- An Arizona teen was denied their driver’s license over Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature
- It turns out that the car didn’t have FSD installed at all
- The DMV will reportedly reevaluate how it tests with certain EV and car-tech features moving forward
Here’s a real head-scratcher for the books: an Arizona teen showed up to take her driver’s test in a Tesla Model Y only to be denied because Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature made the car—get this—too safe.
You read that right. The Model Y, loaded with cutting-edge safety features designed to help prevent accidents, was deemed too helpful to the teen during the test. And if this sounds like something straight out of a parody, buckle up because it gets better.
According to a Reddit post by her father, who owned the Model Y, the teen passed the practical portion of the driving exam. There was a problem, though. The computers at the DMZ were supposedly down, so the newly licensed teen was asked to return the following day to pick up her shiny new Arizona license.
Fast-forward to the following day, when the teen returned to the DMV with her mom. That’s when the DMV staff pulled them aside to let them know that the daughter wouldn’t be getting her license that day. The reason? She was using Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature.
To the DMV’s credit, a retest was probably warranted if the teen was using FSD or even Autopilot for the test. But that couldn’t be true, according to the father, since the family’s Model Y doesn’t actually have the $8,000 software installed.
After pushing back, the DMV reportedly changed its tune. The teen was still denied their license; however, this time, it was for using one-pedal driving.
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, let me explain: rather than using the physical brakes to slow the car down using the friction between the brake pads and a car’s rotor, EVs can use the car’s electric motors to return energy into the battery pack. It feels very similar to hitting the brake and is more efficient to turn kinetic energy back into stored energy rather than heat and brake dust. This requires only one pedal (hence the name) and has been how I’ve been driving my Tesla since the day I bought it. And if you own a Tesla built after January 2024, it’s impossible to turn off regenerative braking altogether.
According to the DMV, that wasn’t a good enough reason not to use the brake pedal more. Here’s what the dad had to say:
I talked the the person that made the final decision and her main point was something along the lines of… If we don’t know she can brake with the brake pedal, then how do we know she can drive a non-Tesla. When I brought up that if someone driving an automatic transmission takes the test, how do you know they can drive a standard? She had nothing to say about that.
At one point an employee said that they might have to ban Teslas from taking the road test because they have too many safety features.
I wish I could afford another Tesla for our daughter due to “too many” safety features!
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time a driver has failed their license test over the use of regenerative braking. Two separate instances were documented in California during 2021 which sparked quite a bit of controversy at the time. One user on Reddit even commented that their girlfriend was flunked for using the car’s onboard cameras—a Tesla will display the side repeater cameras and trunk camera when performing certain functions like engaging the turn signal or reversing—rather than the mirrors during the test.
Fortunately for this Arizona driver, dad’s pushback was enough to get the DMV to reconsider their position and grant the teen her license. The DMV also mentioned that it would reevaluate how to administer the test moving forward.
Now, listen, we get it. These tests have to follow a set standard. Check the mirrors, use the brake, parallel park within so many inches of the curb. DMVs are, if nothing else, a cog in the bureaucratic machine. However, automotive technology is progressing much more quickly than certain processes or, in some cases, even laws and regulations.
In the meantime, maybe it’s a bit smarter to stick to something more old-school when taking a driver’s test—at least for now.
