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Tesla rolls out latest Safety Score update—Here’s what’s new
Tesla’s latest Safety Score update drops one highly criticized factor, while adding weight to pieces like speeding, follow distance, and more.
Tesla has officially started rolling out a new version of its insurance program’s Safety Scores beta, improving upon a few different metrics that make up the index.
As detailed on the Tesla Insurance web page, the company has updated its Safety Scores to beta version 2.2 from the previous version 2.1. The update primarily includes improvements to how Excessive Speeding is measured, along with the removal of Forward Collision Warnings (FCW) from the formula.
In addition, Tesla has slightly increased the values of related factors such as Hard Braking and Unsafe Following Time in the v2.2 formula, perhaps in an attempt to help accommodate some of the situations previously covered by the FCW rating.
READ MORE ON TESLA INSURANCE: Tesla launches insurance discount for FSD users in these two states
Tesla’s Safety Scores are used to determine premium rates for buyers of the company’s in-house insurance program, except in California, where privacy laws prohibit the use of real-time driving data to determine premiums. The company also says that its latest formula for Safety Scores were generated using over 22 billion miles of fleet data from its cars, while the company plans to continue improving the formula as more data comes in.
At this time, Tesla Insurance is available in the following 12 states, though Safety Scores aren’t available in California for the aforementioned reason:
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Illinois
- Maryland
- Minnesota
- Nevada
- Ohio
- Oregon
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
You can see the factors that make up Tesla’s Insurance Safety Scores below or on its website here, along with the specific formula that makes up a drivers’ 0 to 100 Safety Score.
Hard Braking
Credit: Tesla
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 Beta formula as the proportion of time where the vehicle experiences backward acceleration greater than 0.3g as a percentage of the proportion of time 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 Beta formula. For vehicles with Autopilot computer 3.0 or greater, braking while the vehicle detects yellow traffic lights is also not factored into the Safety Score Beta formula. If the vehicle is unable to detect a yellow traffic light at the time of the hard braking, the event will impact your Safety Score. The percentage shown in the app is the proportion of time spent braking done with excessive force when driving and Autopilot is not engaged. The value is capped at 5.2 percent in the Safety Score Beta formula.
Aggressive Turning
Credit: Tesla
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 Beta formula as the proportion of time the vehicle experiences left or right acceleration greater than 0.4g as a percentage of the proportion of time 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 Beta formula. The percentage shown in the Tesla app is the proportion of time spent turning with excessive force when driving and Autopilot is not engaged. The value is capped at 13.2 percent in the Safety Score Beta formula.
Unsafe Following
Credit: Tesla
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 Beta formula as a percentage. Unsafe following while on Autopilot is not factored into the Safety Score Beta formula. The percentage shown in the Tesla app is the percentage of unsafe following when driving and Autopilot is not engaged. The value is capped at 63.2 percent in the Safety Score Beta formula.
Excessive Speeding
Credit: Tesla
Excessive Speeding is defined as the proportion of time spent driving in excess of 85 mph or driving 20% faster than the vehicle in front of you, when that vehicle is going over 25 mph and is within 100 meters of your vehicle. This value is expressed as a percentage of total driving time and is capped at 10.0% in the Safety Score Beta formula. Speeding while on Autopilot is not factored into the Safety Score Beta formula.
Late-Night Driving
Credit: Tesla
Late-Night Driving is defined as the number of seconds you spend driving at night (11 PM – 4 AM) divided by the number of seconds you spend driving total during the day and night. Due to the variable risk level associated with driving during each late-night hour, each hour is weighed differently, and driving at each hour will affect your Safety Score differently. For example, driving at 11 PM will not affect your Safety Score as heavily as driving at 2 AM. Drive sessions that span two days will apply to the day the trip ends. Late-Night Driving includes all driving at night (11 PM – 4 AM) including any driving done on Autopilot. The value is capped at 14.2 percent in the Safety Score Beta formula.
Forced Autopilot Disengagement
Credit: Tesla
The Autopilot system disengages for the remainder of a trip after the driver has received three audio and visual warnings. These warnings occur when your Tesla vehicle has determined that the driver has not applied sufficient resistance to the steering wheel or has become inattentive. Forced Autopilot Disengagement is introduced into the Safety Score Beta formula as a 1 or 0 indicator. The value is 1 if the Autopilot system is forcibly disengaged during a trip, and 0 otherwise.
