How to increase your Tesla Safety Score

If you've opted-in to Tesla's assessment of your driving behavior, then you're likely trying to get access to Tesla's FSD Beta. In order to do that you'll need as high of a score as possible. The higher the score, the sooner you'll be granted access to the FSD Beta.

Tesla's very transparent about how your Safety Score is calculated. We'll share some information for each category Tesla is grading and also share some tips on how you can improve your score.

There are five categories that Tesla is actively measuring drivers against. It's important to be familiar with them, as not everything counts toward your Safety Score. Your performance in each category is measured to the median of Tesla's fleet.

Forward Collision Warnings (FCWs)

First, we have Forward Collision Warnings. This is the car giving you a warning that you're going at a high rate of speed relative to the distance you have to the object directly in front of you.

Tesla bases this off the ‘medium' setting in FCW. I'd recommend going to Autopilot > Forward Collision Warning and setting your personal alert level to ‘Early'. This way you'll be made aware of the potential collision before Tesla dings you for it.

There's not much to this one, except to keep your distance and slow down before you get too close to the vehicle or object in front of you.

Hard Braking

This is a tough one and the one I've struggled with the most. You'll want to very gradually slow down when coming to a stop. Quite a bit more than you'd likely think you need to. One harsh stop and you'll be dinged.

Tesla identifies hard braking as a backward acceleration greater than a g-force of 0.3. I personally love to take full advantage of the car's regenerative braking. So if I have a shorter distance to stop, I'll let my foot off the accelerator a little quicker to receive a higher level of regen, but doing so exceeds the 0.3g Tesla specifies and will set you back. Brake early and gradually to avoid any negative scores due to hard braking.

Aggressive Turning

Similar to harsh braking, Tesla is looking at the g-forces here when determining aggressive turning. If the lateral g-force exceeds 0.4g, then your score may be affected.

You'll want to make sure you're not going faster around turns. The tighter the turn, the slower you'll want to go.

Unsafe Following

This is the distance between you and the vehicle in front of you. It's similar to Forward Collision Warnings in that you'll want to make sure you leave enough room to stop between you and the vehicle in front of you, but Unsafe Following is only calculated when you're traveling above 50 MPH. An easy way to avoid penalties here is to use Autopilot with a follow distance greater than 3.

Forced Autopilot Disengagement

This is the act of using Autopilot and having it become disengaged because you didn't heed the warnings of applying pressure to the steering wheel. Not applying enough resistance on the steering wheel will not affect you here, neither will the car beeping. It is only considered a forced disengagement if the vehicle asks you to apply resistance three times and then disables Autopilot for the remainder of the trip.

Keep in mind that Autopilot will also be disabled if you exceed 90 MPH for vehicles with radar or 80 MPH for vision-only vehicles, while on Autopilot.

Tips

Although, I don't personally encourage this tip, as we want everyone to be fair, there is currently a way of having your drive not count toward your Safety Score. If you do a soft reset before you park your car, the drive will not be registered and will not count toward your overall Safety Score. This will likely be fixed in a future update.

Each driving category is weighted differently. So having Autopilot disabled isn't the same as having an instance of harsh braking.

Here is how much each category negatively affects your score, from the worst offender to the least.

• Forced Autopilot Disengagement
• Hard Braking
• Aggressive Turning
• Unsafe Following
• Forward Collision Warnings

Autopilot

While you're driving on Autopilot your score is not negatively affected, even if the car follows too closely or gets a FCW. Tesla simply ignores any bad driving if Autopilot is engaged. You may want to consider using Autopilot in more situations when you feel it's safe.

If you're using Autopilot on city streets, remember to disengage it with plenty of time before your turn so that you can slow down gradually before taking the turn.

Acceleration

Although acceleration or speeding do not negatively affect your score, it could result in sudden braking or Forward Collision Warnings, which would impact your Safety Score.

Other Metrics

Tesla collects a lot of information on how we use our cars. They use this information to improve features, roll out new ones and make their cars safer.

Although Tesla is showing us these five metrics that they're using to assess your Safety Score, Tesla could potentially use more information than just your Safety Score when choosing the next batch of beta testers. They're probably not looking for individuals who are driving 200 miles a day, or those that are rarely driving. You'll probably want to be in a sweet spot where you drive most days, but aren't taking long trips.

Tesla may also use information that is out of your control such as your geographical region or how long you've had your car.

Use Other Cars

If you're already driving your Tesla most days, don't take the chance of ruining a good score. If you're in a rush or already drove your Tesla today, consider taking a spouse's car when possible.

Save your Tesla for driving on familiar roads, roads where you know when a sharp turn may be coming up or where stop signs are. Use your Tesla when you have the extra time to take it slow and really focus on the road.

Lastly, be safe. We all want a high Safety Score, but at the end of the day we all need to come home in one piece.

If you're looking to figure out how many miles you'll need to drive to reach a specific score, such as 99, I strongly recommend using our Safety Score Calculator that will give you exactly that answer. After adding your data, you can choose a target score and know exactly how much more you'll need to drive to achieve your goal.

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Tesla’s Optimus Robot Learns to Walk Without Vision [VIDEO]

Optimus Falls - but catches itself!

Not a Tesla App

Tesla recently showed off a demo of Optimus, its humanoid robot, walking around in moderately challenging terrain—not on a flat surface but on dirt and slopes. These things can be difficult for a humanoid robot, especially during the training cycle.

