A driver charges his car at a Tesla Supercharger station, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, in Miami. A tweet from Elon Musk indicating that Tesla might allow some owners who are testing a "Full Self-Driving" system to disable an alert that reminds them to keep their hands on the steering wheel has drawn attention from U.S. safety regulators. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating a tweet from Elon Musk indicating Tesla might allow some customers who are testing the company's "Full Self-Driving" system to disable an alert that tells them to keep their hands on the wheel.
The tweet caught the agency's eye because it is currently investigating whether Tesla's autopilot feature was involved in 11 crashes with emergency vehicles since the company started beta-testing the system in 2021. The electric vehicle maker said earlier this year that 15 percent of the 160,000 Tesla vehicles on U.S. roads are participating in the beta.
Musk has noted multiple times in the past that Tesla vehicles are not ready for fully automated driving. Tesla's website also states that both the Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems require a “fully attentive driver who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment.”
Why Tesla would get rid of the alert then is unclear. As part of the broader investigation into the feature, NHTSA has asked Musk to clarify what exactly he meant in the tweet.
NHTSA previously pointed out that numerous Tesla crashes have occurred in which the driver had their hands on the wheel but was still not paying attention, even with alerts telling them to pay attention.
Musk's tweet was a reply to a fan on twitter who proposed that drivers with more than 10,000 miles on the "Full Self-Driving" mode should be able to turn off the so-called "steering wheel nag."
Musk tweeted back, “Agreed, update coming in Jan.”
Elon Musk is demanding his Tesla employees to return to the office full time, a minimum of at least 40 hours a week. The CEO also took a shot at other companies who have some form of work-from-home status. The ultimatum comes at a tumultuous time for Musk with the reveal of a sexual misconduct scandal and his attempted Twitter purchase.
Bindu Sundaresan, Director, AT&T Cybersecurity, joins Cheddar to discuss best practices and important cybersecurity milestones to hit for any organization, and how small business owners can think about cyber beyond technology and compliance.
Memorial Day rang in the unofficial start of summer here in the United States -- and with it, the unofficial start of summer travel. Whether consumers traveled by air or by land, they probably experienced some form of frustration over the weekend. Flyers faced delays and cancellations, and drivers faced the most expensive gas prices ever recorded on Memorial Day. Zach Griff, Senior Aviation Reporter for the Points Guy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Next-generation gaming ecosystem Joystick recently raised $8 million in a seed round and is in the process of raising a $110 million Series A funding round. Gaming ecosystems are a relatively new type of platform in the Web3 space, allowing users to maximize their play-to-earn gaming opportunities, exchange crypto-currencies, and sell their digital assets. Joystick says its platform is flipping the current model on its head by giving players the opportunity to keep 100% of the revenue they earn. Robin Defay, co-founder and CEO of Joystick, and Michael Le, co-founder of Joystick and TikTok content creator, join Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The dating app Bumble has sponsored bills and pushed lawmakers to criminalize the online practice of sending unsolicited nudes or “cyberflashing." Payton Iheme, Bumble's head of public policy for the Americas, joined Cheddar News to discuss why the app was going after the harassing behavior beyond its own platform. "Now, while we went to work internally in the company, and we created something called private detector to automatically blur those images so the user can decide if they want to see them, there's nothing for the rest of the internet," she said. "And so that's why we went to work with these laws."
