The new 6-seater Model Y L, recently launched in China, is debuting with more than just some extra seating space and fancy new captain’s chairs. It is also going to be the vehicle that adds an interesting new feature - “Hey, Tesla.”
‘Hey, Tesla’ is the wake word Tesla will use, at least in China, to launch its AI voice assistant that’s been available in China. While the assistant isn’t based on Grok, it’s still an AI-based assistant, and the feature will likely carry over to other regions.
What’s even more interesting is that Tesla will be able to intelligently identify which passenger activated the assistant, which will help it create custom responses for passengers and continue conversations.
Adding a wake word for Tesla’s in-vehicle assistant will be a big addition to the already very capable Grok that was launched in update 2025.26.
Directional Listening
The headline feature of the new system is its spatial awareness. The “Hey, Tesla” wake word works from any of the Model Y L’s six seats, allowing anyone in the car to activate the assistant. However, the real magic is that the system can be configured to only respond to commands from pre-selected seats.
This is a game-changer for a family vehicle. It means kids in the back can’t interrupt the driver’s navigation commands with requests to play a new song, and passengers won’t accidentally trigger a function when simply talking to someone else in the vehicle. It gives the driver precise control over who can talk to the assistant, a sort of parental control feature to prevent kids from activating the AI assistant.
New Features?
There’s a lot Tesla can do when it knows who activated the AI assistant. Grok already has a “Kids Mode,” which means that Tesla could potentially set specific seats to “Kids Mode” so that when it’s activated from that seat, it’ll automatically be kid-friendly.
However, there’s more Tesla could do. By knowing which seat activated the assistant, the AI assistant can know whether to continue the conversation with the user, or whether another passenger is chiming in. It could potentially become a multi-user version of Grok, where it remembers who said what and which user has already contributed to the conversation.
More Mics
While Tesla hasn’t detailed exactly how this is working - whether it’s through per-seat microphones or spatial audio awareness - we suspect it’s achieved using a larger array of in-cabin microphones. By analyzing the time delays and volume differences of a voice reaching each microphone, Tesla can triangulate the passenger’s position (using a technique known as beamforming) and ignore commands from unauthorized seats.
New Controls
To manage all this new functionality, Tesla is adding a new Voice Recognition menu to vehicle controls. Within this menu, you can select which seats can activate the voice assistant and whether it should continue listening even after the wake word.
The continue listening toggle will allow you to continue conversations without using the wake word, much like you can do with Grok today.
This is a big change from the current push-to-talk model, which requires pressing the scroll wheel or steering wheel button. With the wake word, the assistant will always be listening, similar to how smart speakers work at home.
Chinese Exclusive (For Now)
It is important to note that this is exclusive to the new model Y L in the Chinese market, and uses the China-specific Tesla Smart Assistant, and not Grok.
We expect this feature to eventually make its way to other markets, as Musk has already said that Grok will respond to a wake word in the future. The question on everyone’s mind after spotting this feature in the Model Y L is which vehicles will be capable of the new capability. If it requires additional microphones, it could be limited to newer vehicles. The new Model 3 and new Y, in addition to the 2021+ Model S and X, and the Cybertruck, all have additional microphones when compared to previous models, so it’s not clear whether that will be a requirement. If it is, hopefully Tesla still adds the wake word, but potentially loses the per-seat activation on older vehicles.
Tesla’s next major update will be 2025.32, which employees are already testing. However, Tesla may need additional time to adapt this feature to work for Grok and other regions if it was developed by the software team located in China.