Daily walks help clear your mind pic.twitter.com/dUsW58trS6

— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) December 9, 2024

A Look Behind the Curtain

Most interestingly, Milan Kovac, VP of Engineering for Optimus, clarified what it takes to get Optimus to this stage. Let’s break down what he said.

Optimus is Blind

Optimus is getting seriously good at walking now - it can keep its balance over uneven ground - even while walking blind. Tesla is currently using just the sensors, all powered by a neural net running on the embedded computer. 

Essentially, Tesla is building Optimus from the ground up, relying on as much additional data as possible while it trains vision. This is similar to how they train FSD on vehicles, using LiDAR rigs to validate the vision system’s accuracy. While Optimus doesn’t have LiDAR, it relies on all those other sensors on board, many of which will likely become simplified as vision takes over as the primary sensor.

Today, Optimus is walking blind, but it’s able to react almost instantly to changes in the terrain underneath it, even if it falls or slips. 

What’s Next?

Next up, Tesla AI will be adding vision to Optimus - helping complete the neural net. Remember, Optimus runs on the same overall AI stack as FSD - in fact, Optimus uses an FSD computer and an offshoot of the FSD stack for vision-based tasks.

Milan mentions they’re planning on adding vision to help the robot plan ahead and improve its walking gait. While the zombie shuffle is iconic and a little bit amusing, getting humanoid robots to walk like humans is actually difficult.

There’s plenty more, too - including better responsiveness to velocity and direction commands and learning to fall and stand back up. Falling while protecting yourself to minimize damage is something natural to humans - but not exactly natural to something like a robot. Training it to do so is essential in keeping the robot, the environment around it, and the people it is interacting with safe.

We’re excited to see what’s coming with Optimus next because it is already getting started in some fashion in Tesla’s factories.

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Is Tesla Close to Licensing FSD? GM Quits Cruise, BMW Praises Tesla

Not a Tesla App

In a relatively surprising move, GM announced that it is realigning its autonomy strategy and prioritizing advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) over fully autonomous vehicles.

GM is effectively closing Cruise (autonomous) and focusing on its Super Cruise (ADAS) feature. The engineering teams at Cruise will join the GM teams working on Super Cruise, effectively shuttering the fully autonomous vehicle business.

End of Cruise

GM cites that “an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” and “considerable time and resources” are required for scaling the business to a profitable level. Essentially - they’re unable to keep up with competitors at current funding and research levels, putting them further and further behind.

Cruise has been offering driverless rides in several cities, using HD mapping of cities alongside vehicles equipped with a dazzling array of over 40 sensors. That means that each cruise vehicle is essentially a massive investment and does not turn a profit while collecting data to work towards Autonomy.

Cruise has definitely been on the back burner for a while, and a quick glance at their website - since it's still up for now - shows the last time they officially released any sort of major news packet was back in 2019. 

Competition is Killer

Their current direct competitor - Waymo, is funded by Google, which maintains a direct interest in ensuring they have a play in the AI and autonomy space.

Interestingly, this news comes just a month after Tesla’s We, Robot event, where they showed off the Cybercab and the Robotaxi network, as well as plans to begin deployment of the network and Unsupervised FSD sometime in 2025. Tesla is already in talks with some cities in California and Texas to launch Robotaxi in 2025.

GM Admits Tesla Has the Right Strategy

As part of the business call following the announcement, GM admitted that Tesla’s end-to-end and Vision-based approach towards autonomy is the right strategy. While they say Cruise started down that path, they’re putting aside their goals towards fully autonomous vehicles for now and focusing on introducing that tech in Super Cruise instead.

NEWS: GM just admitted that @Tesla’s end-to-end approach to autonomy is the right strategy.

“That’s where the industry is pivoting. Cruise had already started making headway down that path. We are moving to a foundation model and end-to-end approach going forward.” pic.twitter.com/ACs5SFKUc3

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 10, 2024

With GM now focusing on Super Cruise, they’ll put aside autonomy and instead focus solely on ADAS features to relieve driver stress and improve safety. While those are positive goals that will benefit all road users, full autonomy is really the key to removing the massive impact that vehicle accidents have on society today.

In addition, Super Cruise is extremely limited, cannot brake for traffic controls, and doesn’t work in adverse conditions - even rain. It can only function when lane markings are clear, there are no construction zones, and there is a functional web connection. 

The final key to the picture is that the vehicle has to be on an HD-mapped and compatible highway - essentially locking Super Cruise to wherever GM has time to spend mapping, rather than being functional anywhere in a general sense, like FSD or Autopilot.

Others Impressed - Licensing FSD

Interestingly, some other manufacturers have also weighed into the demise of Cruise. BMW, in a now-deleted post, said that a demo of Tesla’s FSD is “very impressive.” There’s a distinct chance that BMW and other manufacturers are looking to see what Tesla does next. 

BMW chimes in on a now-deleted post. The Internet is forever, BMW!

Not a Tesla App

It seems that FSD has caught their eyes after We, Robot - and that the demonstrations of FSD V13.2 online seem to be the pivot point. At the 2024 Shareholder Meeting earlier in the year, Elon shared the fact that several manufacturers had reached out, looking to understand what was required to license FSD from Tesla.

There is a good chance 2025 will be the year we’ll see announcements of the adoption of FSD by legacy manufacturers - similar to how we saw the surprise announcements of the adoption of the NACS charging standard.

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