Tesla expands Green Traffic Light Chime – cutting down on road rage

Tesla is bringing its Green Light Chime feature, which previously was only for people with the Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta to most of its cars, helping cut down on road rage at traffic lights.

When Tesla started to bring traffic light controls to its vehicles equipped with its Full Self-Driving (FSD) Capability package, the automaker introduced a feature that would recognize when a traffic light turns green and emit a chime to let the driver know.

With the new software update 2022.20, Tesla has expanded the feature to all cars with Autopilot when “Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control” is activated:

A chime will play when the traffic light you are waiting for turns green. If you are waiting behind another car, the chime will play once the car advances unless Traffic-Aware Cruise Control or Autosteer is active. When Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control is activated, a chime will play when you can confirm to proceed through a green traffic light.

While the feature was expanded, it sounds like it would only work with vehicles with the hardware 3.0 computer – also known as the self-driving computer – but it doesn’t sound like drivers need to purchase the expensive self-driving package to activate the feature.

Tesla writes about how to activate the feature:

To enable, tap Controls > Autopilot > Green Traffic Light Chime.

In the release notes, the automaker notes that the chime is “only designed as a notification,” and it is still “the driver’s responsibility to observe their environment and make decisions accordingly.”

Electrek’s Take

I had this feature for a while now, and I find it useful. When I’m arguing with my girlfriend at a red light, sometimes I don’t see when it turn green, and the chime proves useful.

Hopefully, it can help reduce some road raging because some people are quick to get upset when people don’t accelerate right away when it turns green.

The next step would be to have a green light count down – something Audi has it in some of its newest vehicles. I experienced it in the e-tron in Sacramento, and it is pretty cool. It only works in cities where their traffic light system supports the integration, but there is a growing number of those cities. When stopping at a red light, a countdown appears on the instrument cluster telling you when the light is going to turn green.

Maybe Tesla could add that in a future software update.