Tesla is updating their Safety Score program to version 2.0, up from v1.2. The Safety Score acts as a driving coach for Tesla owners. It assesses their driving behavior and provides feedback on how they can improve their habits, potentially resulting in lower insurance premiums. And now, with version 2.0, Tesla has introduced two new safety factors and updated the calculation of the Safety Score. Let's take a closer look at what these changes mean for Tesla owners.
The Safety Score is between 0 and 100, with a higher score indicating safer driving. It is based on several metrics called Safety Factors, which are measured by the Tesla vehicle using various sensors and Autopilot software. The Safety Score aims to encourage safer driving habits and potentially result in lower insurance premiums for Tesla owners.
What's New in Safety Score 2.0
The new Safety Factors are Excessive Speeding and Unbuckled Driving. Excessive Speeding is defined as the proportion of time spent driving more than 85 mph, while Unbuckled Driving is defined as the proportion of time spent driving above ten mph without fastening the driver’s seatbelt. Late Night Driving, added in version 1.2, has also been updated to be risk-weighted based on when drivers are driving from 10 PM to 4 AM, with the impact on the Safety Score reduced earlier in the night and increased later in the night.
The updates are added to other safety factors, including Forward Collision Warnings, Hard Braking, Aggressive Turning, Unsafe Following and Forced Autopilot Disengagement. The Safety Score is calculated using the Predicted Collision Frequency (PCF) formula, which is based on statistical modeling using 8 billion miles of fleet data.
It is worth noting that yellow traffic light detection is only available on vehicles with FSD hardware 3.0 or later. The Tesla vehicle relies on its cameras and firmware to detect yellow traffic lights, so it may not detect all yellow traffic lights. Examples of situations that could lead to undetected yellow traffic lights include when the cameras are obscured or do not have a line of sight of the traffic signals, inclement weather, or low light environments.
How to Achieve a Safe Score
Unfortunately, Tesla's Safety Score isn't available for everyone, at least not yet. To see your Safety Score, you need to have Tesla Insurance or have requested FSD Beta, but have not received it yet.
To determine which Safety Score version you're on, you can open the Tesla app and scroll to the bottom of the Safety Score screen. It'll show you whether you're enrolled in version 1.0, 1.2 or 2.0.
Tesla owners can improve their Safety Score by improving each Safety Factor, such as maintaining a safe following distance, engaging the brake pedal early, turning gradually, not tailgating, planning trips to avoid driving between 10 PM and 4 AM, and fastening their seatbelts before driving.
It is important to note that miles driven while Autopilot is engaged are not used to determine the Forward Collision Warnings per 1,000 Miles. Additionally, driving on Autopilot (including 5 seconds after Autopilot is disengaged) will not be factored into the Safety Score formula. Still, the miles driven while on Autopilot are included in the total.
Safety Score 2.0 Requirements
Safety Score 2.0 requires the vehicle to be on software update 2023.2.12 or later (2021.24.25 or later for Tegra vehicles) or be enrolled in FSD Beta version 11.3 or higher.
The Safety Score can help drivers identify areas to improve, such as reducing speed or maintaining a safe following distance. In addition to providing feedback to individual drivers, the Safety Score data is also used by Tesla to improve the safety features of their vehicles. The data collected from millions of miles of driving can be analyzed to identify patterns and trends in driving behavior, which can then be used to inform the development of new safety features or improvements to existing features.
Overall, Tesla's Safety Score is a powerful tool for promoting safer driving habits and improving the safety of its vehicles, which are already the safest in the world.
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Tesla has revealed its updated V4 Superchargers, which have a massive power increase and can charge vehicles at up to 500kW. The V4 Superchargers have been a work in progress. They were initially launched with a v3 cabinet, limiting their overall potential.
V3 and V4 Superchargers have been charging at 250kW for several years, but recently, Tesla started a public trial at some locations with Superchargers reaching power levels of 320kW. This speed bump out of the 250kW zone was our first indication that Tesla was looking to roll out improved charging speeds.
With these new V4 Supercharger cabinets, Tesla is ready to blow these numbers out of the water, however, not every car will be capable of charging at the new 500kW speeds. Fun fact: Tesla’s Superchargers first arrived with a charging speed of just 90kW.
V4 Supercharger Cabinet
The V4 Supercharger has been around for some time—it's the new one without a hole in the center. However, those were running with V3 or V3+ cabinets. Now, the V4 cabinet has arrived.
The V4 Supercharger cabinet knocks that 320kW V3+ right out of the park. It can put a massive 500kW into the Cybertruck—currently the only vehicle that can use that speed. And that 500kW works out to a blistering 1,300 mi/hr for the Cybertruck — nearly 2100 km/h of charge speed.
Part of these charging improvements come from the Cybertruck’s 800V system, so we can’t expect all these charging improvements to roll out to older vehicles. Instead, we can expect the upcoming Model Y Juniper Refresh to likely also arrive with an 800V system, with all the experience and knowledge Tesla has gained from the first year of the Cybertruck.
