The Tesla software has given us countless curious, fun and surprising moments, but what we could not imagine (or rather, yes) is that it still hid more secrets only available to very few. Or rather, only within the reach of Elon Musk.
the elon way
Greentheonly is a hacker who has been working for several years to penetrate the depths of the Tesla softwarediscovering details that were unknown, such as the function of disabling the electric adjustment of the seats if it is abused, or the presence of a central camera in the Model 3 to ensure that you are attentive to the road.
Well, Greentheonly’s new discovery is a b, which basically eliminates any type of monitoring on the driver while the self-piloted mode is activated. So far, by the time the driver enters self-driving mode, the vehicle’s sensors make sure they keep their hands on the wheel and constantly look at the road, but it seems that Elon mode avoids all of that.
Impressions after nearly 600 miles on 11.4.3 with Elon mode (could not get a non-Tesla car to try in time).
It went much better than the prior experiment obviously.
Many contributing factors. I was not as late so I did not mind as much (still ended up 5 minutes late solely— green (@greentheonly) June 17, 2023
Basically, once the vehicle starts moving automatically, the user can do whatever they want, and as proof, our protagonist has uploaded a video in which you can see how he keeps his hands off the wheel for quite some time without receive any kind of warning from the vehicle. We do not know if the name “Elon Mode” is due to the fact that only Elon Musk has access to it, although it could also be something like “administrator mode” with which you do not have any limitations.
How active?
Obviously the hacker has not shared the details of how the mode is activated, since it must be made clear that without approval from the regulatory authorities it would be reckless. In fact, to this day, the software is programmed so that through the central camera it is checked if the driver is paying attention to the road, and in case of receiving several consecutive warnings, the software will inform that the autonomous driving mode it could be deactivated if the behavior is still maintained.
What we do know is that Elon Musk dropped on Twitter that a future update could remove the steering wheel hold control, so this Elon Mode could be related to future improvements.
Software that is safe
Despite the anecdotes and all these misdeeds, the hacker assures that Tesla’s work on its software is quite impressive, and details that the level of care that the brand puts into its product is quite remarkable compared to other brands.
Fountain: greentheonly (Twitter)
Via: The Verge