In the USA, all electric cars built since September 2019 and in the EU all electric cars approved as new types from July 2019 must be equipped with a system that is a low-speed vehicle acoustic warning for other road users outputs. US Teslas are therefore already equipped with such an Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System (AVAS). However, there are no precise guidelines for the design of the warning – and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has now announced that the electric cars from his house could soon warn with voices instead of noises.
And, of course, your car will be able to 💨 in their general direction
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 12, 2020
“Teslas will talk to people soon if you want. That’s real, ”Musk wrote on Twitter and published a short video of a red Model 3 with two occupants that is slowly moving forward. A voice can be heard, which is reminiscent of the Star Wars character Yoda, but whose content cannot be understood. At first, Musk did not provide any information about the background of the video. The Model 3 shown is probably equipped with a non-public software update that makes the AVAS signals selectable.
Update: One of our readers understood the Tesla text: The voice says in English “Don’t stand around and look – jump in. Have you practiced this movement for a long time? “
Tesla’s cars would “naturally” also be able to sound gut winds roughly in the direction of other road users, the Tesla CEO added. At the moment, his electric car models for the USA are still relatively conventional in this regard: when driving backwards, they emit an oscillating tone that sounds like a futuristic spaceship, forward noise like an airplane overflight.
As early as October 2019, Musk said that Tesla would soon, too more individual pedestrian warning signals possible his. The Monty Python fan specifically mentioned the sound of beating coconut shells, as can be seen in a film by the British comedian group as a simulation of a horse’s hoof rattle. All of this should be part of Tesla’s endeavors to give owners of its electric cars little moments of joy time and again, like Tesla’s Automotive President Jerome Guillen in June 2019,
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