The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) tested Tesla Autopilot safeguards and found that drivers are pretty quick to adapt to the windows of opportunity the suite gives after warning them to pay attention.
The IIHS study sought to determine whether partially automated driving systems and their safeguards increase driver attentiveness. With the rollout of more advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and semi-autonomous driving functionalities, the goal is to increase safety.
However, these suites still require the driver to pay attention and be aware of any potential opportunity to take over if needed. These driving systems and features are designed to increase safety but still require the driver’s full attention, hence their semi-autonomous label.
Credit: Tesla
For the study, the IIHS tested both Tesla Autopilot safeguards and those available in Volvo’s Pilot Assist.
The study gave 14 drivers a month with a 2020 Tesla Model 3 and required them to travel on Autopilot, when available, over one month. The IIHS wanted to see how drivers behaved leading up to, during, and after attention reminders prompted by a lack of focus on their end.
The Autopilot study found that drivers could learn safeguard sequences and identify “windows of opportunity” to perform non-driving-related tasks. These vehicles still utilized an Autopilot nag and a torque sensor to monitor whether the driver was paying attention. Failure to keep hands on the steering wheel would result in attention reminders.
Failure to change after the reminders would result in suspension of the Autopilot system, commonly referred to as “Autopilot jail.”
The study found:
“In total, the volunteers drove a little more than 12,000 miles with Autopilot engaged. During that time, they triggered 3,858 attention-related warnings from the partial automation system. About half of those alerts occurred when they had at least one hand on the steering wheel but were apparently not moving it enough to satisfy the torque sensor.”
Most warnings did not go past the initial reminder, and only 72 instances resulted in the driver not responding fast enough to prevent the alerts from escalating.
The study found that while initial warnings increased by 26 percent over the first four weeks, showing drivers were prone to expect it, escalations fell by 64 percent, meaning they did not allow the system to continue warning them.
However, this does not mean that non-driving secondary activities stopped after the first warning. Instead, the study showed something interesting:
“The researchers found that the drivers did nondriving secondary activities, looked away from the road, and had both hands off the wheel more often during the alerts and in the 10 seconds before and after them as they learned how the attention reminders worked. The longer they used the system, the less time it took them to take their hands off the wheel again once the alerts stopped.”
The IIHS admits that the safety impact of the change is hard to measure. While the agency noted that some research shows the longer a driver allows their attention to wander, the more likely they will be involved in an accident, the study also said that “even short lapses of attention become so frequent that the periods of supposed engagement between them have little value.”
The study also said the safeguards can be beneficial to behavior immediately and in the longer term, and other patterns showed potentially unintended consequences:
“The current study has shown that driver interactions with partial automation are dynamic. Some of the changes we observed indicate that system safeguards can beneficially shape behavior both immediately and in the longer term, whereas other patterns revealed potentially unintended consequences. It is important to note that these findings are likely not unique to Tesla’s Autopilot, as many systems on the market have overtly similar safeguard designs. As such, some observations from this study maybe relevant to other driver assistance technology that still requires the driver to be engaged in the driving task.”
IIHS Senior Research Scientist Alexandra Mueller, who led the study, said:
“These results show that escalating, multimodal attention reminders are very effective in getting drivers to change their behavior. However, better safeguards are needed to ensure that the behavior change actually translates to more attentive driving.”
While this study provides evidence that perhaps better safeguards are needed, it is important to note that Tesla has upgraded the in-cabin camera to monitor driver attentiveness.
Tesla activates cabin-facing camera in bid to improve vehicle safety
Additionally, many cars are on the road without these driver assistance and safety features.
Distracted driving is going to occur whether a vehicle is equipped with modern technology or not.
Tesla and other automakers have brought their newest vehicles up to speed in the fight against distracted driving, and perhaps this study showed that warnings could and should come at varying rates to prevent anticipation from drivers.
I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
News
SpaceX just launched its secret Starfall saucer again
SpaceX launched its Starfall capsule again on Bandwagon-5, this time listed openly beside rideshare customers.
SpaceX launched its Starfall reentry capsule for the second time on Tuesday morning, flying it as the payload of the Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission. Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida at 7:04 a.m. ET with 32 payloads, and the first stage booster, on its 19th flight, landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas about nine minutes later.
Starfall was scheduled to separate last, 2 hours and 48 minutes after liftoff. The final customer satellite on SpaceX’s mission timeline comes off the upper stage about an hour and nine minutes in, which left a long gap before the capsule was due to be released alone. SpaceX later posted that the payload deployment sequence is complete. At liftoff, the company said Starfall “enables affordable, routine access to a microgravity environment, providing unique opportunities for on-orbit manufacturing, scientific research, and testing.”
Starfall enables affordable, routine access to a microgravity environment, providing unique opportunities for on-orbit manufacturing, scientific research, and testing https://t.co/y8kJg3QDor
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 20, 2026
As Teslarati reported before the first Starfall flight, SpaceX made no public announcement about the vehicle then, and nearly everything known came from FAA and FCC filings. This time Starfall is an item name on the official mission page, listed beside paying rideshare customers. SpaceX has still not said what, if anything, is aboard this Starfall, Spaceflight Now noted.
The FAA’s environmental assessment from May describes a disk about 10.2 feet wide and 2.5 feet tall that weighs roughly 4,600 pounds and can bring 2,200 pounds of payload back to Earth.
Interestingly, the same rocket also carries a competitor’s hardware. Varda Space Industries launched its W-Series 7 capsule on Bandwagon-5, a spacecraft about three times smaller than Starfall that will test whether microgravity can improve the solubility of a cancer drug called Protac. It is Varda’s ninth reentry capsule, and W-8 and W-9 launched earlier this month on Transporter-18. SpaceX has been Varda’s launch provider since the company’s first Falcon 9 rideshare contract in 2021.
SpaceX has not published where or how this Starfall will come down. The preview we ran in June described a recovery from the Pacific Ocean, and the company has not said whether this flight follows the same plan. The launch also arrives hours before SpaceX posts its third quarter results after the market closes, a report we previewed earlier this week.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.
The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”
The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.
Using TBC tunnels to transport freight.
The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20’ shipping container.
Fits like a glove! https://t.co/VV0phWK4fc
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 19, 2026
Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.
Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.
The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.
The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
SpaceX just launched its secret Starfall saucer again
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
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