The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has officially closed its investigation into unexpected braking events across hundreds of thousands of Tesla vehicles. The probe, which dragged on for more than four years, examined what drivers colloquially call “phantom braking,” where cars slam on the brakes for no apparent reason.
The conclusion, which landed around July 1, 2026, effectively gives Tesla a regulatory all-clear on the issue.
What the investigation actually found
NHTSA opened preliminary evaluation PE22002 on February 16, 2022, after a wave of complaints started rolling in around November 2021. The initial scope covered roughly 416,000 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles from the 2021 and 2022 model years.
Over the life of the probe, NHTSA collected 354 total complaints. The pattern was oddly specific: most incidents happened in sunny weather where shadows were present on the road. The typical event involved sudden deceleration of 10 to 20 mph over a span of one to three seconds. No obstacles were actually present in these cases, and none of the reported incidents resulted in collisions.
