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Tesla Model 3 spotted with “pedestrian noise maker” ahead of NHTSA mandate
It looks like Tesla may have already begun getting its newer manufactured vehicles ready for compliance with an upcoming National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requirement for electric and hybrid electric vehicles to make noise when traveling at slow speeds. In a video posted by Tesla community’s resident DIY expert, Erik, or otherwise known as DÆrik from his YouTube channel, the undercarriage panel of his Performance Model 3 has what appears to be a speaker grill – the front paneling is adorned with a series of holes in a hexagonal shape. Once the paneling is removed, three mounting points are revealed to be molded into the same area, hinting at a future device to come.
The video was made in response to inquiries about a photo of the Tesla’s undercarriage posted to Erik’s Instagram account where someone noted the series of holes in the plastic panel below the front bumper. Tesla’s parts catalog doesn’t currently show the grill cutout, but As Erik notes in the video, he found a Model S diagram three years ago showing a layout including a future noise maker labeled “Speaker Pedestrian Noise”.
We’ve reached out to Tesla for comment about the new “speaker grill” found in the underside of the Model 3 and will provide updates as we receive them.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsYwz0ygTB5/
Blind pedestrians rely heavily on auditory clues to anticipate traffic patterns and know a vehicle is near, and that means the quiet nature of electric and hybrid vehicles at low speeds may pose a greater danger to them than traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Bicyclists and other pedestrians also utilize usual car sounds as part of their personal safety awareness, so there’s a population of travelers that could be significantly impacted by the influx of EV/HEV vehicles on the roads. The potential danger has not gone unnoticed by those in charge of public safety.
This concern was elevated to the federal level by the NHTSA, and the eventual result was a 2010 law (Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010) requiring electric and hybrid vehicle manufacturers to install devices which emit noise while traveling slower than about 19 mph. Higher speeds have tire and wind noise that’s sufficient for pedestrian needs. The implementation rules were finalized in February last year, and manufacturers have until September 1, 2020, to be fully compliant, with half of the vehicles equipped by September 1, 2019.
While the proposal may not be popular with all parties involved, the NHTSA points to its October 2009 report entitled “Research on Quieter Cars and the Safety of Blind Pedestrians, a Report to Congress” as a primary basis for its rulemaking. In the report, the agency found an increased rate of accidents involving pedestrians with hybrid-electric vehicles compared to ICE vehicles in roadways and zones with low-speed limits, during the type of weather or any time of day. By implementing the rules as passed, the NHTSA expects to prevent 2,400 injuries and reduce the $250-$320 million costs which result annually due to limited ability to detect quiet EVs/HEVs.
POPULAR: DIY Tesla Model S Pedestrian Alert: “Horn” for the Oblivious
Another coming requirement is that the noise emitted must be identifiable as a vehicle, a limitation that will likely only inspire creativity. If manufacturers want to take a fun route with the noise options, i.e, license the Jetson family’s flying car sound from Hanna Barbara as suggested by Erik, they’ll have to make sure it’s consistent among their vehicles – or at least consistent among package options. Also, drivers cannot be allowed to modify the sound themselves.
Manufacturers are free to modify the sounds from the factory end, though, an option Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has previously capitalized on for other noise-centric features in the electric car company’s vehicles. However, letting drivers determine their car’s noise via app or button push is still in the air. The NHTSA will publish a separate document at a later date to determine whether driver-selectable sounds are a good idea, or at least compliant with the purpose of the law.
Watch the video below to see Erik’s Model 3 inspection:
Tesla has expanded its Robotaxi program in Florida to include two new cities: Tampa and Orlando.
This marks the second and third cities to be added to the company’s available locations for autonomous ride-hailing in the Sunshine State, joining Miami, which was the first Florida city to offer Robotaxi rides.
Tesla announced the addition of Orlando and Tampa to the Robotaxi program on Tuesday morning. The cities now join Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, and the San Francisco Bay Area as locations where Tesla can operate its Robotaxi platform:
Robotaxi now in Tampa & Orlando! pic.twitter.com/fYtmXgJq3O
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) July 21, 2026
These rides are unsupervised, as AI Head Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the suite in Florida is operating without safety drivers or anyone within the cabin to assist with operation.
Orlando Tesla Robotaxi Operation
The geofence in Orlando covers a prominent irregular shaded zone on the map, roughly 4-6 miles across in key dimensions, so it likely measures somewhere between 25 and 45 square miles, which is comparable to other early Tesla launches in other cities.
It encompasses central and southern areas bounded by major highways including SR-417 and SR-528, including parts of the Orlando metro core, tourism-adjacent zones, and residential/commercial districts. This represents an initial targeted rollout in a tourist-heavy region, positioned for quick expansion via Tesla’s software updates.
Tampa Tesla Robotaxi Operation
In Tampa, the shape of the geofence is a shaded polygon covering key neighborhoods, explicitly including West Tampa, Tampa Heights, Hyde Park, and downtown Tampa proper, with boundaries along major roads and the Hillsborough River area.
This focuses on high-demand central zones and will offer tourists and citygoers rides without drivers.
