Tesla's latest safety feature aims to stop you from driving tired

Tesla has revealed a new feature that will track a driver’s blinks and yawns and alert them to pull over and rest if they’re drowsy.

The feature now appears in the recently facelifted Model 3‘s owner’s manual on the Tesla Europe website, though not in any other models’ manuals yet.

It’s unclear when it will be rolled out in Australia. It hasn’t appeared in any release notes for over-the-air software updates.

It’s activated when the vehicle is travelling over 65km/h and for a minimum of 10 minutes with Autopilot not engaged.

The camera software will now monitor “facial characteristics as well as driving behaviour to determine patterns indicative of drowsiness”.

Tesla says when driver drowsiness is detected, an alert will display on the touchscreen “in the cards area”. There’s also an audible alert.

The feature will automatically turn off when the vehicle speed drops below 60km/h.

Drivers can disable the feature through the vehicle settings by navigating to Controls > Safety > Driver Drowsiness Warning. If drivers wish to switch off the feature it will only be disabled for that current drive cycle and will reactivate when the vehicle is next turned on.

Tesla’s vehicles already had the ability to monitor drivers’ attention via the interior camera, but only if Autopilot or Full-Self Driving was engaged.

This latest enhancement was first reported by known Tesla hacker Green on X (formerly known as Twitter) in May 2023.

Other manufactures already have driver fatigue detection, including Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Ford and Subaru just to name a few.

MORE: Everything Tesla Model 3 MORE: Fatigue detection systems explained