California Tesla driver seen napping behind wheel on Interstate 5

Cellphone footage appears to capture the driver of a moving Tesla snoozing behind the wheel on a Southern California highway Sunday.

The incident, according to the motorist who recorded the footage and sent it to KTLA, occurred in the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Camp Pendleton.

In the footage, the driver’s head appears tilted to the right as the vehicle, likely in self-driving mode, traveled down the roadway. Occupants of the vehicle who spotted the sleepy driver can be heard laughing during the ordeal.

The video ends before the driver’s apparent nap does.

This is not the first time Tesla drivers have been caught mid-snooze. As far back as February 2023, video obtained by KTLA showed two separate drivers sleeping behind the wheel in the span of a week, one in Los Angeles and the other in Temecula.

More recently, KTLA’s San Francisco sister station KRON obtained footage of an East Bay driver apparently asleep behind the wheel of a Tesla Model 4 while on Highway 4 in March.

Per Tesla’s guidelines, drivers using the vehicle’s Full Self-Driving mode are required to remain attentive and ready to take control of the car at any moment.

In past incidents, the California Highway Patrol told KTLA that drivers must be awake, conscious and sober to legally operate a moving vehicle.

There have been arrests of drivers filmed sleeping in moving Teslas, though it is unclear whether witnesses in this incident contacted authorities.

The electric vehicle maker has been at the center of numerous controversies but remains the top-selling brand in California for the fourth year in a row. The Tesla Model Y far outsold any other new vehicle in the state in 2025.