One of the most annoying features of any voice assistant is when it falsely identifies a wake word and turns itself on. The leading voice assistants from Google, Amazon, and Apple are in general much better at filtering out these false triggers than they used to be, but the same cannot be said about certain carmakers’ systems. Tesla gets around the issue of false triggers by only waking the voice assistant when a button is pressed, either on the steering wheel or the touchscreen, depending on the model.
Tesla’s assistant can also recommend things like nearby gas stations, restaurants, or even museums, which can then be selected as navigation destinations. Rather than harnessing the power of an AI chatbot like ChatGPT, Tesla integrates a Google search function, where drivers can request a search term and results will pop up in the car’s web browser. Being Tesla, there are also some hidden Easter egg voice commands for drivers to discover, but we won’t spoil those here.