Brooks over at the DragTimes channel on YouTube recently discovered a little bug in the Tesla Model S that allows owners to disable the EV’s regenerative braking, automatic emergency braking and traction and stability control systems. If you want to turn your Tesla into a donut-making machine, you might want to take notice.
As the YouTuber explains at the end of the video, the process is quite simple; all you need to do is have the vehicle turned on, switch it into ‘Drive’ and then put in back in ‘Park’. Next, you must open the Settings menu and press ‘Service.’ When this menu loads up, you change the wheel configuration to anything other than the wheel/tire package the vehicle currently features.
Following these steps will trigger the car to reset itself and, as this is happening, you re-enable drive, and that’s it – all the safety systems have been disabled.
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The result is a driving experience totally foreign to most Tesla owners. As Brooks notes, driving one without any form of regenerative braking is very bizarre. In terms of performance, disabling the safety systems means drivers cannot enable the launch control system to achieve maximum acceleration, but you can still pin your throttle to the floor and record a 0-60 mph (96 km/h) time of about 2.6 seconds despite the car’s wheels spinning up a little bit.
Then come the donuts. The tested produces an extraordinary amount of horsepower and torque and spins up all four wheels with incredible ease if the traction and stability control systems are put to sleep.
We guess Tesla will likely patch the bug with a future software update, so anyone interested in trying this out should do it out before it’s gone forever – but always bear in mind that, without the safety net provided by the electronics, they must definitely have their wits about them if they don’t want the whole shenanigan to end up in tears.