For most people, there’s a lot of distance between the sort of driving one enjoys watching in an action movie and the sort of driving one wants to encounter in reality. I enjoy watching the Fast & Furious movies; I would also like to be as far as possible from anyone attempting to drive in the style and manner of Dominic Toretto. The same is true for virtually any action film imaginable, whether the driver is Frank Bullitt or Max Rockatansky.
Evidently, someone at Tesla thinks otherwise. The latest update to the company’s Full Self-Driving software includes the return of a configuration known as “Mad Max Mode.” In an article at Not a Tesla App, Karan Singh has a good overview of what this is. The short version is that it is, in Singh’s phrasing, “the fastest and most aggressive FSD profile.” In practice, that means frequently changing lanes as needed.
As some Reddit users pointed out, this joins Full Self-Driving’s other modes: Chill, Standard and Hurry. Precisely what it means to be faster than “Hurry” mode is still taking shape. Teslarati’s Simon Alvarez notes that a number of Tesla drivers have shared enthusiastic reviews of the modified feature, with one of the drivers sharing a maximum speed of 85 miles per hour when in Mad Max mode.
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Tesla pulled a “Songs of Innocence,” but with more Jared LetoThere’s one more interesting wrinkle of the return of this particular mode. In an article for Autoblog, Karl Furlong observed that this feature has been re-enabled in the wake of a federal investigation of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving systems. Making it easier for Teslas to handle the road in a more assertive manner is the opposite of keeping a low profile while that investigation plays out. How the NHTSA will respond to that, meanwhile, remains to be seen.
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