Tesla Safety Score Update 2.0: Late Night Driving Less of a Penalty Plus Two New Categories

Tesla Safety Score: Late Night Driving Less of a Penalty

Tesla has updated its safety score information. There have been a number of Twitter users, including me, complaining about late night driving killing the safety score. Just 10 minutes of driving after 10 PM would bring your score down from a 99 to a 59. That's totally unreasonable.

Tesla seems to have listened and made an update to their safety score algorithm. Late night driving is now penalized differently. Here is how late night driving was modified.

It is now risk weighted based on when you are driving from 10 PM to 4 PM. The impact of late night driving on your safety score will depend on the amount of time spent driving between 10 PM and 4 AM.

The safety score is less impacted the closer your driving time is to 10 PM, and more impacted the closer your score is to 4 AM.

There was also an adjustment made to the hard braking safety score factor, where braking events occurring when a vehicle detects a yellow light are now no longer penalized.

It appears these changes will lead to a better safety score, as the two new categories will be very easy to always pass. That and having late night driving less weighted toward 10 PM should help my Tesla Insurance premium decrease.

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Two More Categories in the Safety Score

Tesla added two additional categories to the safety score. They are:

Excessive Speeding:

Any time spent driving over 85 mph will lead to a lower safety score.

Unbuckled Driving:

Any time spent unbuckled while driving over 10 mph will lead to a lower safety score. This is for the driver's side seat belt only.

These features are apparently only available on vehicles that have certain infotainment hardware. What this hardware is, I'm not sure, but we'll see if my 2022 Model 3 RWD gets it. If it does, we know that at least hardware 3.0 can get it.

Here's a summary of the safety scores now and how to avoid getting dinged in them:

* Forward collision warnings (per 1,000 non-Autopilot miles). To avoid this one, simply follow from a long distance from vehicles in front of you and avoid turning near other cars and objects. When parking, go into the parking place slowly.

* Hard Braking (in excess of 0.3g - not much for honestly, I get dinged here even when lightly pressing the brake). To avoid this one, use regenerative braking whenever possible and keep a far distance from vehicles in front of you.

* Aggressive Turning (Turning the steering wheel in excess of 0.4g - I get dinged for this one too if I forget to be gentle with my steering wheel). To avoid this one, always turn the steering wheel slowly and gently.

* Unsafe Following (I seem to always have a high value here, even when using Autopilot). To avoid this one, keep a far distance from vehicles in front of you.

* Excessive Speeding (This one will be easy to follow). To avoid this, simply never go above 85 mph.

* Late Night Driving (Driving between 10PM and 4AM, which is required if you are ever going to go out and have a social life). To avoid this one, don't have a social life or any commitments that require late night driving...

* Forced Autopilot Disengagement (The Tesla forces you out of Autopilot after the blinking indicator has gone off 3 times). This one is easy to avoid - just pay attention and interact with the steering wheel.

* Unbuckled Driving (Time spent over 10 mph unbuckled on the driver side). To avoid this one, it's easy. Buckle your seat belt when driving.

Hopefully these scores improve my average safety score. Right now, it's a low of 95 and high of 97 and that requires careful driving because I get dinged for late night driving a few times a month, sometimes more if I'm going out a lot.

What do you think of these safety score changes? Are they good or bad?

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Jeremy Johnson is a Tesla investor and supporter. He first invested in Tesla in 2017 after years of following Elon Musk and admiring his work ethic and intelligence. Since then, he's become a Tesla bull, covering anything about Tesla he can find, while also dabbling in other electric vehicle companies. Jeremy covers Tesla developments at Torque News. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow his Tesla news coverage on Torque News.

Image Credit, Tesla, Screenshot