Watch This Tesla Model S Driver Take an Autopilot Nap on the Highway
Also, we’ve just trademarked the term “Autopilot Nap.”
Thanks to one feckless Tesla Model S driver, we now have a term for catching a few z's while your car drives itself: the Autopilot Nap. New footage first posted on Imgur as a GIF and then transformed into a video by the folks at elektrek shows a traffic-bound Tesla Model S autonomously purring its way through stop-and-go traffic...while its driver succumbs to the siren song of Hypnos.
In case you've forgotten, Tesla' Autopilot system allows the car to zip along without forcing the driver to frequently touch the wheel, an autonomous feature commonly known as "George Bluthing." But the system still requires the driver to be ready and able to seize control at a moment's notice. It will cry out if it lacks enough information about the road to drive itself; if the driver doesn't take manual control, the car will throw on its flashers and pull onto the shoulder. (Which would probably have been quite a shock to the two lanes of traffic to this sleepy Tesla pilot's right.)
Granted, we can't be entirely sure that the "driver" of this Model S is actually napping. Maybe he's just resting his eyes for several seconds, and his brief moment of repose came at the exact moment a passing car's occupant whipped out his or her cell phone. Maybe he's meditating, and has achieved such a state of hyperawareness that he doesn't need to see to be completely cognizant of the world around him. Hell, given the angle of his neck, maybe he's dead.
Or...maybe he's just taking a quick little Autopilot Nap.
