NHTSA Closes Tesla's Actually Smart Summon Probe After No Injuries

The NHTSA closed its investigation after finding crashes were rare and not severe.

“Elon Musk-run Tesla is off the hook for at least one federal investigation of its self-driving cars after a 15-month probe of a feature that allows owners to remotely drive their cars short distances was closed, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Monday”

New York Post

The probe covered roughly 2.6 million vehicles and reviewed about 100 incidents with no injuries or fatalities.

New York Post

Most incidents involved collisions with fixed objects, often due to obstructed cameras or limited visibility.

The NHTSA reserves the right to reopen the probe if warranted.

Tesla pushed software updates to improve obstacle detection.

Actually Smart Summon uses a vision-based system powered by vehicle cameras.

This differs from the original Smart Summon which relied on ultrasonic sensors.

NewsBytes

The feature is designed to navigate around obstacles in parking lots.

Videos of Teslas awkwardly navigating went viral soon after release.

Either the person or the system failed to fully detect surroundings.

“Tesla has officially cleared one of its many regulatory hurdles as the U”

Not a Tesla App

Some incidents were caused by snow obstructing the camera.

Tesla issued over-the-air software updates to improve detection and response.

The regulator noted the low frequency and severity of incidents.

NHTSA continues to probe Tesla's Full Self-Driving system with at least nine crashes under review.

The FSD probe was upgraded to an engineering analysis.

Road & Track

Tesla has a rare regulatory win on Summon but multiple investigations remain open.