A lengthy investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) into a gaming feature Tesla had in some vehicles just recently came to an end.
The probe, first opened in late 2021, looked into whether the "Passenger Play" feature once available in some of Tesla’s electric cars had the possibility of posing a distraction to drivers, according to an NHTSA filing. Its closure on Friday took place nearly 1.5 years later.
FOX Business reached out to Tesla for comment.
In the document, the NHTSA indicated it had had "significant concerns" about drivers experiencing distraction "both with Passenger Play’s intended use by a passenger and its misuse" when the feature was still available. Those concerns had stemmed from data that Tesla had provided about the feature and that the NHTSA had subsequently analyzed.
Tesla issued an update in late 2021, doing away with the feature that let some gaming happen on the front dashboard’s display while in transit from certain 2017-2022 Model 3, S, X and Ys, it said.
The concerns it has were "resolved" by the move, according to the filing. However, the NHTSA also stated in the filing that the "closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by NHTSA that no safety-related defect exists."
During the NHTSA’s investigation, Tesla had given it information in 2022 related to "Passenger Play" usage, according to the agency.
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"Tesla’s IR [Information Request] response indicated that during its year of operating, Passenger Play was active during a small portion of overall vehicle trips logged in the subject vehicle fleet," the NHTSA noted at one point. "Of those trips, approximately a third logged Passenger Play use in motion with no passenger seat occupant identified by the front passenger seat occupant classification system."
There weren’t any crashes or complaints in connection to "Passenger Play" over the course of its availability that Tesla was aware of, according to the document.
The NHTSA also made clear in the filing that its decision to end the probe "does not foreclose the Agency from taking further action, if warranted, or the potential for a future finding that a safety-related defect exists through additional information the Agency may receive."
In early March, the Elon Musk-run Tesla revealed it had hit the production milestone of building its 4 millionth vehicle.
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Tesla’s production totalled almost 1.4 million cars last year. That included nearly 1.3 million Model 3 and Y electric vehicles, plus over 71,000 Model S and X, it said.
In the company’s first quarter of 2023, it manufactured some 440,800 vehicles.
