New Tesla voice command will let your car fart

March 17, 2022

By Clint Payne

Tesla's Emissions Testing Mode

Coming soon to all Tesla models equipped with an external speaker is a new feature that will allow your car to make loud farting sounds outside the vehicle. This new feature addition has been confirmed by Elon’s recent tweet earlier in March.

According to Elon's tweet, the fart sound, which is currently a feature within Tesla’s Toybox, will require you to say “Fart in their general direction.”

Emissions Toybox feature

Currently, the Toybox feature is housed within the Entertainment section of the car's infotainment system.

One of the features available in the Toybox is Emissions Testing Mode. It lets the car play random fart noises through its speakers.

You can choose which individual speaker the sound comes from, giving the impression that the fart sound is coming from a specific individual or seat.

You can also have your car do things like play the Holiday Show, switch on Mars Mode, which puts the vehicle in a Martian landscape, and even turn on Romance Mode, which allows you to cozy up with your loved ones by the virtual fireplace.

How does Tesla play sounds on the exterior of the vehicle?

With Tesla continuing to enhance the entertainment features of the vehicle, the new fart feature will utilize the vehicles Pedestrian Warning System (PWS), which plays media externally on cars. When Tesla first started including the PWS speaker in cars back in 2019, it was only designed to play a low humming sound while at low speeds when either in drive or reverse. It was added to cars to comply with US regulations.

With this new feature, Tesla likely will also let the sound play on the internal speakers if your vehicle is not equipped with a PWS.

Coming soon, if you want your car to make a loud farting sound from the external speaker, just say “Fart in their general direction!”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2022

Voice Commands

Tesla has added various voice commands to enhance the driver’s experience, but this will be one of the few voice commands that are Toybox specific. Another popular voice command tied to a Toybox feature is "Enable Santa Mode, " which will start Santa Mode.

Most Tesla owners take advantage of the Climate Control voice commands and the media commands while driving, but we also have our list of the top five voice commands, or you can choose to view all the available voice commands.

Will this be allowed while in drive?

No. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA), Tesla faced a software-based recall that Elon Musk blames the “fun police.” The NHSTA is unhappy that Tesla allowed drivers to play sounds like a fart noise on an external speaker. Federal officials said it’s a huge safety issue for pedestrians who might not interpret those “fun” sounds as a proper warning system or alert to pedestrians.

Tesla has since released a firmware update to disable the Boombox feature while driving. As of update 2022.8, you can no longer use Boombox while in drive if you're in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

When this feature is released, it’ll be a great addition to the Emissions Toybox feature and, most importantly, make owning a Tesla even more entertaining. Stay tuned for the new fart feature in an upcoming update.

Tesla Vehicles Spotted With LiDAR: What Do They Use It For?

July 13, 2024

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

Tesla recently hit the news for purchasing approximately $2M in LiDAR sensors from Luminar, one of Tesla’s long-term suppliers. You’ve probably seen photos of Tesla’s Semi and various Tesla models, including the Model 3 and Model Y sporting LIDAR equipment on the roof. These cars drive around with manufacturer plates scanning streets and highways.

However, many people confuse Tesla’s purpose in purchasing LiDAR equipment with using it for FSD versus testing. So, let’s look at what LiDAR is, and why Tesla uses it on its Fleet Validation Vehicles.

What is LiDAR?

LiDAR stands for Light Detecting and Ranging – essentially using lasers to measure distances. A laser pulse is sent out, and the time it takes to return is measured – providing extremely accurate distance measurements.

Some companies working on self-driving vehicles, including Waymo and BYD, use LiDAR as part of their self-driving suites, but Tesla is one of the few stand-outs that does not. Even Rimac’s “Verne” Robotaxi – which uses self-driving technology from Mobileye, also uses LiDAR.

While LiDAR can produce extremely accurate and high-quality 3D environments, it comes with its downsides as well. Not only is LiDAR costly and requires large gear strapped to a vehicle, but it also can not be used in bad weather and can have interference issues if there are other strong light sources present.

Why Does Tesla Use LiDAR?

A LiDAR rig mounted on a Tesla Semi for testing FSD.

Not a Tesla App

At Autonomy Day in 2019, Elon Musk mentioned that LiDAR isn’t the solution for self-driving cars – it's just a crutch. Thus, Tesla hasn’t used LiDAR for any production self-driving software.

Instead, Tesla uses it exactly how it's described – they use it to gather ground-truth data. This data is then used to feed Tesla’s Full Self Driving system – which helps validate its vision-only system's accuracy. LiDAR provides very accurate measurements to help ensure that FSD’s perception of space is accurate – and is only used by Tesla to ensure that its AI technology which is the brains of FSD is capable of accurately interpreting depth from just visual data.

Tesla’s vision-only system has been seen to be extremely accurate, with Vision-only Autopark being able to park in even narrower and tighter spaces faster than the previous version that relied on ultrasonic sensors.

We’ll likely continue to see Tesla purchase LiDAR systems, as well as use them for validation well into the future.

Tesla's Upcoming Robotaxi Event in August Delayed, According to Bloomberg

July 12, 2024

By Karan Singh

Sugar Design

In a report from Bloomberg, it is claimed that Tesla will be delaying its much-anticipated 8/8 Robotaxi event by two months to October 2024.

While sources other than Bloomberg haven't confirmed this report, Bloomberg has a positive track record of reporting on financial decisions. We’ll be sure to update the article if there is confirmation on X from Elon Musk or another Tesla senior official.

Tesla’s stock has dropped nearly 8.5% over the day, ending back-to-back gains over the last two weeks. It closed yesterday at $ 241 after hitting a peak of $270 earlier in the day before the news broke.

Why the Delay?

The delay – of approximately two months – has been communicated internally, but not publicly announced just yet. Bloomberg goes on to mention that the design team was told to rework certain elements of the Cybercab, necessitating the delay.

If Bloomberg’s report is correct, it sounds like Tesla’s unveil event will be largely focused on showing off the vehicle, instead of demoing how it will work. Of course, it could still be both, but given past events, Tesla has always shown off the vehicle years before it hits production.

Rimac recently showed off their version of robotaxi vehicle named Verne, and surprisingly, it could almost pass for Tesla’s own robotaxi. A lot of design cues in Rimac’s version are elements we have already seen or expect to see in Tesla’s autonomous taxi.

A recent Tesla patent revealed that Tesla is incorporating a sanitation system into their robotaxi that will be responsible for analyzing and cleaning the vehicle’s interior, although the delay itself is likely tied more to a physical feature rather than software.

Another element we know almost nothing about is how Tesla plans to charge these robotic taxis. Will they rely on the existing charge port and adapt a solution like the robotic charging arm (video below) we saw almost eight years ago, or will wireless charging or a dock finally become realized?

While the delay for Tesla’s event appears to be related to the vehicle’s design itself and not further development of FSD, Tesla is wasting no time in getting FSD working for the upcoming vehicle. Model 3 vehicles have already been spotted with camera locations that resemble a robotaxi.

Is the Delay Accurate?

We expect that this delay might actually be true – Elon Musk usually takes to X within hours of such news breaking if it's false to refute it and hasn’t done so yet.

Tesla has delayed several of their events in the past, and a delay of a couple of months seems plausible. We should hear from Musk himself soon on whether this report is accurate.