Tesla is under investigation for ‘Actually Smart Summon’ crashes

Tesla is under investigation by NHTSA over reported crashes involving ‘Actually Smart Summon’, Tesla’s driverless system for parking lots.

Actually Smart Summon is an updated version of Tesla’s ‘smart summon’, which is the ability for Tesla vehicles to navigate parking lots autonomously without a driver inside the vehicle.

CEO Elon Musk has promised that it is coming on several occasions as a “mind blowing feature”, but it has always suffered delays.

Back in 2022, he said that it would come by the end of September and it would be now called “actually smart summon” for vehicles that used vision-only, camera-only systems.

However, the feature hasn’t been launched since September 2024.

There are some useful use cases for Actually Smart Summon, like if you have a very tight parking spot where it would be hard to open the doors, you can get in and out before and move the vehicle remotely, but it is often used by people in commercial parking lots to bring the vehicle to them as they come out of the shops – often just to impress people as it is fairly slow and inefficient.

Here’s Tesla demonstration video, which they posted at almost twice the speed:

The car owner needs to hold a button on the app for the car to keep going, as they remain responsible for the vehicle even if there’s no one inside.

With the release of the vision-only version of the feature late last year, many people got to try it for the first time and inevitably, it led to a bunch of accidents.

Now, NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) announced that they launched a probe into the situation after being made aware of several crashes involving Actually Smart Summon where owners alledged that they didn’t have enough time to stop the system to avoid a crash:

ODI is aware of multiple crash allegations, involving both Smart Summon and Actually Smart Summon, where the user had too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement.

NHTSA is specifically looking into 16 alleged crashes involving Tesla’s Actually Smart Summon.

The federal agency noted that Tesla hasn’t reported any of these crashes:

Tesla has not reported any Smart Summon or Actually Smart Summon crashes through the Standing General Order for crashes involving ADS or Level 2 ADAS, which requires reporting of crashes on publicly accessible roads.

Tesla has lobbied to remove this reporting requirement and we recently reported that Trump’s transition team has signaled that it plans to do that.

NHTSA elaborated on what it plans to test as part of its investigation:

NHTSA will evaluate the top speed that a vehicle can attain while Actually Smart Summon is engaged, designed-in operating restrictions for usage on public roads, and line of sight requirements. NHTSA expects this preliminary evaluation to include review of remote vehicle control through the phone app at various distances and lines of sight, including app connectivity delays resulting in increased stopping distance and the ability to utilize Actually Smart Summon in roadway environments or operating conditions for which the current version of the system is neither intended nor designed.

The agency is also investigating Tesla over other features of its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving products.