The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has closed its phantom braking investigation into Tesla, concluding the issue posed only a low safety risk. The probe covered roughly 416,000 Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossovers from the 2021 and 2022 model years. Complaints have plummeted from 45 incidents in 2024 to 19 last year and just three so far in 2026.

Regulators opened the review in early 2022 after a wave of reports describing sudden, unexpected deceleration while Autopilot, Full Self-Driving, or Traffic Aware Cruise Control were engaged. The agency attributed the behavior to Tesla's pivot to a vision-only sensing architecture, which eliminated radar from the sensor suite. No crashes were linked to the phenomenon, and Tesla resolved the matter through over-the-air software updates.

The decision lifts a regulatory cloud that has lingered over Tesla's driver-assistance portfolio for more than three years. Incident reports have dropped more than 90 percent since the investigation's peak, indicating the fixes were effective. NHTSA's low-risk determination supports Tesla's camera-first strategy, even as the agency pursues a separate, broader examination of Autopilot's overall safety record.