabled until the end of the trip if the driver ignores the car’s instructions.

If you do not react when the FSD is on, the electric car will brake automatically, switch on the hazard lights and stop.

The hacker posted a video of him allegedly driving with the “autopilot” deactivated. He dubbed the hidden feature “Elon Mode” because Tesla boss Elon Musk says he’s testing the latest autopilot betas in his own cars.

It is believed that Musk has ways to bypass the security features. @greentheonly has not revealed the exact process of the hack.

Tesla’s driver assistance system FSD has been criticized several times, including for the so-called phantom braking: cars brake for no reason, presumably due to a detection error in the software during image evaluation.

In its successful Model 3 and Model Y, Tesla now only uses cameras to capture the environment and – unlike the Model S and X – does not use radar sensors.

So far there has been no response from Tesla to the alleged “Elon mode”.

Sources