If the new Model Y achieves charging speeds comparable to the Cybertruck, it could deliver remarkably fast charging times. Being lighter and more efficient than the Cybertruck, the Model Y could achieve a significantly higher miles-per-hour charge rate at the same 500kW charging speed.
These new V4 chargers will support vehicles with 400-volt and up to 1,000-volt vehicle architectures, so people with non-Tesla EVs that support 1,000 volts will also see some drastic charging improvements.
In its brief video, Tesla also showed off the updated V4 Megacharger dedicated to the Tesla Semi. The new MCS system can pull up to 1.2 Megawatts, which is 1,200 KW of pure power via the MCS connector for the Tesla Semi and its massive battery pack.
This upgrade for the Semi is going to be big, making it a prime option for companies looking to do short—and medium-haul trucking—nearly 90% of the trucking in North America.
V4 Supercharger Rollout
The rollout of V4 Superchargers will start early next year, with the first sites already undergoing permitting. Most interestingly, Tesla’s new V4 cabinet has also reduced the complexity of the Superchargers even further.
The V4 cabinet powers 8 posts, which is 2x more than the V3 cabinet. A smaller footprint and less complexity mean faster installations, which means more V4 sites faster.
These new Superchargers have the potential to ease congestion and help eliminate the negative perceptions of slow EV charging.
So, with Halloween all squared away, the next big holiday coming up is Christmas. Each year, Tesla releases a big Holiday update packed with features. Last year’s update included some awesome features, including alternate routes, the Vision upgrade for Park Assist, Speed Cameras and Traffic Light icons, and the Automatic Blind Spot indicator, among others.
We already know that update 2024.44 - the Holiday Update Branch - is coming with Blind Spot Monitoring while Parked, Supercharger Improvements, and more. But, we’ve got a ton of good ideas that we hope will make the list, so put down your pumpkin spice, and grab your egg nog. It’s the holidays, and it’ll be Cybertruck’s first Christmas, so let’s celebrate!
Apple Watch App
First up—the Apple Watch app. This has been a highly requested feature over the past couple of years, and it looks like Tesla is listening. Tesla has apparently already begun development to support the Apple Watch in app update 4.38, so we’re expecting this to arrive as part of the big Holiday update. We’d love to see an equivalent app for Android-based watches, too.
Phone Left on Charger Alert
It’s easy to forget your phone inside of the vehicle, especially if it’s on the phone dock. A simple app alert that a phone has been left in the vehicle would be really useful. Tesla could potentially even tell the difference between a driver’s phone and a passenger’s phone, depending on the vehicle’s profile being used or which doors were open and closed.
Either way, just receiving an app notification if a phone is left in the car would be really useful, especially since your phone is your car key.
Live Activities
Not a Tesla App
iOS introduced support for Live Activities with iOS 16.1 in October 2022. Live Activities are auto-updating, persistent notifications that can provide real-time information about a certain task. Live Activities are used to provide real-time information about your Uber arrival or the status of a flight. In Tesla’s case, they can be used for instances where up-to-date information may be important, such as when Supercharging or when Sentry Mode is active.
Arrival State of Charge
A popular request among Tesla owners is the ability to set a desired battery charge percentage upon arriving at a destination. This past year, Tesla has added several features to the app’s Trip Planner, including waypoints. Although the app lets you choose a starting charge percentage, it does not let you pick the state of charge at your destination.
If you’re traveling somewhere without a nearby charger, this becomes an issue. It’d be nice if the Tesla app let users pick their desired state of charge at arrival, and the route planner would automatically recommend charging stops and durations to reach that target.
Not a Tesla App
Light Show Support
Tesla Lightshows are great, but they could be made even better with Tesla app support. At the very least, it’d be great to be able to start/schedule or stop a light show from the app.
To really make light shows shine, Tesla could add the ability to create a light show directly from the app. Right now creating a light show involves using the open-source app xLights on a computer, so a simplified version of it running in the app would make it accessible to a lot more users.
Perform a synchronized light show with multiple Tesla vehicles…and a new song 🎶
Similar to an in-vehicle preconditioning button for 3rd party chargers, the Tesla App should also have a button to precondition the battery. This will make it easy for users, especially those who don’t have home charging – to get their vehicles ready for DC Fast Charging before departing.
Garage Door Controls
Tesla owners with HomeLink can control their garage doors directly from the vehicle. However, the Tesla app currently only allows users to open the first programmed garage door and doesn’t give the user access to any of the other programmed doors. Adding the option to choose which garage door to open via the HomeLink button would be a valuable addition—especially useful when paired with Actually Smart Summon.
Drive Stats
While Tesla already records and displays charging sessions in the app’s Charge Stats section, it’d be really helpful if Tesla also added the ability to record drives. That way, you could easily track how much your vehicle was driven on a particular day, week, or over the course of the year.
If you have any other suggestions, let us know in our forums. Who knows, some Tesla product managers may even be listening.
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