This is what happens when you ignore Tesla Autopilot warnings

With the recent version 8.0 update, Tesla is making sure there are fewer situations where people can blame the Autopilot for their own inattentiveness. In addition to more prominent warnings from Autopilot, the car will deprive you of some of its autonomous features if you choose to ignore them.

In what Teslarati aptly describes as a "three strikes and you're out" rule, Autopilot will actually lock you out of the function after a series of warnings.

First, when you engaging Autopilot, as you can see in the video demonstration below, it offers the following message: "Please Keep Your Hands on the Wheel. Be Prepared to Take Over at Any Time." After a while (about four and a half minutes in the video above) of driving no-handed, the display starts to flash around the edges, urging the driver to "Hold Steering Wheel." Then, after a series of three audio warnings, the message appears: "Autosteer Unavailable for the Rest of this Drive. Hold Steering Wheel to Drive Manually."

There's no further shaming, and once you stop and place the vehicle into park mode, your Autopilot privileges return when you begin to drive again. Hopefully, by then, you've learned your lesson.

Tesla warns in its various literature that its Autopilot system is not perfect, and that the driver should always be able to take over. Multiple crashes have been said to involve Autopilot, including two fatal ones. As the company receives increasing pressure, scrutiny, and blame regarding its autonomous driving technology, it's understandable that its advancements are not just in Autopilot's capabilities, but in clarifying its limits, including in terms of the amount of responsibility it expects from drivers.