Man caught sleeping behind the wheel of his Tesla as it drives down a busy highway
The vehicle was on autopilot as it drove through a Los Angeles highway.
Video of a man “straight snoozing going 75 mph on the interstate, letting his Tesla do the work” has gone viral after being posted to Twitter on Tuesday by a musician named Seth Blake.
The video, which the Wage War guitarist says was shot in California by his fiancé from the passenger seat, shows a Tesla Model 3 being driven near Los Angeles by a man with his hand on the steering wheel and his head slumped to the side, resting against the seat.
"We were near or around him in traffic for about 10 minutes before we lost him. He was going about 75 mph for the first five minutes before we hit LA stop and go traffic for the last five (which felt a little safer)," Blake told Fox News Autos.
"We eventually lost him, but he was asleep pretty much the whole time. I saw him open his eyes once to look around, but he quickly dozed back to sleep."
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The Model 3 is available with a feature called Autopilot that is capable of steering the vehicle within a lane and braking for other vehicles as long as the driver is touching the steering wheel.
It has not been confirmed that the man was sleeping or if Autopilot was engaged, and Tesla has not commented on Blake’s account.
A number of videos similar to Blake’s have been posted to the internet in recent weeks, prompting safety groups to caution owners about their capabilities.
Autopilot has been linked to two high-profile fatal accidents, including 2016 crash near Gainesville, Fla., that resulted in the death of Joshua Brown, whose Tesla Model S failed to stop for a tractor-trailer crossing a highway in front of him and slammed into the side of it.
Two federal agencies are investigating a similar accident that took place in same state last week, when the roof of Jeremy Banner Model 3 was torn off as it drove under the trailer of a semi-truck in Delray Beach.
It is not yet known if Autopilot was engaged at the time of Banner's collision.