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NHTSA Opened a Preliminary Evaluation Against Tesla's Video Games

As we reported on December 10, NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) raised the tone in its discussions with Tesla about video games that can be played while driving. Apparently, that did not help much, and things escalated: the safety agency opened a PE (Preliminary Evaluation) of what Tesla calls Passenger Play.
Screen of "Sky Force Reloaded" on a Tesla 7 photos
Photo: Infinite Games
The Battle of Polytopia: MoonriseScreen of "Sky Force Reloaded" on a TeslaVideo Game on a TeslaVideo Game Menu on a TeslaScreen of "Solitaire" on a TeslaVideo Game on a Tesla
According to NHTSA, this feature has been available to Tesla customers since December 2020 and is estimated to be installed in 580,000 vehicles. That would include all cars Tesla made from 2017 until 2022. It seems the safety agency is excluding older Teslas, but they may have received new MCU computers that allow them to have access to Passenger Play.

Although it has been around for so long, it was thanks to a story published by Neal Boudette in “The New York Times” that we learned people could play video games while the car was in motion. If the driver wanted to do so, he just had to click on a button saying he was not the driver. As absurd as that may sound, the absurd videos of people sleeping at the steering wheel of their Teslas show this is not far-fetched.

Despite the evident distracting factor this could cause, NHTSA has described the investigation in very mild terms. First of all, because it says the feature “may distract the driver and increase the risk of a crash.” Further ahead in the PE 21-023 document, the safety agency says that the procedure “has been opened to evaluate the driver distraction potential of Tesla ‘Passenger Play’ while the vehicle is being driven.”

It gives us the impression that NHTSA will check what happens if the feature is used only by the passenger, which is what Tesla allows. Although that can be distracting, it is possibly not even close to Passenger Play misuse, with the driver trying to prove his car is autonomous. Thankfully, the safety agency mentions it will check “the frequency and use scenarios” of the feature. Let’s hope that means “misuse scenarios” are included in the list.

The PE may last up to four weeks and may lead to an investigation process, which may be a lot longer if it needs an engineering analysis. When NHTSA opens an investigation, it requires documents and analysis to decide if it will require a recall or not. It’s surprising that Tesla decided to stretch this controversy instead of just solving it with an OTA update.
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 Download: PE 21-023 document about Tesla Passenger Play (PDF)

About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
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Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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