US ends probe into Tesla allowing video games while vehicles are moving, says feature was disabled
Source: ABC News/AP
DETROIT -- U.S. highway safety regulators have closed an investigation into Tesla allowing video games to be played on center touch screens while vehicles are moving.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents posted Tuesday that Tesla disabled the feature called “passenger play” with an online software update in December of 2021, under pressure from the agency. The agency said in documents that removing “passenger play” resolved its concerns about distracted driving that could be caused by the feature.
The software update covered more than 580,000 vehicles from the 2017 through 2022 model years. One month after software update went out, Tesla reported that 97% of the vehicles had received it.
The agency said it opened the investigation in December of 2021 after getting a complaint from a Tesla owner that games could be played by the driver while the vehicles are moving. The investigation was opened to assess the driver distraction potential.
Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/us-ends-probe-tesla-allowing-video-games-vehicles-99691077
= new reply since forum marked as read
it was for use by a front seat "passenger", but obviously most cars with front seat dash displays (including one for the driver that contains an analog and/or digital representation of the gauges and other info), have a single larger display positioned in the center over the central console (that might include various car system and environmental controls like the clock setting/radio tuning/media sound/lights/temp control & air/navigation/misc. bluetooth & wifi, etc).
Article when the NHTSA was investigating - https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32961869/tesla-model-s-infotainment-screen-investigation-nhtsa/
By Roberto Baldwin Updated: Nov 16, 2020
Car and Driver
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Update 11/16/20: NHTSA has upgraded its investigation into the issues with Tesla touchscreens in the Model S. It's now on the "engineering analysis" phase of the investigation. The next step would be a recall. It's also expanded the date range and vehicles affected by the issue. NHTSA states that the model years of the products affected are now the 2012–2018 Model S and the 2016–2018 Model X. The agency states that it has received 12,523 claims and complaints about the touchscreen issue.
For its part, Tesla has released an over-the-air update that includes firmware changes to mitigate the effects of the issue.
One of the defining elements of the Tesla lineup is the large touchscreen display that sits in the dash. The move to a digital dash not only reduces the number of physical parts in a vehicle but also creates an interface that can be upgraded over time. That’s all fine and dandy until the touchscreen breaks. For some owners of older Teslas, that has become enough of an issue that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a preliminary evaluation into the matter.
(snip)
... we can play video games while waiting for the show to begin.
