boom box
Goat and fart noises as a safety risk: Tesla has to recall more than 500,000 cars
The Tesla Model X should do without sound gimmicks in the future
© David Zalubowski/AP/DPA
Tesla has to update cars again: This time it’s about the boombox feature that allows users to play music and sounds. The traffic safety authority has little understanding for the fun.
Tesla is known for its electric vehicles, but the cars also have some gimmicks. This includes, for example, the boom box: The feature makes it possible to play sound through the external speakers – such as music, but also goat bleating or farting noises. The US traffic safety agency NHTSA is now putting an end to this. Due to security concerns, Tesla is said to be removing the boombox feature.
The external loudspeakers attached to the car are actually intended to warn pedestrians of possible collisions with a warning noise and thus prevent accidents. This function is mandatory for all electric cars and hybrid vehicles. Additional sound played by car users could make the warning tone harder to hear, the NHTSA warns. Tesla therefore has to recall almost 580,000 cars and expand the feature again with a software update, reports the Reuters news agency. After that, the boombox should only be available in park mode.
Tesla has to update models regularly
Specifically, it is about the S, X and Y models from 2020 and Model 3 vehicles from 2017. Tesla boss Elon Musk is very dissatisfied with the measure: “The fun police forced us to do it,” he complained Twitter and apparently meant the traffic safety authority. According to Tesla, there are no known cases in which the boombox function, which was introduced in late 2020, has resulted in accidents or injuries. Electric vehicles in the US are required to play a warning tone when driving slower than 30 kilometers per hour. This is because they do not produce the usual engine noise at this speed and are therefore more difficult to perceive acoustically for pedestrians.
In the US, Tesla has had to recall 10 cars in the past four months, four of them in the past two weeks. Mostly it was about software problems. Just a week ago, Tesla pledged to fix seat belt alarm issues in more than 800,000 cars in the United States. Shortly before, the manufacturer had agreed to deactivate a function of its “Full Self-Driving” driver assistance software in almost 54,000 cars in the USA, which, under certain conditions, could be used to pass stop signs without a full stop.
Sources: Reuters / NHTSA / Elon Musk on Twitter / DPA