Why did safety regulators close their investigation into Tesla’s remote parking feature?

US auto safety regulators have closed their investigation into Tesla’s remote parking feature, known as “Intelligent Recall,” after finding that crashes were rare, low-speed, and not serious.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in its update on Friday that the closure of the investigation did not constitute a finding of a safety-related defect, and said it could reopen it.

The Remote Parking feature, which was released via a software update in September 2024, allows owners to use their Tesla app to direct the car to drive itself to them at low speeds, using only the car’s cameras. The release was notable at the time because the previous version, Smart Summon, also used ultrasonic sensors, which are no longer found in newer Tesla cars.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened the investigation in January 2025 after reports of dozens of accidents involving the “Really Smart Summon” feature. The investigation found that out of millions of recall sessions, a fraction of 1% resulted in an accident, which typically involved minor property damage such as hitting gates, parked cars or poles.

According to the report, there were also “no reported incidents involving an impaired road user, injury, death, or significant property damage as demonstrated by airbag deployment or vehicle being towed away.”

NHTSA found that a person or system using the app failed to fully detect surroundings, often due to limited visibility in the app’s camera view. Some accidents occurred as a result of snow obstructing the camera, which the system failed to detect.

Tesla has released a number of software updates to improve camera occlusion detection and object recognition, according to NHTSA.