July 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Thursday said it had closed its 2022 preliminary evaluation into 695,000 Tesla vehicles over unexpected deceleration, citing low demonstrated hazard to drivers and a substantial drop in incidents.
Here are a few details:
• The investigation covered Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.
• NHTSA said that Tesla had released software updates in early 2022 to target unexpected deceleration.
• Incident reports declined to 45 in 2024, 19 in 2025, and three since the start of 2026, according to the auto safety regulator. There were 300 such reports when the investigation was opened.
• The regulator said the reported conditions did not alter the vehicle’s lateral positioning in their lanes and did not cause significant loss in distance between the subject and following vehicle to lead to a collision.
• Last week, NHTSA had separately closed an expanded probe covering an estimated 376,241 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles over loss of steering control.
(Reporting by Disha Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
