Tesla vehicles may not be as safe as claimed, according to Elon Musk. The new Tesla model cars can be fooled into speeding at dangerously high speeds with a piece of tape on a speed limit sign. A new video reveals that when someone placed a piece of tape over a speed limit sign that said 35 miles per hour, the Tesla was driven to 85 miles per hour despite the altered sign.
As the value of Tesla’s stock continues to soar at an accelerated rate, the firm has come under a lot of criticism. When McAfee researchers covered the “3” in electrical tape and placed it between two sets of twin tires, they were able to fool the Tesla automobile into believing that the speed limit was 85 miles per hour.
When the Tesla Model X was in cruise control, a false sign fooled it. The car, which is powered by computers rather than gasoline, accelerated to 50 miles per hour before the driver realized she was putting herself in a dangerous situation.
Following the revelation, Tesla was put under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for 127 complaints alleging that there were “sudden unintended acceleration” in certain circumstances.
The Tesla flaw caused 110 accidents and 52 injuries. Many customers who spend a lot of money on buying the Tesla found themselves in hazardous circumstances as a result of the engineers at the automobile company failing to do their duty.
Even if a vehicle is not controlled by a computer, using electrical tape to alter the speed limit might be hazardous for someone behind the wheel. This is demonstrated by McAfee’s case.
“By making a tiny sticker-based modification to our speed limit sign, we were able to cause a targeted misclassification of the MobilEye camera on a Tesla and use it to cause the vehicle to autonomously speeds up to 85 miles per hour when reading a 35 miles per hour sign,” McAfee said in their statement. “For safety reasons, the video demonstration shows the speed start to spike and TACC accelerate on its way to 85, but given our test conditions, we apply the brakes well before it reaches target speed.”
The company said, “It is worth noting that this is seemingly only possible on the first implementation of TACC when the driver double taps the lever, engaging TACC. If the misclassification is successful, the autopilot engages 100 percent of the time.”
Tesla does not believe McAfee’s research is correct since it was designed to deceive the computer camera. Should Tesla vehicles be built in order to prevent people from fooling them?
“Even to the trained eye, this hardly looks suspicious or malicious, and many who saw it didn’t realize the sign had been altered at all,” McAfee stated.
