Page 12 - IAV Digital Magazine #541

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
By Mack DeGeurin
U.S. federal high- way regulators have decided they will no longer let speeding Teslas blast booming fart nois- es at people. Gaze upon the government work- ing as intended.
Specifically,
the recall con- cerns Tesla’s “boombox” fea- ture which lets drivers play pre- recorded audio through the front speaker in place of its horn. First introduced back in a 2020 update, the feature report- edly allows users to pick through pre-recorded song clips as well as sounds of an assortment of other sounds like goats bleating and, yes, farts discharging.
A brief reminder here that Tesla, the fart car com- pany, attained a $1 trillion valua- tion late last year.
Anyways,
the problem—as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration saw it—was that these boombox sounds could potentially drown out pedestrian warning
sounds required in Teslas and other electric vehicles if used
while
the vehicle was in motion.
“While Boombox can enhance the conspicuity of the vehicle to pedes- trians, a vehicle that uses Boombox when in motion may cause the PWS [pedestrian warn- ing system] to be noncompliant with
FMVSS
141 [vehicle sounds require- ments], which could increase the risk of a colli- sion.” the NHTSA wrote in a
recall filing.
Thankfully, Tesla wasn’t aware of any crashes, injuries, or deaths, resulting
from
the boombox sound, farts or otherwise. The recall applied to 578,607 Teslas and can be fixed via an over-the-air update. Tesla won’t remove the feature entirely but will disable it when vehicles are in drive,
neutral, or
reverse according to the NHTSA. So, don’t worry Tesla owners, you can still park your car on the side of a road and fart at pedestrians if that’s your thing.
Tesla has had its fair share of recalls in the past few months, some with far more serious implications than some rogue high- way farts. Last week, Tesla was forced
to recall 53,822 of its vehicles equipped with Full Self Driving over concerns its new driving profiles were causing some vehicles to roll through stop intersections. Prior to that, Tesla had
to recall 475,000 vehicles over
its potentially dan- gerous camera and front trunk issues. Meanwhile back in November
a glitch in FSD causing some vehicles to unex- pectedly slam on the brakes result- ed in a recall of 11,704 vehicles.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Fart Horn Recall Affects Half a Million Teslas