Elon Musk complains about farting noise feature being removed from Tesla cars

The tech billionaire has complained, hard, about a crackdown that will stop Tesla drivers from making farting sounds as they move.

Elon Musk has complained about a farting feature being removed from his Tesla cars after the US regulator stepped in.

Some of his Teslas have a ‘Boombox’ device which allows drivers to play any sounds they like to a pedestrian passing by, including music, or even a bleating goat or a fart noise.

Then in 2020, an update enabled Tesla drivers to replace the normal honking of a car horn with a custom sound of their choosing.

But last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that more the Boombox feature drowned out audible warnings for pedestrians, which breached safety standards in the US.

This prompted a recall of a whopping 578,600 cars.

Mr Musk was none too pleased and it didn’t take long for him to take a swipe at the government organisation.

“What was the rationale behind the Boombox recall?” a follower asked him on Twitter.

“The fun police made us do it (sigh),” Mr Musk responded.

The fun police made us do it (sigh)

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2022

Tesla has had a difficult few weeks after losing $141 million from its cryptocurrency investments and then being the centre of several other product recalls.

This is the fourth recall made public in two weeks, according to AFP.

Overall, it’s the eleventh recall in the last four months in what is shaping up to be a turbulent time for the multi-billion-dollar company.

Instead of car owners needing to return to a service station to have the issue resolved, Tesla plans to remotely update its software to fix the Boombox problem.

The update will disable the Boombox feature when the vehicle is in drive, reverse or neutral mode – so essentially the device won’t work while the car is active.

Elon Musk has bemoaned the increased regulations. Picture: Jim Watson / AFP)

NHTSA asked for information last month to see if the Boombox feature met safety requirements.

The recall is a voluntary decision from Tesla after weeks of correspondence with the regulator.

NHTSA has stepped up its scrutiny of Tesla in recent months, including launching an investigation after several crashes and requesting more information from the company.