Robotaxi Progress
Tesla has been operating Robotaxi since last June, when it launched in Austin. The geofences in most regions have already expanded several times since their launch last year, but the bigger complaint is vehicle availability. Tesla has been working to add more Robotaxi-enabled vehicles to its fleet.
The company still plans to utilize its Cybercab, a new vehicle that is being produced at Gigafactory Texas, for the Robotaxi suite alongside the Model Y, which has been the vehicle of choice for Tesla with early operations.
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Tesla’s AI Chief just hinted at something big for FSD v14 lite owners
Tesla’s AI chief suggests the newest FSD v14 Lite build may finally go wide release.
Tesla’s head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, noted on Sunday that the newest FSD v14 Lite build rolling out to Hardware 3 cars is likely the version that goes to wide release, the strongest signal yet that Tesla is near to closing out an early access phase that Hardware 3 owners have waited more than a year for.
Elluswamy made the comment in response to an extensive review from Tesla owner Zack, known on X as @BLKMDL3, who tested software version 2026.20.6.10 and detailed the changes in a lengthy post. “FSD v14 Lite (for Tesla AI3 hardware vehicles) review.
The update restarts a rollout that had stalled after its initial release. Tesla began pushing FSD v14 Lite to Hardware 3 early access drivers on June 29, bringing driving behavior learned on the newer Hardware 4 computer down to the more limited chip that has powered Tesla vehicles built between 2019 and early 2023. That release, as we covered in detail, gave roughly 4 million HW3 vehicles their first meaningful update since being frozen on version 12.6 in early 2025.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features
The latest build adds features that bring Hardware 3 closer in line with what Hardware 4 owners already have. FSD can now start directly from park without a brake pedal confirmation, a change Zack called a small but meaningful quality of life improvement. The interface also picks up the blue “P” park icon, approaching destination alerts, and a dedicated Self-Driving app with streak tracking, all details previously exclusive to the AI4 branch of v14, as outlined in Tesla’s original release notes.
The stakes around Hardware 3 go beyond software polish. Tesla sold the Full Self-Driving package for years on the promise that every vehicle equipped with it had the hardware needed to eventually drive itself without supervision. That promise broke down during Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call, when Musk acknowledged HW3 cars could not run unsupervised FSD, prompting Tesla to offer trade-in discounts and hardware retrofits alongside the Lite software track.
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla has continued to frame v14 Lite as the primary path forward for the HW3 fleet, telling owners in April that international markets would follow the U.S. rollout once regulatory approvals came through. For now, HW3 owners in the early access group are the only ones running the new build. A broader rollout would mark the second major software delivery to the legacy fleet since Tesla first released FSD v14 to Hardware 4 vehicles, and the first sign since June that the Lite program is still moving rather than stuck in early access limbo.
In a pointed message on X, Elon Musk warned that firms maintaining significant short positions in SpaceX over time face “very low” survival probability.
The statement comes amid post-IPO volatility for the rocket company, now trading under the ticker $SPCX.
The survival probability of firms who maintain a significant short position in SpaceX over time is very low
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2026
Five weeks after what was described as the largest IPO in history, the stock had fallen roughly 30% from its peak above $2.6 trillion, briefly surpassing Microsoft and Amazon in market value. Short sellers celebrated gains of about $8.7 billion, but Musk’s reply underscores his long-term conviction.
The warning directly echoes a detailed bullish analysis arguing that Starship’s cost reductions could unlock a multi-trillion-dollar space economy. Projects ranging from solar power beamed from orbit and asteroid mining to orbital data centers and Mars terraforming were projected to create over $100 trillion in new market capitalization.
In this vision, SpaceX acts as the essential infrastructure provider, akin to AWS for cloud computing, capturing monopoly-like revenues from launches, crew transport, and data traffic across a rapidly expanding frontier.
This is far from the first time Musk has targeted short sellers. With Tesla, he has repeatedly framed persistent bears as destined for major losses. In July 2024, Musk declared that once Tesla achieves full autonomy and volume production of Optimus robots, “anyone still holding a short position will be obliterated. Even Gates,” referencing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ reported short bets.
Elon Musk reveals what Tesla stock surge could do to Bill Gates
Earlier, in 2018, he taunted shorts that they had “about three weeks before their short position explodes,” a remark followed by sharp stock gains. Musk has also called short selling “value destroying” and once suggested it “should be illegal,” viewing it as betting against innovation and progress.
Critics often dismiss Musk’s optimism as hype, especially when near-term metrics like quarterly deliveries or stock fluctuations disappoint.
Yet his pattern remains consistent: framing short positions against his companies as fundamentally misjudging exponential technological leaps. For SpaceX shorts, the message is clear: betting against multi-planetary ambitions and the infrastructure monopoly they enable carries existential risk for the firms involved.
As Musk and supporters see it, the space economy’s upside dwarfs Earth-bound valuation models, making today’s dips temporary in a decades-long ascent.
Tesla Robotaxi program expands in Florida to two new cities
Tesla’s AI Chief just hinted at something big for FSD v14 lite owners
