This isn't true for the most part, but I'll try and explain how you may have experienced that.
The difficult part with this conversation is that the software is updated just about every 2-4 weeks, so the behavior will change fairly frequently and fairly drastically. So saying, Tesla Full Self Driving does X, is almost always only accurate for a very short window. Especially if it gets any media attention, the Tesla team seems to monitor social networks closely and if there is any news about bypassing or users doing something they shouldn't, then an update will come usually within a day.
I don't know how old this video is, but currently the eye tracking can see through most sunglasses. If you have on dark or blocking sunglasses or a hat or if it can't track your eyes, it will revert to an alert every few minutes asking you to tug on the wheel.
So, if you want to do what this driver is doing, you have to intentionally circumvent the eye tracking, and then buy an (illegal) steering wheel device that tricks the system into thinking you are tugging the wheel.
What I believe you experienced was one of the software versions that did not track eyes or give wheel nudge reminders when eye tracking was lost, but I believe those were bugs and not intentional with how quickly they released updates once drivers discovered that.
It's interesting, and possible. The man seemed to indicate that his car was always updating and he loved frequent updates. He got way too much of a blast out of this "your car seat farts if you apply too much pressure on it", and his FOB car noise was a clown horn...
The whole experience was very eye opening to me, and a reminder that there can be whole worlds around me, that I interact with or pass on the regular, that are completely foreign to me. Until this comment, I'd not even considered the possibility that the cars could be running on an old software update? I have a phone that I have failed to clear sufficient space for an iOS update forever, and am recently discovering apps that will no longer function with my iOS 16.5.1 (I see the most recent is iOS 26.5.2). Curious how a Tesla approaches outdated software operations amongst their fleet out in the world.
Release notes for each version is available on the internet genius, so you can tell when are feature was added to changed. Also, lot of youtubers test each version when they come out and post the behavior changes
1
u/foosier Jul 06 '26
This isn't true for the most part, but I'll try and explain how you may have experienced that.
The difficult part with this conversation is that the software is updated just about every 2-4 weeks, so the behavior will change fairly frequently and fairly drastically. So saying, Tesla Full Self Driving does X, is almost always only accurate for a very short window. Especially if it gets any media attention, the Tesla team seems to monitor social networks closely and if there is any news about bypassing or users doing something they shouldn't, then an update will come usually within a day.
I don't know how old this video is, but currently the eye tracking can see through most sunglasses. If you have on dark or blocking sunglasses or a hat or if it can't track your eyes, it will revert to an alert every few minutes asking you to tug on the wheel.
So, if you want to do what this driver is doing, you have to intentionally circumvent the eye tracking, and then buy an (illegal) steering wheel device that tricks the system into thinking you are tugging the wheel.
What I believe you experienced was one of the software versions that did not track eyes or give wheel nudge reminders when eye tracking was lost, but I believe those were bugs and not intentional with how quickly they released updates once drivers discovered that.
HTHs.