The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Wednesday announced a formal safety investigation into 580,000 Tesla vehicles over the automaker’s ‘Passenger Play’ feature, which allows select games to be played on the front center console touchscreen — reports Reuters.
While the functionality does allow games to be played when the car is in Drive, it is designed to be used only by passengers while in motion and even displays a warning to that effect whenever a game is launched.
However, the feature “may distract the driver and increase the risk of a crash,” the federal regulator said in its Wednesday statement. The NHTSA investigation will cover Tesla Model 3, Model S, Model X, and Model Y units sold between 2017 and 2022.
The NHTSA has confirmed that the ability to play games with the car in Drive “has been available since December 2020 in Tesla ‘Passenger Play’-equipped vehicles.” Up until then, the feature “was enabled only when the vehicle was in Park.”
In its statement, the regulator said it is “committed to ensuring the highest safety standards on the nation’s roadways.”
The NHTSA said the formal investigation into the gaming feature is the result of reports claiming that “Tesla’s gameplay functionality is visible from the driver’s seat and can be enabled while driving the vehicle.”
Last month, a Tesla Model 3 owner from Oregon lodged a complaint against the game feature with the NHTSA after realizing it could be engaged while in transit and the only thing preventing the driver from playing games while driving is a warning message that can be clicked away.
The investigation is merely a preliminary evaluation at this time and will serve as the NHTSA’s first step to determining whether the probe should be upgraded to an engineering analysis, which needs to take place before a recall can be ordered.
The agency said it plans to “evaluate aspects of the feature, including the frequency and use scenarios of Tesla ‘Passenger Play’.”
The NHTSA is concerned the feature may go against its regulatory guidelines, which “recommend that in-vehicle devices be designed so that they cannot be used by the driver to perform inherently distracting secondary tasks while driving.”
The Governors Highway Safety Association lauded the NHTSA’s decision to launch an investigation into Passenger Play.
Tesla in recent weeks announced that fan-favorite games like Sonic the Hedgehog and triple-A titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher series would be coming to Tesla Arcade in the near future, but we’ll have to wait to see what those plans look like following the results of this investigation.
Earlier this year, the NHTSA opened a safety investigation into 765,000 Tesla vehicles over its Autopilot driver-assistance system after a series of crashes involving parked emergency vehicles.
