The inquiry into Tesla's policy of letting passengers use center touch displays to play video games while driving has been closed by US highway safety officials, as reported by AP News.
December 2021's Online Software Upgrade Disabled' Passenger Play' Function
According to papers published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Tuesday, May 30, Tesla stopped the function known as Passenger Play through an online software update in December 2021 in response to demand from the government.
Based on the records, the agency's fears about distracted driving caused by Passenger Play were put to rest when the function was disabled. More than 580,000 cars from the model years 2017 through 2022 were affected by the software upgrade.
Tesla announced that 97% of its cars have gotten the software upgrade exactly one month after it was released to the public.
The government claims it began looking into the matter in December 2021 after receiving a report from a Tesla owner that drivers could play games while their cars were in motion. This probe was initiated to see whether there was a risk of driver distraction.
There is documentation stating that putting irrelevant visual content in a driver's field of view "poses the potential to add to driver visual and cognitive distraction."
In response, Tesla said that the function was intended for passenger usage exclusively and did not pose an excessive distraction risk to drivers. After a year of using the technology, the automaker claims there have been no recorded accidents.
Based on Tesla data collected during the year Passenger Play was operational, the NHTSA concluded that it was only enabled for a tiny fraction of total vehicle journeys. The authorities did not specify how many journeys included the usage of the technology while the cars were in motion with no passengers.
Ford EVs Soon to Have Tesla Charging Ports
In other Tesla news, Ford is adding Tesla's charging connector to its next-generation electric vehicles (EVs), enabling customers to charge batteries on the latter's supercharging network without an adaptor.
Ford's EVs will come standard with the Tesla charging connector, making it simpler for owners to locate charging stations!
The update, which begins with 2025 vehicles, provides EV owners with convenient access to Tesla's expansive Supercharger network. Ford is the first major carmaker to include Tesla charging connections in its full EVs, and this is a huge step forward for the company.
As of present, all Tesla cars utilize the same kind of charging port. However, the North American Charging Standard (NACS) will soon be available for use in Ford cars as well, replacing its current Combined Charging System (CCS).
Nevertheless, Tesla's North American Supercharging network solely provides its own NACS charging technology. Owners of competing electric car brands who want to utilize Tesla charging stations must, therefore, bring along an appropriate adapter.
