When Tesla drivers fail to comply with specific mandates, such as keeping their hands on the steering wheel and maintaining focus on the road, Tesla cars consistently remind them, a behavior commonly referred to as “nagging” or “nags” by owners. Interestingly, there is a hidden mode within Tesla’s code that enables certain vehicles to disable these reminders, which are designed to ensure driver attentiveness when utilizing the automaker’s Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems.
The setting, dubbed “Elon Mode” in the code, was uncovered by a Tesla software hacker known as @greentheonly. They said it allowed them to drive nearly 600 miles (966 km) while using the “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) and Autopilot modes without being required to nudge the steering wheel in order to demonstrate that they were paying attention.
The nags, while annoying, are an important safety feature for Tesla drivers and other road users. They ensure that the drivers are paying attention to the road while using FSD and Autopilot, which are Level 2 systems. That means that the car cannot completely take over driving duties, and a human operator must always pay attention to the road, something that has been hard to guarantee, even with the nags on.
Read: Tesla FSD Beta Rollout Resumes After 363,000 Cars Recalled Over Crash Fears
Although the hacker said that the lack of nags revealed to them that a Level 3 autonomous system would be an impressive feature, they had numerous complaints about FSD, which they expressed in a Twitter thread about their experience with “Elon Mode.”
They claimed that the system got them to their location about five minutes later than expected “solely because of FSD foolishness.” They also reported that there was a “constant flow” of vehicles passing them on the right, that the car drove slowly, that there were random lane changes, and that construction barrels confuse the car.
“Majority of problems I met were mostly due to shortsightedness of the stack resulting in unnecessary lane changes,” said @greentheonly. “If you let the car do it freely, road rage from others would be a real concern.”
Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, suggested late last year that Tesla is working to reduce driver nags. It is unclear at this time if “Elon Mode” is part of that mission, but @greentheonly suggested that the car whose code they found the setting in was owned by the company and they did not have the opportunity to verify if it could be found in customer-owned vehicles, per The Verge.
The existence of “Elon Mode” may be of note to Tesla critics and regulators. The automaker’s ADAS systems are the subject of intense scrutiny, with Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Transportation Secretary, recently saying that “there is a real concern” over Tesla’s Autopilot system.