Chinese Tesla Drivers Outsmart Safety Cams With Plastic Heads
Tiny figurines and blinking screens are defeating Tesla's distracted-driving monitoring system in China.
Tesla's driver-monitoring cameras have a plastic head problem. Chinese Tesla owners are propping up tiny celebrity figurines on their dashboards to trick the car's distracted-driving controls into thinking a real human is paying attention.
The workaround has spawned a cottage industry. Sellers are hawking miniature heads, screens that simulate blinking eyes, and various DIY gadgets — all designed to fool Tesla's in-cabin monitoring system. The tech apparently can't tell the difference between a small plastic face and an actual person.
It's a significant safety gap. Driver-monitoring systems exist to ensure people stay alert, especially when using assisted-driving features. If a cheap figurine is all it takes to defeat the system, that raises serious questions about the robustness of Tesla's detection algorithms.
No word yet on whether Tesla plans to patch the vulnerability.