Tesla's video games inside the infotainment systems from the dashboard of its electric vehicles are now under investigation by the NHTSA or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
It comes after reports claimed that some of the drivers of Tesla vehicles are playing video games from its massive touch screen even while the car is moving.
A report from the New York Times further revealed that some of them even posted it on the video streaming platform, YouTube.
Tesla Video Games In-Car Now Under Investigation
As per the news story by The Verge, the United States government is now looking into over half a million units of EVs that the firm of billionaire Elon Musk has sold.
The NHTSA, which is the safety agency of the US gov't, revealed that it received a complaint way back in August, claiming that both gaming and searching the internet could be done by the person behind the wheel.
According to the report by Bloomberg, the complainant is a consumer from Lake Oswego, Oregon.
The investigation is now evaluating an estimated 580,000 Tesla vehicles, which includes the Model X, Model 3, and the Model S EVs that have been sold from 2017 to 2022.
The report by the Office of Defects and Investigations or ODI of NHTSA further noted that the in-car video gaming feature of Tesla EVs, known as "Passenger Play" could end up distracting the person behind the wheel.
In turn, the report of ODI argued that the in-car video gaming feature could "increase the risk of a crash."
Tesla and Video Games
It is worth noting that Tesla claims that these services are only supposedly for passenger use.
In fact, accessing in-car games even launches a prompt verifying if you are the passenger. However, reports have been claiming that drivers of Tesla EVs could easily bypass this.
The Verge confirmed in the same report that the in-car gaming system of Tesla would pop up a notification before it could be played.
But still, the user only needs to tap a button that says "I am a passenger," which the person behind the wheel could easily lie and do so.
Meanwhile, back in June, the CEO and founder of the EV maker, Elon Musk, announced that the in-car gaming system for the Tesla Model S and the Model X EVs would soon offer "PS5-level" gaming.
Tesla has previously partnered with the chipmaker, AMD, to stuff a Ryzen APU and an RDNA-2 based GPU to power its infotainment systems.
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Written by Teejay Boris
