Tesla is now counting blinks and yawns to assess the drowsiness of the driver. The revelation was shared by Tesla feature leaker @greentheonly on Twitter, adding that the EV company might have plans to use this feature beyond Autopilot and Full Self-Driving.
Despite its advanced technology, Tesla continues to face various concerns about the different sections of its EVs, including its safety. In the past, we heard many news and complaints about the company not putting adequate effort into bumping up its driver monitoring. However, the company seems to be on the move now to address this by using the EV’s internal camera to analyze the driver’s actions indicating sleepiness.
“Looks like Tesla is planning a big boost to (camera based) driver monitoring,” @greentheonly tweeted. “They are now tracking additional things like how many yawns the driver had recently, how many blinks and how long they were, leaning. All this is to calculate how drowsy the driver is.”
The leaker also shared that the feature might also be working even when the EV is not on AP but added that it remains a secret what Tesla plans to do if the system detects the driver is unfit to drive.
And while the move sounds like an advancement in Tesla’s effort to improve its products, others find the idea troubling, expressing concerns about the use of cameras to assess the driver inside the vehicle.
“Does no one think that’s a tab bit intrusive?” A Twitter user commented. “Sure maybe while in AP but, a constant monitoring with a possibility of disabling a vehicle I’ve paid for based on what an AI or random person deems to be tired (not unsafe per day) driving is a touch unsettling.”
“The ability to gather all these data is a double edge sword,” another user said. “It’ll have some safety benefits but it will also be definitely abused by denying insurance claims and similar actions in the future. The asymmetry between consumers and corps is definitely tilting one way.”
