But seriously, don’t
While it may be possible to trick your Tesla autopilot’s safety nets by jamming an orange in the steering wheel so that it thinks you’re actually holding the steering wheel, you really shouldn’t – when the car has autopilot engaged, it prompts the driver every two minutes to put his or her hands on the wheel.
We can already see the headlines of this accident waiting to happen, and they range from funny (in case the person/people involved are fine) to the downright macabre if it involves fatalities – and make no mistake, doing this could definitely get you killed, even if you do it like the Model S owner, Dave Mitton of Salt Lake City, Utah, in the video below who recommends you only do it when driving “in the middle of nowhere.”
Tesla will have to respond to this somehow because as silly as it may be, it is definitely a safety hazard. But how will they go around patching this up – maybe in the future you will be asked to sign a disclaimer saying you are most certainly not going to jam fruit into your steering wheel to trick the car.