Tesla EVs can be fooled with duct tape and oranges

We’ve already seen a man put an orange inside the steering wheel of a Tesla Model S to drive hands-free in Autopilot mode (watch the second video if you haven’t). Now, McAfee has found a potentially dangerous way to accelerate a Tesla 50 mph beyond the safe limit.

The glitch can be reproduced on all Tesla vehicles made since 2016. All you need is a bit of duct tape and a 35 mph speed limit sign. McAfee shows that pasting a short strip of sticky tape to extend the middle part of the ‘3’ essentially fools the Tesla traffic sign reading software into thinking it’s an 8, rather than a 3. As a result, the car may accelerate all the way up to 85 mph where only 35 mph is legally allowed. What is remarkable is that the modification of the sign is discreet enough to go unnoticed by most human drivers.