Car could not call 911

[_Redshift_]

Today evening, as I was driving back from a restaurant, I saw a guy in an old van run two red lights. No license plates. No rear window, a plastic sheet instead. Guy looked angry and was driving very fast and erratically.

I hit the voice command and said “call 911”. Car showed it understood, but ‘could not complete the call’.

WTF, man?

edit : I did pull over and reported it.

 

[RayK]

I too had this happen a few days ago while driving back from Oregon. My guess is that you need to have Nine One One as one of the entries in your phone's address book. Just a thought: maybe try saying "dial nine one one"?

 

[jjrandorin]

WTF, man?

Since the car uses your cellphone to call (anyone) at least as far as I know, this would be due to not having signal or bluetooth of your phone not being connected at that time to your car. Since you have two teslas, you likely considered that, though.

 

[_Redshift_]

With the helpful (cough) V11 not showing any connectivity, I wouldn’t know, what the issue was.

I’ll try ‘dial’ 911 the next time, but it might be a while (hopefully) before I’ll need to do that. Seriously, though,the people (I mean, d-bag engineers) who find the time to put in ‘open butthole’ should do a better job of it and recognize the command as is. It could be a life threatening emergency, and seconds might matter.

 

[jacapuano]

@_Redshift_ I noticed that both your Teslas have extensive noise insulation added. Do you have any specific product recommendations
to reduce noise in the Model 3 ? How effective have the modifications been in your opinion ?

 

[_Redshift_]

Noise insulation along with the right tires (Pirelli Cinturato) have made my Model 3 noticeably more quiet than my air suspension Model S. ( Air suspensions are generally quieter )

You need to put in significant elbow grease and obtain extra doses of bravery taking apart your car, breaking a few clips, etc. and invest in a lot of time and effort. Add 3 layers every where (closed cell foam, aluminum backed bitumen sheets, aka Dynamat).

Refer to the YT videos for how. I have done the front fenders, floor of the car inside, all wheel wells, truck floor, lid, doors (door panels additionally stuffed with light weight foam).

Overall weight increase : about 90 pounds. It’s well worth it, though. IMHO, of course.

Product I used was called Noico. Look it up on Amazon.

 

[EVRider-FL]

With the helpful (cough) V11 not showing any connectivity, I wouldn’t know, what the issue was.

I’ll try ‘dial’ 911 the next time, but it might be a while (hopefully) before I’ll need to do that. Seriously, though,the people (I mean, d-bag engineers) who find the time to put in ‘open butthole’ should do a better job of it and recognize the command as is. It could be a life threatening emergency, and seconds might matter.

You’re blaming Tesla for the failed call, but you don’t know if you had cell coverage.

 

[_Redshift_]

You’re blaming Tesla for the failed call, but you don’t know if you had cell coverage.

I was near my home. Where I know I have good coverage. Moreover, I pulled over and called, which worked fine. Read my post again.

 

[RayK]

I too had this happen a few days ago while driving back from Oregon. My guess is that you need to have Nine One One as one of the entries in your phone's address book. Just a thought: maybe try saying "dial nine one one"?

Okay. Just tried this out with my phone and car. TL;DR is you need to store 911 as an entry in your phone's contact list.

Long version: Tried voice command for both "dial" and "call" and it didn't work; same "cannot complete the call" response. For obvious reasons I did not say "nine one one" but used "nine zero zero" instead. In playing around with the voice commands it appears that the car will recognize a "phone number" for the dial and call voice commands as long as you say four numbers or more.

You can store the 911 phone number and call it whatever you want: Emergency, 911, etc.

I store the contacts in my phone using my Google email so each time I created a contact I had to turn off bluetooth and then back on in order for the car to re-read my contacts.

 

[_Redshift_]

Okay. Just tried this out with my phone and car. TL;DR is you need to store 911 as an entry in your phone's contact list.

Long version: Tried voice command for both "dial" and "call" and it didn't work; same "cannot complete the call" response. For obvious reasons I did not say "nine one one" but used "nine zero zero" instead. In playing around with the voice commands it appears that the car will recognize a "phone number" for the dial and call voice commands as long as you say four numbers or more.

You can store the 911 phone number and call it whatever you want: Emergency, 911, etc.

I store the contacts in my phone using my Google email so each time I created a contact I had to turn off bluetooth and then back on in order for the car to re-read my contacts.

