95% of my drives, Safety Score reports "Hard Braking".

[LightFoot]

On almost all of these drives, only regen braking & none by me. Can't recall any actual hard brake instances. I can't get my score above 90 because of this.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Do you drive down steep hills?

 

[EVRider-FL]

I‘m also getting dinged for hard braking and some aggressive turning, but I don’t think I’m doing either. I’ve been driving on windy roads so maybe that’s why the car thinks I’m turning aggressively, but I really don’t get the hard braking. My 2018 S doesn’t have the automatic brake hold feature, so I do have to press the brake pedal to enable hold, but I’m barely moving when I do that.

 

[LightFoot]

Do you drive down steep hills?

My driveway is really steep, but I'm not on autopilot then. Otherwise some mild rolling hills.

 

[mchas]

Even regen braking is enough to trigger it. Don’t let your foot all the way off the pedal quickly. You need to slowly lift your foot as the regen happens. Took me a bit to figure that one out.

 

[EVRider-FL]

My driveway is really steep, but I'm not on autopilot then. Otherwise some mild rolling hills.

It’s only when you’re not using AP that you get penalized for hard braking (or anything else). Anything that happens while using AP is not supposed to impact your score, according to Tesla.

 

[srs5694]

It’s only when you’re not using AP that you get penalized for hard braking (or anything else). Anything that happens while using AP is not supposed to impact your score, according to Tesla.

...Except, of course, for forced Autopilot disengagements -- when the car disengages Autopilot because you're not applying torque to the steering wheel. (It doesn't ding you when the first alert to apply force appears, just when it starts beeping madly and actually disengages Autopilot. I've never had this happen myself, so I'm not really clear on exactly what happens.)

To the main question, my guess is that the steep driveway is what's causing you problems. If the driveway is steep enough, you're likely to get dinged when braking going downhill. I'm pretty sure that's happened to me once or twice. My own driveway is sloped, but it's not all that steep. Try entering (or departing, depending on which way it's sloped -- slowing on downhill motion is the "gotcha") as slowly as possible, and brake as lightly as possible when doing so.

 

[LightFoot]

It’s only when you’re not using AP that you get penalized for hard braking (or anything else). Anything that happens while using AP is not supposed to impact your score, according to Tesla.

I was clueless about this, think it was only looking at AP sessions. Makes sense, though, if Tesla Insurance is going to use this info, then they want to observe all driving.

 

[LightFoot]

...Except, of course, for forced Autopilot disengagements -- when the car disengages Autopilot because you're not applying torque to the steering wheel. (It doesn't ding you when the first alert to apply force appears, just when it starts beeping madly and actually disengages Autopilot. I've never had this happen myself, so I'm not really clear on exactly what happens.)

To the main question, my guess is that the steep driveway is what's causing you problems. If the driveway is steep enough, you're likely to get dinged when braking going downhill. I'm pretty sure that's happened to me once or twice. My own driveway is sloped, but it's not all that steep. Try entering (or departing, depending on which way it's sloped -- slowing on downhill motion is the "gotcha") as slowly as possible, and brake as lightly as possible when doing so.

Thanks. This will be my focus for the week.

 

[VT_EE]

I get “hard braking” every time I have a light turn yellow while driving at the speed limit and attempt to stop. It’s infuriating. Total BS

 

[Daniellane]

Seems like it assumes it’s safer to run stale yellow and red lights than stopping…
Also seems as if it would prefer you to cut people off, rather than get closer to the car you’ll be following as you change lanes.
Who knew those were safe driving practices. If Tesla ever delves into health insurance perhaps they’ll have a discount for smokers.

 

[JulienW]

On almost all of these drives, only regen braking & none by me. Can't recall any actual hard brake instances. I can't get my score above 90 because of this.

Take a long trip on the Interstate and use AP all the way. You will rack up the 100% miles and rase your score with no chance of being dinged.

 

[Daniellane]

Take a long trip on the Interstate and use AP all the way. You will rack up the 100% miles and rase your score with no chance of being dinged.

Taking a 2-day 1,100 road trip on Saturday

 

[srs5694]

Seems like it assumes it’s safer to run stale yellow and red lights than stopping…
Also seems as if it would prefer you to cut people off, rather than get closer to the car you’ll be following as you change lanes.
Who knew those were safe driving practices. If Tesla ever delves into health insurance perhaps they’ll have a discount for smokers.

It's about statistics, not individual events. Take two drivers:

1. The first driver, in general, begins slowing well before stop lights, construction zones, etc., thus giving following drivers ample warning of a stop and reducing the odds that a miscalculation will result in an accident. On one or two occasions in a specific drive, though, this driver is forced to slow or stop hard for whatever reason.
2. The second driver is impatient or inattentive and so, on approaching a red light or other situation requiring a stop or reduction in speed, leaves braking to the last moment, braking hard to slow enough to avoid a collision. This practice, however, increases the odds of an accident.[1][2]

