HMM: Tesla’s hidden ‘Elon Mode’ has NHTSA regulators extremely concerned.

Despite its name, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology is not actually fully self-driving. Both FSD and Autopilot require the constant supervision of the driver with eyes on the road and hands on the wheel; the car is designed to “nag” the driver if and when that supervision lags. If the driver repeatedly ignores this nag, the feature could be disabled permanently.

But The Street reported in June that there exists a configuration hidden within Tesla’s software that doesn’t have this nag. Nicknamed “Elon Mode,” this iteration of self-driving was discovered by a hacker who then drove 600 miles with it enabled.

The hacker’s experiment with “Elon Mode” went viral, eventually catching the attention of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The regulatory agency sent Tesla a letter and special order on July 26, demanding more details about “Elon Mode,” including the number of cars that have access to it.

The special order additionally requested a step-by-step rundown of how to enable the configuration, as well as Tesla’s “basis or purpose in installing the software in consumer vehicles.”

The NHTSA posted the letter and special order on its website Aug. 29.

I’m curious whether Elon Mode does anything other than disable the nags. If so, maybe it’s a useful development tool for Full Self-Driving. If not, it looks like another case of begging for trouble.