April 6 (Reuters) – The U.S. auto safety regulator said on Monday it has closed its probe into Tesla’s “actually smart summon” feature, covering about 2.59 million vehicles, after finding it was linked only to low-speed incidents with no injuries or fatalities.
The feature allows users to remotely move vehicles over short distances in parking areas or private property, using a smartphone app while maintaining continuous supervision.
The agency concluded that the feature was linked primarily to low-speed incidents resulting in minor property damage, with no reported injuries or fatalities.
Most of the reported incidents involved vehicles striking obstacles such as parked cars, garage doors or gates, often early in a summon session when visibility or situational awareness was limited, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The NHTSA said the low frequency and severity of the incidents did not warrant further action at this time.
However, the agency noted that closing the probe does not mean that a safety-related defect did not exist and said it reserves the right to take further action if warranted.
Tesla has addressed the identified issues through a series of over-the-air software updates aimed at improving obstacle detection, camera blockage identification and vehicle response to dynamic objects such as gates, the regulator said.
The updates also sought to reduce errors caused by environmental factors such as snow or condensation affecting cameras.
The regulator last month upgraded a probe into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system to an “engineering analysis,” a more advanced stage that typically precedes a potential recall and expanded the review to about 3.2 million vehicles.
The move highlights how Tesla’s driver-assistance and self-driving features remain under regulatory scrutiny over concerns about crashes, visibility limitations and whether the systems adequately warn drivers in real-world conditions.
The agency last month rejected a petition seeking a recall of 2.26 million Tesla vehicles over unintended acceleration concerns linked to pedal misapplication, saying they found no evidence of a safety defect.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Shinjini Ganguli)
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