Tesla Night Curfew Should Put Parents’ Minds at Ease When Young Drivers Are on the Road

Tesla has rolled out a new software update including a new feature that will help parents of young drivers feel safer when their teens are on the road.

Night Curfew is a feature that allows parents to receive notifications on their Tesla App when a vehicle is driven past a set curfew. It also allows its users to set speed limits, acceleration restrictions, and safety features on the vehicle. The update has been pushed to “wave 1” employee testers, who typically receive feature updates early.

Tesla describes its new Parental Control features in 2024.26’s release notes. The notes reveal that parents can enable parental controls with a PIN through the app, which connects to the vehicle. Adults can set a maximum speed limit as well as limit acceleration, set speed limit warnings, automatic emergency braking, and forward collision warnings.

Teslas come standard with Valet Mode, which restricts a car’s speed and acceleration. But with this new feature, users can enforce these limits for other drives after tagging a profile as a “restricted driver.” The car’s autopilot and full self-driving can also be disabled if a driver wishes to do so.

🔥🔥🚀 Tesla 2024.26 software update has been detected, with a lot of awesome new features!!

✅ YouTube Music
✅ Amazon Music
✅ Parental Control (set maximum speed and acceleration limits, turn on safety features, and configure Night Curfew to get notifications when the vehicle… pic.twitter.com/w9PJyCQetj

— Tesla Newswire (@TeslaNewswire) July 3, 2024

The critical update also includes YouTube and Amazon Music, the ability to navigate to sub-destinations, the weather forecast and air quality, and scheduled charging and preconditioning of a vehicle. It also includes a redesigned climate panel, lower fan speed, and the ability for Zoom calls to default to full-screen when a Tesla’s gears are in the park mode.

Speaking to The London Times, Steve Cole from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RSPA) said, “We are in favor of safeguarding our young drivers and believe that technology holds huge potential to help us do that.”

“However, safety should not be limited to users of any specific vehicle type,” he added. “For young drivers in particular, RSPA would like to see the introduction of graduated driver licensing — a progressive licensing system to support young drivers by limiting high-risk driving situations, a measure proven to reduce fatalities by up to 40 percent.”

Mashable reports that to get the majority of these new updates, Tesla drivers must sign up for Tesla’s Premium Connectivity subscription, which costs users $10 each month.