The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Tuesday that the 2026 Tesla Model Y is the first vehicle to meet its new Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) standards.
The NHTSA has added pass/fail tests for four ADAS features—Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking, Blind Spot Warning, Blind Spot Intervention, and Lane Keeping Assist—as criteria for safety rating evaluations.
Tesla conducted its own tests and submitted the results to the NHTSA, a requirement that manufacturers can optionally submit starting this year. The NHTSA plans to verify these results. Even if a company claims to have passed the ADAS evaluation, the NHTSA will revoke certification for that feature if it fails the verification tests.
The NHTSA told TechCrunch that it will begin conducting its own evaluations of specific ADAS features through contracted testing agencies starting with the 2027 model year.
These newly updated standards are intended to reflect the constantly evolving vehicles and the diverse features provided to consumers. Automakers generally do not name these features with names that clearly describe their function, and it is common for there to be no government-provided performance evaluation standards.
The new benchmark ratings apply to the 2026 Tesla Model Y produced after November 12, 2025.
This test is part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)’s New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), which operates the government’s 5-star safety rating program. NCAP conducts various tests to evaluate frontal and side crashes, rollover resistance, and crash avoidance performance. The four newly added Advanced Driver Assistance (ADAS) evaluation criteria were revised to include advanced driver assistance features as part of the 2024 NCAP update.
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