A man in Finland fell asleep drunk at the wheel of his Tesla electric car, allowing it to race along the highway on autopilot. Police patrols ran alongside the vehicle with sirens blaring and eventually positioned themselves in front of the Tesla, slowing down. The autopilot detected the car ahead and finally stopped. Nearly two minutes of the pursuit were captured on video, making for a nerve-wracking scene.
According to “Helsingin Sanomat,” the incident occurred last July on National Road 6 in the Lappeenranta area. While patrolling, police noticed a Tesla lingering in the left lane at a constant speed of 115 kilometers per hour, completely unresponsive to flashing police lights behind it. Upon closer inspection, officers found the driver slumped forward with his head on his chest, sound asleep.
The officers then moved their patrol car into the same lane in front of the Tesla and slowly applied the brakes. The Tesla’s autopilot sensed the deceleration, followed along, and eventually came to a stop. The officers had to make several attempts before they finally managed to wake the man.
The man admitted to drinking before setting off, and said he couldn’t stay awake on the road. Blood tests showed an alcohol concentration as high as 2.72 per mille, more than five times Finland’s legal limit for drunk driving, which is 0.5 per mille.
The South Karelia District Court formally indicted the man this week, charging him with endangering road safety and aggravated drunk driving. Along with the indictment, authorities released the patrol car dashcam footage. Prosecutors have requested a sentence of approximately four months’ imprisonment or community service. A verdict is expected next week.
Although Tesla’s official manual states that if the driver continuously fails to respond to system warnings, the vehicle will issue an alert, turn on warning lights, and gradually come to a stop, in this case, the man’s hands remained on the steering wheel while asleep, causing the system to continuously receive torque signals. This led the system to incorrectly determine that the driver was still in control, and thus the safety stop procedure was not triggered. (News source: Central News Agency)