News
Tesla’s Safety Score system will be key to in-house insurance’s affordability
Tesla’s Safety Score system may still be in its early stages, but it seems to be a key part of some of the company’s upcoming products. This is particularly true for the Safety Score system, which was recently launched ahead of FSD Beta’s expansion. As observed by Tesla owners who signed up for the company’s in-house insurance in Texas, their rates would be directly tied to their respective Safety Scores.
This is something that would be expected as Tesla expands its in-house insurance service to other states, and perhaps even abroad. As mentioned by CFO Zachary Kirkhorn during the recently-held Q3 2021 earnings call, insurance costs are generally not the fairest thing in the market, with low-risk owners typically overpaying on their rates to subsidize drivers who were riskier on the road. Kirkhorn explained that the car insurance market, in its current state, uses limited data. Fortunately, data just happens to be one of Tesla’s biggest strengths.
“We entered the insurance market kind of unintentionally, I would say. Our customers were coming to us, complaining that the price of traditional insurance was too high and it was reducing the affordability of a Tesla… As we started to do more research, essentially, the tools by which the insurance is traditionally calculated are optimized based upon the existing data, but the existing data is limited. So there’s a focus on things like marital status or age or other attributes like that. Accident history is a good one, etc.
“But what essentially happens here is customers who are low risk and don’t actually file many claims end up overpaying on their insurance relative to their cost. That overpayment then goes to riskier customers who are essentially being subsidized. And, you know, as we looked at this and we looked at the data, we thought this just doesn’t seem like it’s fair. At Tesla, because our cars are connected, because they are essentially computers on wheels, there’s enormous amounts of data that we have available to us to be able to assess the attributes of a driver who’s operating that car and whether those attributes correlate with safety because we do get a signal when a car has been in an accident,” the CFO remarked.
Tesla then proceeded to analyze literally billions of miles of driving history from its fleet, and from this study came a model that was able to predict with decent accuracy the probability of collisions over time. But this was just the beginning. Tesla has learned and is continuing to learn a lot more about its fleet, particularly as the company rolled out its Safety Score system and the FSD Beta Enrollment Program.
“We have almost 150,000 cars currently using a safety score. And I believe the latest data is over 100 million miles of driving. So we’ve been able to go back and analyze that data. And we’ve learned two things coming from that. The first is that the probability of collision for a customer using a safety score versus not is 30% lower. It’s a pretty big difference. It means that the product is working and customers are responding to it. The second thing that we’ve looked at is what is the probability of collision based upon actual data as a function of a driver safety score.
“And that is aligning with our models. Most notably, if you’re in the top tier of safety compared to lower tiers, there’s multiple X difference in probability of collision based upon actual data. So this is a very new and very exciting frontier for us. I know that was long-winded, but I — we spent a lot of time on this and we put a lot of thought into it… So we’re very excited about it. We’re excited about individual risk-based pricing. We’re excited about the ability for folks to become safer and, as a result, save money. And it feeds into our priority of a company — of building the safest products in the world,” Kirkhorn concluded.
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Cybertruck
Tesla’s new Cybertruck has delivery date pushed back once again
According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:
Tesla’s new Cybertruck offering has had its delivery date pushed back once again. This is now the second time, and deliveries for the newest orders are now pushed well into 2027.
According to Tesla’s Online Design Studio, the new All-Wheel-Drive Cybertruck will now be delivered in April 2027. Earlier orders are still slated for early this Summer, but orders from here on forward are now officially pushed into next year:
🚨 Tesla has updated the $59,990 Cybertruck Dual Motor AWD’s estimated delivery date to April 2027.
First deliveries are still slated for June, but if you order it now, you’ll be waiting over a year.
Demand appears to be off the charts for the new Cybertruck and consumers are… pic.twitter.com/raDCCeC0zP
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) February 26, 2026
Just three days ago, the initial delivery date of June 2026 was pushed back to early Fall, and now, that date has officially moved to April 2027.
The fact that Tesla has had to push back deliveries once again proves one of two things: either Tesla has slow production plans for the new Cybertruck trim, or demand is off the charts.
Judging by how Tesla is already planning to raise the price based on demand in just a few days, it seems like the company knows it is giving a tremendous deal on this spec of Cybertruck, and units are moving quickly.
