Tesla is making significant strides toward launching its long-awaited voice assistant, with vehicles now capable of responding to a simple greeting.
According to Not a Tesla App, drivers can now press the Voice Command button and say “Hello” or “Hi,” prompting the vehicle to reply with a friendly “Hello!”
This marks a notable departure from previous interactions, where the car would typically respond with “command not understood.”
The update appears to be server-side, meaning users don’t need the latest holiday update to experience this new interaction.
This suggests Tesla is actively developing its voice assistant feature, which has been a top request from the Tesla community.
The company currently handles speech interpretation through its own servers, with potential plans to integrate its xAI language model Grok into vehicle systems.
Elon Musk has previously hinted at the integration of Grok, liking a post last November that suggested a smaller version of the chatbot could run natively on Tesla vehicles with updated hardware.
This development follows earlier groundwork by code researcher greentheonly, who discovered a “wake word” activation setting in Tesla’s internal source code in May.
This feature would be similar to other voice assistants like Alexa, allowing users to activate commands hands-free instead of pressing a button.
The potential voice assistant was also teased during Tesla’s Cybertruck unveiling event on October 10, with the company showing continued improvements in understanding voice requests over the past year.
While the exact launch date remains uncertain, the new greeting response indicates that the voice assistant is actively in development and moving closer to becoming a reality for Tesla owners.
As Tesla continues to refine this technology, drivers and tech enthusiasts alike are watching closely to see how the company will implement its AI-powered voice assistant across its vehicle lineup.