Unbuckled Driving
Credit: Tesla
Unbuckled Driving is defined as the proportion of time spent driving above 10 mph without fastening the driver’s seatbelt in a Tesla vehicle, as a percentage of time spent driving above 10 mph. The value shown in the Tesla app is the proportion of time driven at a speed over 10 mph, without buckling the driver’s seatbelt, as a percentage of time spent driving over 10 mph. The value is capped at 31.7 percent in the Safety Score Beta formula.
Tesla’s formula for Safety Score beta v2.2
Tesla takes the formula pictured below, dubbed its Predicted Collision Frequency (PCF), and converts it into the 0 to 100 version 2.2 Safety Score it assigns based on driver behavior. The 2.1 Safety Score formula can also be seen on the Tesla Insurance page, though the below formula is for the newly launched version 2.2.
Credit: Tesla
Tesla is being sued by the family of the woman who was killed in a Texas crash involving a Model 3. The driver, who is also being sued, claimed the vehicle was operating on Autopilot mode, but Tesla executives have come out challenging that claim, stating that the driver of the vehicle overrode the system.
The lawsuit was filed by 76-year-old Martha Avila’s daughter and her husband, who allege a “design defect” involving a Tesla and a failure to warn. The suit alleges negligence against Tesla and the driver, Michael Butler.
Butler “stated he was operating with an automated driving assistance system engaged at the time of the crash,” the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. He showed no signs of intoxication and was cooperative, the Sheriff’s Office said, according to NBC News.
Just after reports of the crash and numerous headlines that immediately blamed Tesla’s Autopilot suite, both Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Head of AI Ashok Elluswamy challenged that. Musk said the crash made “no sense” given that Tesla Autopilot and Full Self-Driving do not travel at the speeds the door cameras captured the car traveling at, which Tesla says was 73 MPH.
Tesla finally clarifies fatal Texas crash, confirms driver manually overrode acceleration
Elluswamy also revealed that Tesla data showed Butler overrode the system by pressing the accelerator to 100%, and that the pedal was compressed fully even after the car had crashed. Tesla has not released this data to the public, likely because it is communicating with agencies like the NHTSA on an investigation.
The suit uses a Washington Post analysis of government data that “identified at least 17 fatal incidents linked to Tesla Autopilot.”
This is far from the first time an accident has been blamed on Autopilot. A fatal crash in Texas was blamed on Autopilot several years ago, but when Tesla released data to the NTSB, which was investigating the crash, Autopilot was not available where the crash occurred, and Autosteer was never enabled, meaning the car was manually controlled at the time of the accident.
“Application of the accelerator pedal was found to be as high as 98.8 percent,” the NTSB said in their findings. The highest recorded speed in the five seconds leading up to the impact was 67 miles per hour. The area where the crash occurred is residential, and Texas State laws… pic.twitter.com/XGD97NHVZ2
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 18, 2026
More information on the accident will be released as Tesla works with agencies to find the cause of the crash. From personal experience, it is hard to imagine Tesla Autopilot or FSD operating in this manner. It drives sometimes too cautiously in residential areas in parking lots, at least in my experience. Speeding happens, but at this rate in this type of area, it is hard to believe.
We look forward to more details being released with time.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has awarded the 2025-2026 Tesla Cybertruck crew cab pickup its highest honor: Top Safety Pick+. This marks the Cybertruck as the only full-size pickup to achieve this distinction in recent evaluations.
The award applies specifically to vehicles built after April 2025, following structural upgrades including front underbody reinforcements and footwell modifications.
These changes enabled strong performance in updated crash tests. The Cybertruck earned “Good” ratings in the small overlap front (driver and passenger sides), updated moderate overlap front, and updated side tests—core requirements for the Top Safety Pick+ designation.
It also secured acceptable or good headlights across trims and a “Good” rating for its standard front crash prevention system in pedestrian scenarios, along with acceptable or good performance in vehicle-to-vehicle testing.
The Cybertruck avoided every single pedestrian collision, including:
- Daytime child crossing
- Nightitime adult crossing
- Night parallel adult
In IIHS pedestrian front crash prevention tests, @Cybertruck avoided every single collision – daytime, nighttime & different angles
It was also the only pickup to earn Top Safety Pick+ (highest award) in 2026https://t.co/BNPqT9TbsW pic.twitter.com/M6nwDisBFK
— Tesla (@Tesla) June 24, 2026
In the large pickup category, competitors such as the Toyota Tundra received only a standard Top Safety Pick, while the Ford F-150 and Ram 1500 did not qualify for either award. This positions the Cybertruck as a standout in occupant protection and crash avoidance among its peers.