That points more toward demand and not necessarily to slower production plans, but it is not confirmed.
Tesla Cybertruck’s newest trim will undergo massive change in ten days, Musk says
Tesla is set to hike the price on March 1, so tomorrow will be the final day to grab the new Cybertruck trim for just $59,990.
It features:
- Dual Motor AWD w/ est. 325 mi of range
- Powered tonneau cover
- Bed outlets (2x 120V + 1x 240V) & Powershare capability
- Coil springs w/ adaptive damping
- Heated first-row seats w/ textile material that is easy to clean
- Steer-by-wire & Four Wheel Steering
- 6’ x 4’ composite bed
- Towing capacity of up to 7,500 lbs
- Powered frunk
Interestingly, the price offering is fairly close to what Tesla unveiled back in late 2019.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk outlines plan for first Starship tower catch attempt
Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.
Elon Musk has clarified when SpaceX will first attempt to catch Starship’s upper stage with its launch tower. The CEO’s update provides the clearest teaser yet for the spacecraft’s recovery roadmap.
Musk shared the details in recent posts on X. In his initial post, Musk confirmed that Starship V3 Ship 1 (SN1) is headed for ground tests and expressed strong confidence in the updated vehicle design.
“Starship V3 SN1 headed for ground tests. I am highly confident that the V3 design will achieve full reusability,” Musk wrote.
In a follow-up post, Musk addressed when SpaceX would attempt to catch the upper stage using the launch tower’s robotic arms.
“Should note that SpaceX will only try to catch the ship with the tower after two perfect soft landings in the ocean. The risk of the ship breaking up over land needs to be very low,” Musk clarified.
His remarks suggest that SpaceX is deliberately reducing risk before attempting a tower catch of Starship’s upper stage. Such a milestone would mark a major step towards the full reuse of the Starship system.
SpaceX is currently targeting the first Starship V3 flight of 2026 this coming March. The spacecraft’s V3 iteration is widely viewed as a key milestone in SpaceX’s long-term strategy to make Starship fully reusable.
Starship V3 features a number of key upgrades over its previous iterations. The vehicle is equipped with SpaceX’s Raptor V3 engines, which are designed to deliver significantly higher thrust than earlier versions while reducing cost and weight.
The V3 design is also expected to be optimized for manufacturability, a critical step if SpaceX intends to scale the spacecraft’s production toward frequent launches for Starlink, lunar missions, and eventually Mars.
News
Tesla FSD (Supervised) could be approved in the Netherlands next month: Musk
Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared that Full Self-Driving (FSD) could receive regulatory approval in the Netherlands as soon as March 20, potentially marking a major step forward for Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance rollout in Europe.
Musk shared the update during a recent interview at Giga Berlin, noting that the date was provided by local authorities.
“Tesla has the most advanced real-world AI, and hopefully, it will be approved soon in Europe. We’re told by the authorities that March 20th, it’ll be approved in the Netherlands,’ what I was told,” Musk stated.
“Hopefully, that date remains the same. But I think people in Europe are going to be pretty blown away by how good the Tesla car AI is in being able to drive.”
Tesla’s FSD system relies on vision-based neural networks trained on real-world driving data, allowing vehicles to navigate using cameras and AI rather than traditional sensor-heavy solutions.
The performance of FSD Supervised has so far been impressive. As per Tesla’s safety report, Full Self-Driving Supervised has already traveled 8.3 billion miles. So far, vehicles operating with FSD Supervised engaged recorded one major collision every 5,300,676 miles.
In comparison, Teslas driven manually with Active Safety systems recorded one major collision every 2,175,763 miles, while Teslas driven manually without Active Safety recorded one major collision every 855,132 miles. The U.S. average during the same period was one major collision every 660,164 miles.
If approval is granted on March 20, the Netherlands could become the first European market to greenlight Tesla’s latest supervised FSD (Supervised) software under updated regulatory frameworks. Tesla has been working to secure expanded FSD access across Europe, where regulatory standards differ significantly from those in the United States. Approval in the Netherlands would likely serve as a foundation for broader EU adoption, though additional country-level clearances may still be required.
Tesla’s new Cybertruck has delivery date pushed back once again
Elon Musk outlines plan for first Starship tower catch attempt
