US auto safety regulators have closed their investigation into Tesla’s remote parking feature, known as “Actually Smart Summon”, after finding that accidents were rare, low-speed and not serious.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in his update on Friday that closing the investigation does not constitute a finding that there is no safety-related flaw and said it could be reopened.
The remote parking feature, which rolled out via a software update in September 2024, allows owners to use the Tesla app to direct the vehicle to drive itself at low speeds, using only the car’s cameras. The release was notable at the time because the previous version, Smart Summon, also used ultrasonic sensors, which are no longer present in newer Tesla vehicles.
NHTSA opened the investigation in January 2025 after reports of dozens of accidents involving the “Actually Smart Summon” feature. The research found that out of millions of Summon sessions, a fraction of 1% resulted in an incident, which usually involved minor property damage such as hitting gates, parked cars or bollards.
Also, “there were no reported incidents involving a vulnerable road user, injury, death or major property damage as indicated by airbag deployment or vehicle rollover,” according to the report.
NHTSA found that either the person or the system using the app failed to fully detect the environment, often due to limited visibility in the app’s camera view. Some incidents were caused by snow blocking the camera, which the system failed to detect.
Tesla has issued a series of software updates to improve the camera’s jamming detection and object recognition, according to NHTSA.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, California
|
13-15 October 2026
