Feds Launch Security Probe Into 2.6 Million Tesla’s Distant Summon Function

In 2016, Elon Musk promised that Tesla house owners would be capable to “summon” their car from wherever, together with having a car in New York come to its driver in Los Angeles. In 2025, Tesla’s summon know-how is beneath investigation as a result of it retains crashing into posts and parked vehicles. The Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration announced Tuesday that it’ll launch a probe into 2.6 million Tesla automobiles over security issues associated to the “Really Sensible Summon” characteristic.

The preliminary analysis of Tesla’s distant driving characteristic follows a number of stories of accidents involving Sensible Summon and Really Sensible Summon. In accordance with the NHTSA’s Workplace of Defects Investigation (ODI), the probe will take a look at the highest pace {that a} car can journey whereas being remotely managed, connectivity delays that happen when a car is summoned, and whether or not Tesla’s autonomous driving software program can sufficiently navigate the environments it’s being utilized in.

A short historical past of Summon, which has had a checkered historical past for Tesla: A model of the characteristic has been obtainable in Tesla automobiles geared up with the corporate’s dubiously named “Full Self-Driving Functionality” (FSD) since 2016. In idea, the know-how is designed to permit a driver to name for his or her car to come back to them, permitting it to autonomously navigate and not using a individual contained in the car. Initially, it solely labored to recall a automotive from a driveway or parking zone.

It will definitely obtained upgraded to Smart Summon in 2019, which enabled the car to navigate extra advanced conditions and recall a automotive from as much as 200 ft. After lacking many (many) self-imposed deadlines from Musk, Tesla lastly launched its Actually Smart Summon (abbreviated to sigh ASS) late final yr. With a view to use ASS, automotive house owners should press and maintain down a button within the Tesla app whereas the automotive is working autonomously—an effort to make the proprietor monitor the automotive to verify it doesn’t crash. The characteristic has been panned as slow and inefficient.

Now it’s being investigated for inflicting accidents. In accordance with the NHTSA, there is just one official report of an accident involving a model of the Summon software program, however there have been no less than three media stories of comparable accidents and 12 stories of crashes associated to the software program which have are available in up Automobile Homeowners Questionnaires. Of the 16 whole stories on the NHTSA’s radar, Tesla has shared precisely zero of them with the company regardless of necessities for crashes involving Automated Driving Techniques to be reported.

Musk in all probability isn’t sweating that an excessive amount of—a part of his entire effort of befriending President-elect Donald Trump has been to lobby for the rollback of accident report requirements for autonomous automobiles. It appears possible he’ll get his want, and there’s a non-zero likelihood this investigation will get closed earlier than it even actually will get began.

Even when this probe will get shut down by the incoming administration, it hasn’t precisely been a banner couple of years for Tesla’s autonomous tech. The NHTSA opened an investigation into the corporate’s Full Self-Driving system final yr following a sequence of high-profile crashes that allegedly concerned the know-how. The corporate recalled its Autopilot know-how on greater than two million vehicles again in 2023, and the NHTSA is still looking into whether its fixes were actually sufficient to deal with dangers related to the software program. The Division of Justice, in the meantime, continues to be within the strategy of determining whether Tesla misled consumers and investors with the way it has marketed its self-driving options.