Although Driver #1's Safety Score will get a "ding," and therefore be under 100, for a drive on which a single hard-braking event occurs, Driver #2 will have multiple such "dings" applied, and so will have a lower Safety Score. Thus, statistically, the Safety Score will differentiate between these two driving styles and correctly categorize the two drivers, all other things being equal. (Of course, the Safety Score looks at several other factors in addition to braking, and those factors might not be equal.) Of course, there's a certain amount of chance in this, too -- if Driver #1 brakes hard to avoid hitting a dog that dashes out into traffic, then that will be an "unfair" ding -- but in this scenario, Driver #1 will still have a better Safety Score than Driver #2, even if Driver #1 might be penalized compared to Driver #1a, who drives just like Driver #1 but who didn't encounter the dog. There are also people who may be routinely "dinged" because of, say, the need to regularly brake hard when coming to the bottom of a steep hill in their neighborhood. From Tesla's point of view, though, that's all just statistical noise, and the point of the Safety Score is to help Tesla manage entry into a beta-test program. Much as so many people here are thinking of the Safety Score as a commentary on them personally or as a gatekeeper on their getting something they've already paid for, that's not it at all. The current FSD is VERY beta-test software. I've written this on these forums many times before, but the current FSD beta is NOT what we paid for. It is NOT worth the current (the last I checked) $10,000 price tag, or even the $5,000 that I paid for it in 2019, or even $1. In its current state, the FSD-on-city-streets feature is GARBAGE. The only reason it's worth using today is to provide feedback to Tesla so that it can be improved. In its current state, it's downright dangerous! Sooner or later, it will cause accidents. I strongly recommend that people curb their enthusiasm for entry into the lottery that will result in somebody wrecking their Tesla. I have the FSD beta, and I have used it; but after the first few drives, I've become very wary about using it at all. I do so only in very easy driving situations, and I dial up my alertness level to 11 when driving with this feature. (Note that I said that I am driving in this situation.)

All that said, I do agree that the Safety Score is imperfect, and in a big way. I wouldn't want my insurance rates to be set based on the Safety Score as it exists now. As a gatekeeper to help Tesla manage the expansion of its BETA-TEST PROGRAM, though, I'm OK with it, warts and all. Developing a better system would have required considerable R&D work, which would have cost Tesla more money than it'd be worth and/or would have delayed the rollout of the current wide beta program.

[1]Correlating Hard-Braking Activity with Crash Occurrences on Interstate Construction Projects in Indiana - Journal of Big Data Analytics in Transportation
[2]Harsh braking and acceleration - Why monitor?

 

[hellocar]

All that said, I do agree that the Safety Score is imperfect, and in a big way. I wouldn't want my insurance rates to be set based on the Safety Score as it exists now. As a gatekeeper to help Tesla manage the expansion of its BETA-TEST PROGRAM, though, I'm OK with it, warts and all. Developing a better system would have required considerable R&D work, which would have cost Tesla more money than it'd be worth and/or would have delayed the rollout of the current wide beta program.

This, and the idea that the safety score is also measuring the complexity and risk in the environment that each car usually operates in, is what a lot of posters in this forum are overlooking I think. Safety Score isn't a judgement on your driving skills - it's just the best way Tesla could think of to de-risk the expansion of their beta program. Accidents put the whole roadmap at risk due to media reporting ->potential regulation.

 

[mykohsu]

I just got a terrible drive score from hard braking and I can't recall doing any of that - most of the drive was on autopilot with navigate. The drive was mostly on autopilot except for one short segment where the auto navigate turned off (no idea why) and it didn't take the exit and. I had to force disengage by making the turn manually.

 

[tonyb99]

I got dinged so many times on cruise or autopilot that I do not use them while trying to build my score. TACC would charge up to traffic lights and then brake hard. It would follow too close and ding me for that.

 

[EVRider-FL]

I got fed up with how the safety score was scoring in both my car and my wife’s and opted both out of the FSD Beta queue. There was no way either of us was going to get anywhere near a qualifying score, even though we both drive conservatively, and I wasn’t willing to game the system like some others have done.

 

[whitec214]

Use Auto Pilot as much as possible. It is allowed to brake much harder without dinning you than if you were to do the same thing. I have not received being dinged for any amount of regen but just can't use the brakes to stop. If driving with stop lights just be prepared to stop with regen. Get the most out of regen which is the best thing to do anyway.

 

[K5TRX]

95% of my drives, Safety Score reports "Hard Braking".

On almost all of these drives, only regen braking & none by me. Can't recall any actual hard brake instances. I can't get my score above 90 because of this.

Basically, if you are on flat ground, just have regenerative braking on.
If you need to press that brake pedal, you can exceed 0.3 g and have a Hard Braking incident.
If you are under 6.7 mph, braking is not counted as Hard Braking.

From the Tesla Safety Score documentation:
"Hard braking while on Autopilot is not factored into the Safety Score formula."
Actually any kind of braking while on Autopilot is not factored into the Safety Score formula.

So if you have a Hard Braking event, you can't just drive a lot of miles on AutoPilot or FSD.
I tried for countless miles and it makes no difference.
Miles on AutoPilot or FSD don't count, good our bad.

Here is what dramatically cut the cumulative Hard Braking number for me:
Go to an abandoned road.
Accelerate to about 38 mph.
Let regen brake to 25 mph. (The brake light onscreen goes on at 0.1g.)
Repeat. A lot.
It is not the miles. It is the "good" braking events.

To get your Aggressive Turning score down, turns on AP don't count.
Go do endless figure eights at low speed in a parking lot.

I use TeslaScope to see better resolution on my scores. It's free.