James May, the former “Top Gear” and “The Grand Tour” presenter, has criticized Tesla’s Grok-powered voice assistant as “insincere and phony” after testing it in a Model 3, according to a video he shared on his “James May’s Planet Gin” YouTube channel on Sunday.
In the test, May interacted with the AI voice assistant using its “Ara” personality, an upbeat female voice option. Tesla offers multiple personas for the Grok voice assistant, including Eve (soothing female), Leo (British male), Rex (calm male), and Sal (smooth male), allowing drivers to select their preferred voice characteristics.
During the interaction, May tested various features, including playing a children’s trivia game and sarcastically seeking extreme medical advice. He also asked the voice assistant to switch to a British accent. After these tests, May concluded that the voice assistant sounded unnatural and lacked genuine human qualities.
“It’s slightly odd; you don’t seem that human,” May said in the video. He attributed the voice’s shortcomings to the engineers and programmers at X, suggesting they were “socially inept” and that their idea of what a charming person sounds like resulted in an assistant that came across as “insincere and phony.”
Tesla began rolling out Grok AI voice integration across its vehicle lineup in early 2026. The company introduced the feature with its Spring Update in April 2026, which allowed owners to activate the assistant hands-free by saying “Hey Grok.” The integration expanded further with Tesla’s Summer Update in July 2026, enabling Grok to control vehicle hardware by voice, make phone calls, play music, and adjust climate settings through natural conversation.
May’s critique touches on a broader challenge in AI voice technology: the uncanny valley phenomenon. As synthetic speech becomes increasingly sophisticated, listeners often find near-human voices unsettling rather than comforting, according to research on speech synthesis and artificial voices. The closer AI voices approach human naturalness without fully achieving it, the more they can trigger discomfort in listeners, a dynamic that appears to underpin May’s reaction to Grok’s personas.
Tesla’s integration of Grok into its vehicles represents a significant expansion of the AI assistant’s reach beyond its original platform on X, where the chatbot was developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI. The voice assistant is now a core feature of the driving experience for Tesla owners, making May’s assessment potentially relevant to the broader user experience as the feature continues to roll out globally.
Sources
- Yahoo Finance / Benzinga — James May’s test of Tesla’s Grok voice assistant in a Model 3, his specific criticisms of the voice as “insincere and phony,” the multiple persona options (Ara, Eve, Leo, Rex, Sal), and his comments about engineers being “socially inept”
- TechTimes — Tesla’s Summer Update 2026 expansion of Grok capabilities to control vehicle hardware, make calls, and play music
- Electrek — Tesla’s Spring Update 2026 introduction of “Hey Grok” hands-free activation and voice assistant features
- Sesame Blog — Research on the uncanny valley of conversational voice and challenges with near-human synthetic speech