Credit: IIHS
Ironically, the same vehicle celebrated for superior U.S. safety performance remains banned from public roads in the United Kingdom and much of Europe. Regulators there cite the Cybertruck’s sharp external edges and highly rigid stainless-steel construction as failing pedestrian-protection standards. European and UK rules require rounded surfaces on protruding parts to minimize injury risk in collisions with vulnerable road users.
Critics also point to the truck’s substantial weight and unyielding body structure, which some argue could transfer more force to other vehicles or pedestrians rather than absorbing it.
Tesla’s engineering philosophy underpins the Cybertruck’s strong IIHS results. The vehicle features a distinctive stainless-steel exoskeleton made from ultra-hard 30X cold-rolled stainless steel. This provides exceptional structural rigidity and a robust safety cage that resists deformation in side impacts and rollovers.
Engineers designed integrated load paths to channel crash forces away from the occupant compartment while allowing controlled energy absorption in key zones. Post-April 2025 refinements to the front underbody further optimized performance in overlap crashes.
Complementing the passive structure is Tesla’s advanced active safety suite, including the standard Collision Avoidance Assist system with automatic emergency braking. This contributed directly to the vehicle’s strong front crash prevention scores. The skateboard platform and low center of gravity also enhance stability and handling, reducing the likelihood of certain crashes.
The IIHS recognition highlights how Tesla’s combination of high-strength materials, structural innovation, and software-driven safety systems can deliver top-tier protection in rigorous testing. While global regulatory differences on design and pedestrian interaction continue to limit the Cybertruck’s availability outside North America, its U.S. safety credentials set a new benchmark for full-size pickups.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s newest Starmind will make earth data centers obsolete
Elon Musk confirmed Starmind as SpaceX’s AI satellite constellation name, targeting one million orbital compute nodes.
Elon Musk confirmed that Starmind will be the official name of SpaceX’s planned AI satellite constellation, following a trademark filing by xAI that surfaced earlier this week. Starmind is what’s being described to the FCC as a constellation of up to one million AI satellites
It’s worth noting that SpaceX’s Starlink communication satellite and Starmind are built on the same orbital infrastructure concept but serve entirely different purposes. Starlink is a connectivity network, with satellites receiving and relaying data between points on Earth, and functioning as a high-speed internet backbone in space. The satellites themselves do not process or think, and move information from one place to another, the same function a fiber cable performs underground.
SpaceX just forced Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to team up for the first time in history
Starmind, on the other hand, is something completely different, and tather than moving data, its satellites would compute data through artificial intelligence and directly in orbit using onboard processors powered by large solar arrays. Where a Starlink satellite is essentially a very fast pipe, a Starmind satellite is a server. The practical implication is that Starmind would allow AI models to run inference, process queries, and generate outputs from space, then beam results down to users anywhere on Earth within milliseconds, and without the data ever needing to travel to a terrestrial data center.
Starship will be able to carry 30 to 50 AI1 satellites per launch, delivering the equivalent of dozens of server racks per flight, with no land acquisition, no power grid approval, and no cooling infrastructure required on the ground.
SpaceX is pursuing this new technology as terrestrial data centers are running into hard limits such as lack of physical space, community opposition, and power and water consumption at a scale that is increasingly difficult to permit. Space has unlimited solar power, natural vacuum cooling, and no zoning boards. Musk said in a June 8 video presentation that he expects space to become the lowest-cost location to deploy AI compute within two to three years. Two AI1 prototypes are scheduled to launch in early 2027, with volume production targeted for the end of that year at a new facility called Gigasat.
The real world applications Starmind enables extend well beyond powering Grok. A constellation of orbiting AI processors could run inference workloads for any paying customer, anywhere on Earth, with latency measured in milliseconds rather than the seconds associated with ground-based cloud routing across continents. Starmind, if it scales as described, would make SpaceX the landlord of AI compute the same way Starlink made it the landlord of satellite internet.
Tesla and driver sued by family of woman killed in Texas crash: what we know
Tesla Cybertruck is officially the safest pickup, IIHS says
