Warning After Videos Show Apple Vision Pro Users Driving Teslas

Drivers have been urged to keep their focus on the road after videos circulated widely showing people interacting with content via Apple’s new Vision Pro headset while allowing Tesla vehicles to pilot themselves.

US secretary for transport Pete Buttigieg flagged one of the videos, warning that drivers must be in control  of vehicles “at all times”.

The video, which has more than 24 million views, shows a man in the driver’s seat of a Cybertruck appearing to interact with Vision Pro content with his hands while the vehicle pilots itself down a road.

“Reminder – ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully engaged in the driving task at all times,” Buttigieg wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

‘Skit’

Another of the drivers involved said his video was really a “skit”.

That video, posted on the day the Vision Pro became available to consumers, showed the driver using a Vision Pro in a Tesla vehicle, and later appearing to be pulled over by police.

The user told Gizmodo he had only driven with the headset in the car for 30 to 40 seconds and that the footage of police was fortuitous.

He said the video was a “skit” that he had made with friends.

Spatial computing

Tesla has tangled with US regulators and courts for years over its Autopilot driver-assistance feature, and was forced in December to recall more than 2 million vehicles to improve its system for keeping drivers engaged.

Other videos and photos have shown users wearing the Vision Pro crossing the street or in social locations such as bars.

The headset’s passthrough feature allows users to access iPad-style content and apps while seeing the environment around them, a model broadly known as augmented or mixed-reality, but which Apple calls “spatial computing”.