Tesla has made changes to its Safety Score Beta by releasing version 1.2. The new features will help to conduct a more accurate assessment of safety, which will help to calculate insurance rates more accurately.
Tesla's Safety Score Beta is an assessment of driving behavior based on several metrics called Safety Factors. These are combined to estimate the likelihood that driving could result in a future collision. The company combines daily Safety Scores (up to 30 days) to calculate the aggregated Safety Score, displayed on the main ‘Safety Score’ screen of the Tesla app. Safety Score Beta is intended to provide drivers transparency and feedback on their driving behaviors to encourage safer driving and potentially pay less for insurance. The Safety Score is a value between 0 and 100, where a higher score indicates safer driving. Previously, Safety Score Beta was in version 1, but now a new version has been presented: 1.2.
What Changed in Version 1.2
Safety Score version 1.2 features several updates including a new Safety Factor and updates to how your driving behavior is measured and Safety Score calculated. Here are the key changes from version 1 to version 1.2:
- Provided a visualization of your trip, as a timeline, to show when specific events that impacted your Safety Score occurred. To protect your privacy, no location data is provided.
- Added Late Night Driving as a new Safety Factor. More time spent driving at night will lead to a lower Safety Score.
- Increased grace period after Autopilot disengages from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.
- Updated hard braking and aggressive turning Safety Factors to count the number of events instead of the duration of events.
- Updated Forward Collision Warning rate Safety Factor to calculate the rate of warnings per 1,000 miles driven while not using Autopilot.
- Updated Safety Score to use the miles-weighted average of the last 30 day’s Safety Scores, ignoring any miles driven on Autopilot.
Safety Factors
There are several Safety Factors that impact your Safety Score. These are measured directly by your Tesla vehicle using various sensors on the vehicle and Autopilot software.
Forward Collision Warnings are audible and visual alerts provided to you, the driver, in events where a possible collision due to an object in front of the vehicle is considered likely without your intervention. Events are captured based on the 'medium' Forward Collision Warning sensitivity setting regardless of your user setting in the vehicle. Forward Collision Warnings are incorporated into the Safety Score formula as a rate per 1,000 non-Autopilot miles. The value is capped at 117.5 per 1,000 non-Autopilot miles in the Safety Score formula.
Hard braking is defined as backward acceleration, measured by your Tesla vehicle, in excess of 0.3g. This is the same as a decrease in the vehicle’s speed larger than 6.7 mph, in one second. Hard braking is introduced into the Safety Score formula as the number of times where the vehicle experiences backward acceleration greater than 0.3g as a percentage of the number of times the vehicle experiences backward acceleration greater than 0.1g (2.2 mph in one second). Hard braking while on Autopilot is not factored into the Safety Score formula. The percentage shown in the app is the proportion of brakes done with excessive force when driving and Autopilot is not engaged. The value is capped at 10.9% in the Safety Score formula.
Aggressive turning is defined as left/right acceleration, measured by your Tesla vehicle, in excess of 0.4g. This is the same as an increase in the vehicle’s speed to the left/right larger than 8.9 mph, in one second. Aggressive turning is introduced into the Safety Score formula as the number of times the vehicle experiences left or right acceleration greater than 0.4g as a percentage of the number of times the vehicle experiences left or right acceleration greater than 0.2g (4.5 mph in one second). Aggressive turning while on Autopilot is not factored into the Safety Score formula. The percentage shown in the app is the proportion of turns done with excessive force when driving and Autopilot is not engaged. The value is capped at 22.9% in the Safety Score formula.
Your Tesla vehicle measures its own speed, the speed of the vehicle in front and the distance between the two vehicles. Based on these measurements, your vehicle calculates the number of seconds you would have to react and stop if the vehicle in front of you came to a sudden stop. This measurement is called “headway.” Unsafe following is the proportion of time where your vehicle’s headway is less than 1.0 seconds relative to the time that your vehicle’s headway is less than 3.0 seconds. Unsafe following is only measured when your vehicle is traveling at least 50 mph and is incorporated into the Safety Score formula as a percentage. Unsafe following while on Autopilot is not factored into the Safety Score formula. The percentage shown in the app is the percentage of unsafe following when driving and Autopilot is not engaged. The value is capped at 63.2% in the Safety Score formula.
The Autopilot system disengages for the remainder of a trip after you, the driver, have received three audio and visual warnings. These warnings occur when your Tesla vehicle has determined that you have not applied sufficient resistance on the steering wheel or have become inattentive. Forced Autopilot Disengagement is introduced into the Safety Score formula as a 1 or 0 indicator. The value is 1 if the Autopilot system is forcibly disengaged during a trip, and 0 otherwise.
Late Night Driving is defined as the number of seconds you spend driving at night (10 PM - 4 AM) divided by the number of seconds you spend driving total in the day. Drive sessions that span two days will apply to the day the trip ends. Late Night Driving includes all driving at night including any driving done on Autopilot. The value is capped at 29.3% in the Safety Score formula.
© 2022, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts; follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
