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NHTSA Preliminary Evaluation PE24033

Preliminary Evaluation · Actually Smart Summon sessions resulting in low-speed impacts. · Opened 2025-01-06 · Closed 2026-04-03

Investigation

Action number
PE24033
Type
Preliminary Evaluation
Open date
2025-01-06
Close date
2026-04-03
Manufacturer
Tesla, Inc.
Affected makes
TESLA
Affected components
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:ADAS:AUTONOMOUS/SELF DRIVING
Affected model years
2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026
Affected (make, year) variants
33

Summary

On January 6, 2025, the Office of Defects Investigations (ODI) opened Preliminary Evaluation 24003 (PE24033) to investigate Actually Smart Summon (Summon) sessions resulting in crashes during active sessions. According to Tesla, Summon is a short-distance SAE Level 2 system, controlled by the user from a cell phone within a certain distance and intended for use in parking lots and on private property. ODI analyzed complaint data provided by Tesla as well as complaints submitted to ODI from consumers to identify Summon incidents resulting in crashes. ODI's analysis indicates that almost all Summon reported crashes involved minor property damage claims with no reported incidents involving a vulnerable road user, injury, fatality, or major property damage as indicated by an air bag deployment or vehicle tow away. Out of millions of Summon sessions, a fraction of 1% resulted in an incident. Almost all those incidents took place where, typically early in a Summon session, the system or person using the app failed to fully detect or respond appropriately to vehicle surroundings resulting in minor impacts. Incidents took place when app users did not have a complete 360-degree view of the surroundings in the app to assess situational awareness. This limited the app user’s ability to determine whether an impact was imminent during initial vehicle maneuvers such as reversing in close proximity to an obstacle or a curb. ODI found that the impacts most often occurred with parking gates, adjacently parked vehicles, and short parking bollards. During this investigation, ODI identified two Summon crashes related to camera blockages. In both crashes, Summon attempted to navigate a snowy parking lot with snow partially or fully obstructing the forward-facing cameras. Summon did not detect the camera blockage and the vehicles collided with unoccupied parked vehicles while navigating the parking lot. App users in both instances did not command a vehicle stop or pause despite the obstr

Source

Authoritative
NHTSA ODI investigation page
Machine
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