Police in Canada have charged a man in his 20s with high-speed and reckless driving after he was found asleep at the wheel of a Tesla on a highway.

The incident occurred on July 9 in the Canadian province of Alberta.

Police responded to information from the public about a Tesla driving erratically on the highway.

– The car appears to be able to drive itself at a speed of 140 kilometers per hour, and the front car seats are reclined backwards. The two in the car appeared to be sleeping, Alberta police wrote in one of them pers conference Thursday.

– After the police turned on the vehicle's blue lights, the Tesla automatically started to accelerate. Police took radar control of the vehicle, and confirmed that it was traveling at exactly 150 kilometers per hour, the press release said.

The general speed limit on highways in Alberta is between 100 and 110 kilometers per hour.

– Non-self-driving system

Police in Alberta are now warning against so-called self-driving cars.

– Although new car manufacturers have built-in safety mechanisms to prevent drivers from abusing new safety systems in cars, those systems are only additional safety systems, Police Inspector Gary Graham of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.

– This is not a self-driving system. There's still a responsibility to actually driving the car, Graham said.

– I'm speechless

The policeman who discovered the self-driving car, namely a 2019 Tesla Model S, said he was speechless.

– No one looked out the windshield to see where the car was going, police officer Darrin Turnbull told CBS News.

– I have been a police officer for 23 years, mainly in the traffic service. I was speechless. “I've never seen anything like this, but of course this technology has never been available before,” he said.

The trial began in December.

Autopilot

Tesla has been the most advanced company in rolling out self-driving technology in its cars, and they themselves call the system Autopilot.

As long as the car is on the road, the car itself can control itself and adjust speed, and even change lanes, but in recent years several mechanisms have been built so that the driver has to actively tell the car that he is keeping it. hands on the wheel.

Also read: Tesla on autopilot crashes into truck