Tesla Voice Commands: The Complete Reference

Last updated: July 2, 2026 · ~10 minute read

How to trigger voice commands

There's no wake word. You press a button, then talk:

• Model 3 / Model Y (and other wheel-button cars): press the right scroll wheel on the steering wheel, then speak.
• Model S / Model X / Cybertruck: press the voice button on the steering wheel/yoke, then speak.
• Any car: tap the microphone icon on the touchscreen.

Tesla's voice system is natural-language, not a fixed phrasebook — "I'm cold," "make it warmer," and "set temperature to 72" all work. The lists below are proven phrasings, but you don't need to memorize exact syntax. Two real constraints: the car needs connectivity (speech is processed in the cloud, so a dead zone or parking-garage basement kills voice control), and commands only work from the driver's seat context — this is in-car control, not remote control.

Climate commands

• "Set the temperature to 70"
• "Make it warmer" / "make it cooler" (adjusts in ~3°F steps)
• "Turn on the seat heater" / "turn on the driver's seat heater" / "set passenger seat heater to three"
• "Turn on the steering wheel heater"
• "Defrost the windshield" / "turn on max defrost"
• "Turn on recirculate" — useful on smoke or heavy-traffic days (see our cabin air guide)
• "Turn off the AC" / "turn on the fan" / "fan speed up"
• "Sync climate" (matches passenger zone to driver)

Navigation commands

• "Navigate to [address / business name]"
• "Take me home" / "navigate to work" (uses your saved Home/Work locations)
• "Where's the nearest Supercharger?" / "navigate to the nearest Supercharger"
• "Add a Supercharger stop" (mid-trip)
• "Find a coffee shop along the way"
• "Cancel navigation" / "mute navigation" / "stop navigating"
• "Show traffic" / "hide traffic"
• "Zoom in" / "zoom out" / "north up" / "heading up"

Media commands

• "Play [song / artist / album]" — optionally add the source: "… on Spotify"
• "Play [radio station]"
• "Next song" / "previous song" / "pause" / "resume"
• "Turn it up" / "turn it down" / "volume 7" / "mute"
• "I like this song" (favorites it on supported streaming sources)
• "Switch to Bluetooth" / "switch to radio"

Car-control commands

This is the category most owners underuse — nearly every touchscreen control has a voice equivalent, which beats digging through menus while driving:

• "Open the glovebox"
• "Open the charge port" / "close the charge port"
• "Open the trunk" / "open the frunk" (in Park)
• "Fold the mirrors" / "unfold the mirrors"
• "Turn on the windshield wipers" / "set wipers to auto" / "wiper speed up"
• "Turn on Sentry Mode" / "keep Tesla safe"
• "Turn on Dog Mode" / "turn on Camp Mode"
• "Open the tire pressure screen" / "show me the energy app"
• "Turn on child lock"
• "Adjust my mirrors" / "adjust the steering wheel" (opens the adjustment screen)
• "Start car wash mode"
• "Report a bug" — followed by whatever you want to say; attaches a note to your car's logs

Phone, text, and app commands

• "Call [contact name]" / "call mom"
• "Text [contact]: running ten minutes late" (requires the paired phone's permissions)
• "Read my last message" / "reply: on my way"
• "Open the calendar" (with the Tesla app's calendar sync on)
• "Open the dashcam viewer" / "open the rear camera"
• "Open Toybox" — the front door to the easter eggs

The fun ones

• "Ho ho ho" — Santa Mode on/off
• "Fart" / "make a fart" — Emissions Testing Mode, no Toybox required
• "Open butthole" — opens the charge port; Tesla shipped this on purpose
• "Play Caraoke" — straight into karaoke mode

Why voice commands fail (and fixes)

• No connectivity. The most common cause — speech recognition runs in the cloud. In a concrete garage or rural dead zone, wait for signal or use the touchscreen.
• Loud cabin. HVAC on high plus highway noise degrades recognition. The mic hears you fine at normal volume in normal conditions; shouting doesn't help.
• Command needs Park. Trunk, frunk, and some others refuse while driving by design.
• Feature not on your car. No pedestrian speaker → no Boombox commands; no premium connectivity can limit streaming sources mid-drive.
• After a software update, the voice system occasionally needs one reboot (hold both scroll wheels) to behave. Classic first-line fix.

Voice control when you're not in the car

Worth spelling out the split, because people conflate three different things:

• In-car voice commands (this page) — button-press, natural language, driver's seat only.
• The Tesla mobile app — remote control, but tap-driven: you navigate menus, not conversation.
• AI assistant control — remote and conversational. Our AI control guide covers the full setup; the short version is an MCP server like mytesla.io bridges Claude or ChatGPT to the Fleet API, and then "warm up the car and make sure it's charged to 80% by 7am" is a sentence, not a workflow. See 25 real use cases.

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