Tesla Autopilot Now Lets You Drive on Rainbow Road
Alexander Neil / 8 years ago
Yesterday, Tesla CEO tweeted some unusual instructions for owners of Tesla vehicles that are equipped with the autopilot feature.
Activate autopilot 4X in quick succession for psychedelic cowbell road. And, yes, we are adding more cowbell soon.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 11, 2016
While this may be an effort to distract users from the recent issues found in a number of their Model X vehicles, the result of Musk’s instructions is certainly amusing.
Normally, when you put a Tesla Model S or Model X into autopilot mode, the instrument display switches over to show a car travelling down a road, which is used to indicate where the car believes it is on the current road or lane it is in as well as any cars it detects nearby. Typically, this road is just like any other, normal and gray, but after the latest software update activating Autopilot four times sequentially changes this into the far more exciting Rainbow Road of Mario Kart fame.
It’s not just Rainbow Road either, also included is the cowbell audio from the famous Saturday Night Live sketch that plays over the stereo. Thanks to Brian Stucki for sharing a clip of this feature in action.
Exactly what this “more cowbell” that Musk refers to is currently unknown, but Tesla’s car software containing easter eggs is nothing new. Afterall, the Model S has a James Bond Mode, which turns the representation of the car in on the in-car display into the submersible Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me.
