Tesla is known for consistently improving the user experience in its vehicles, whether through performance upgrades or software enhancements. One of the latest changes is a subtle yet noticeable update to Tesla’s navigation voice, but as of now, it is not available to all owners.
According to reports on social media shared by Not A Tesla App, the navigation voice is available in recently delivered Tesla models. The new voice features a noticeably faster pace and fewer pauses, giving it a more natural sound, with some users comparing it to Apple’s voice assistant, Siri.
Here are a couple of videos of the new navigation voice.
Looks like my Model S has the new nav voice which sounds much more human-like than the previous voice. If you don’t know what I’m talking about check out the link & video https://t.co/xii8oHGEM5@tesla @tesla_na @notateslaapp pic.twitter.com/bvTWi35oGY
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 18, 2024
Listen closely.
— Winston (@TESLA_winston) August 2, 2024
New navigation voice? pic.twitter.com/Co1EvgvMWs
Who Gets the New Navigation Voice
We don’t have a definitive answer for this, but it is available by default on newly delivered Tesla vehicles. We were able to find a post on social media as far back as August 2, 2024 from a new Model 3 Performance owner (the second video above) with the new voice. Based on this, the new voice has been around for several months, but likely wasn’t noticed by many because most have the voice muted for their daily drives.
However, there’s good news for owners of older Teslas, as the new voice can be activated on these vehicles, but it requires a reset process that we don’t recommend everyone try.
How to Get the New Navigation
If you drive an older Tesla and want to experience the new and improved navigation voice, it is possible to do so by performing a factory reset of your vehicle. While this process is relatively straightforward, it has some implications because as the name implies, it will reset your car to factory settings, wiping out all settings and data not saved in your cloud profile, like your trip history.
With that in mind, to complete the reset go to Controls > Service > Factory Reset from inside your Tesla. As a reminder, this will restore all vehicle settings to their factory defaults.
This method has been tested and confirmed by Model Y owner @brandonee916, who reported that resetting successfully activated the new navigation voice.
Can confirm… I now have the new nav voice. It sounds like Siri. pic.twitter.com/XvvczWuvE0
— Brandon ☮️⚡️ (@brandonee916) October 18, 2024
Of course we only recommend doing this factory reset if you really, really want the new navigation voice. For most people it is not a big deal as we have found the majority of owners have their navigation voice muted for their daily drives, and only turn it on when driving in an area they’re unfamiliar with.
There is also a good chance that Tesla will activate this new voice for all Teslas in the future, as it is clearly just sitting in the background waiting for its time to shine.
