Tesla Disables Feature That Allowed Drivers To Play Video Games While Operating Vehicle

Yet another one of Elon Musk’s “gimmicks” hasn’t quite landed well with auto safety regulators. As a result, your Tesla’s ability to allow you to play video games while driving has been disabled.

But the fart noise for a horn still plays on, we’re happy to report.

While it certainly isn’t the overdue and serious revision into Autopilot and “Full Self Driving” rules on public roads that skeptics have been clamoring for for years, Tesla told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration this week that it was issuing a software update to lock its game features while cars were being driven. 

The news about the update comes just one day after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a formal investigation into the feature, according to Bloomberg. 

“The Vehicle Safety Act prohibits manufacturers from selling vehicles with defects posing unreasonable risks to safety, including technologies that distract drivers from driving safely,” the NHTSA said in a statement to Bloomberg. 

There was a feature called “passenger play” that would allow games on a touchscreen at the center of the dashboard to function. The feature had been available on roughly 580,000 2017-2022 Model 3, S, X and Y vehicles, which were all at the center of the probe. 

Now, how long before another software update is issued to disable Full Self Driving? And when that happens, how many $10,000 refunds are going to be requested by Tesla customers?

For now, we digress…