This is useful info, but shows the limitation of current voice commands feature. We should report this to Tesla, so they can hopefully make a fix for this. I am pretty sure 99% of Tesla owners don’t know they need to do this.

 

[RayK]

This is useful info, but shows the limitation of current voice commands feature. We should report this to Tesla, so they can hopefully make a fix for this. I am pretty sure 99% of Tesla owners don’t know they need to do this.

Tweeted Elon so we'll see what happens.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1483213581122355200

I did find that Tesla is supposed to be looking into allowing the car to dial emergency services if the car has cellular connection but the owner's phone does not:

Tesla hints at Emergency Call feature with 911 support

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has hinted that a new Emergency Call feature with 911 support will be added to the company’s vehicles. A Tesla Model 3 owner named Richard was in need of emergency services, but because his cell phone didn’t have any service, he could not get into contact with 911...

www.teslarati.com

 

[jacapuano]

Noise insulation along with the right tires (Pirelli Cinturato) have made my Model 3 noticeably more quiet than my air suspension Model S. ( Air suspensions are generally quieter )

You need to put in significant elbow grease and obtain extra doses of bravery taking apart your car, breaking a few clips, etc. and invest in a lot of time and effort. Add 3 layers every where (closed cell foam, aluminum backed bitumen sheets, aka Dynamat).

Refer to the YT videos for how. I have done the front fenders, floor of the car inside, all wheel wells, truck floor, lid, doors (door panels additionally stuffed with light weight foam).

Overall weight increase : about 90 pounds. It’s well worth it, though. IMHO, of course.

Product I used was called Noico. Look it up on Amazon.

Thank you !

 

[RayK]

This is what prompted me to try calling 911 while driving southbound on US101 near Clam Beach (south of Arcata):

Seems like a car spun out and hit a power pole, which dropped a live wire on the median, where a little fire started. The driver of the car was standing outside his car and he seemed to be okay. I called it into 911 where the operator told me they were already working the event. It took me an extra minute to figure out that the voice command to call 9-1-1 was not going to work so I had to manually dial the number on my phone.

 

[BigNick]

Assuming it's because of "not enough digits to be recognized as a phone number", unlike "Call 555-1212".

So I would assume 999 in the UK, and 112 in other EU countries would also be broken?

 

[thimel]

Okay. Just tried this out with my phone and car. TL;DR is you need to store 911 as an entry in your phone's contact list.

Long version: Tried voice command for both "dial" and "call" and it didn't work; same "cannot complete the call" response. For obvious reasons I did not say "nine one one" but used "nine zero zero" instead. In playing around with the voice commands it appears that the car will recognize a "phone number" for the dial and call voice commands as long as you say four numbers or more.

You can store the 911 phone number and call it whatever you want: Emergency, 911, etc.

I store the contacts in my phone using my Google email so each time I created a contact I had to turn off bluetooth and then back on in order for the car to re-read my contacts.

Thanks for doing this testing. Could you please tell us exactly what you used for the phone book entry. E.g. did you put “911” in for the last name or “nine one one” or what? In addition to that I assume you simply put 911 in for the phone number.

 

[RayK]

Thanks for doing this testing. Could you please tell us exactly what you used for the phone book entry. E.g. did you put “911” in for the last name or “nine one one” or what? In addition to that I assume you simply put 911 in for the phone number.

Yes, entry on my phone's contact list is: 911 (all digits) and not "Nine One One". Number stored is also 911. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and the entries are being stored linked to my Google email.

 

[_Redshift_]

This is what prompted me to try calling 911 while driving southbound on US101 near Clam Beach (south of Arcata):

View attachment 756908

Seems like a car spun out and hit a power pole, which dropped a live wire on the median, where a little fire started. The driver of the car was standing outside his car and he seemed to be okay. I called it into 911 where the operator told me they were already working the event. It took me an extra minute to figure out that the voice command to call 9-1-1 was not going to work so I had to manually dial the number on my phone.

Thank you for your hard work in finding this bug in Tesla’s software.

Hope your tweet gets the attention it deserves, from Tesla.

 

[TFSMotorsport]

So you guys dont have the SOS button in the roof?

 

[RayK]

So you guys dont have the SOS button in the roof?

Correct. As far as I know, none of the US/NA Model 3s have an SOS button which contacts a service like OnStar or eCall.

 

[TFSMotorsport]

Ah, ours just calls emergency services (UK)