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Calculating Safety Score - TACC
- Thread starter LastGas
- Start date
Tam
Well-Known Member
There are 2 parts for Autopilot:
1) TACC
2) Autosteer
Your scores related to the functions are not affected whenever those automatic features are active.
For example, you don't need to turn on your Autosteer, just a plain TACC would do and the system is too close to the car in front and there would be numerous Hard Brakings. Those don't decrease your scores because it's the function of TACC.
On the other hand, if you only turn on TACC and it's time to make a turn, and it's a sharp turn at 20 MPH, you'll be penalized for Aggressive Turning because you manually turn the steering wheel.
On the other hand, if you turn on the Autosteer and it turns at a very sharp turn at 25 MPH and all the things in the car would fly out and the tire would make loud screeching noise but you won't be penalized for it because it's the function of Autosteer.
Today I drove 10 miles, 90% of which was on TACC but I ended up with a 56% score on traveling too close. I was NEVER within 10 car lengths of the car in front of me. TACC was set on 3. I drive a 2022 Model Y. I believe that TACC less that 4 or 5 will count as a negative on your driving score. What is your experience? This is my biggest negative although hard breaking - when I have to take over TACC or Autosteer is a close second!
Let me clarify, I was never within 10 car lengths when NOT in TACC. I was easily within 3 car lengths much of the time while in TACC.
I've had similar frustrating experiences with bad "unsafe following" scores after highway drives where I was using TACC or AP 99+% of the time.
My only guess to explain the bad scoring was that there may have been 1-2 seconds (or even a fraction of a second) during merging or exiting or lane changing when I was driving manually where the car (rightly or wrongly) thought I was <1 second from the car in front of me. And since the denominator in the scoring equation (the time spent driving manually over 50mph and under 3 seconds from a lead car) was also very small given my extensive use of TACC/AP, even a small number in the numerator could result in a very bad score.
So now, if I want to ensure a good "unsafe following" score during a highway drive, I make a point to drive manually for at least a few miles while maintaining ~2 seconds distance behind a lead car. This makes sure that the number in the denominator is large enough that any brief moments when it think I was following too close end up being only a tiny percentage of the qualifying time.
While this would certainly be the intuitive way for Tesla to do it, I don't think it's actually correct.
I just took a 2 short test drives to test this out. Both drives went down a straight, empty road and involved me swerving wildly from side to side in order to purposely and repeatedly exceed the 0.4g threshold that constitutes "Aggressive Turning" in the Safety Score.
- The first drive I did without TACC. My Aggressive Turning score for this drive maxed out at 17.1% (the highest score possible).
- The second drive was done with TACC engaged. Despite making similarly wild turns, I recorded a 0% Aggressive Turning score.
I've also been getting high percentages for following too closely. The score is the ratio of time under 1 second to time under 3 seconds. TACC doesn't add to anything, and driving MORE than 3 seconds behind doesn't either. So you're measured only over a narrow range. If you use TACC all the time then the only measurement you'll get is brief incidents when you force a lane change to make an exit or something. Your denominator is small and that's why the score is bad. If you want a good score, you have to turn TACC off and drive in 1-3 second territory for a significant amount of time. The good news is that 10% following too closely still can result in a 100% drive.
I live up a very steep 1500 climb from the valley. My driveway is also a 20% grade. There are lots of turns, and several stop signs. I cannot get my safety score above 90, even if I go 10 mph on the way down the from the foothills to valley floor. Gravity is not to be defied, especially on sections of the driveway and road that is a 20% grade, and you need to stop at a corner to make a sharp turn. The other problem I have seems to be consistent with the idea that I often turn of Autosteer when the car starts wobbling around at mergers and exits, and also where there is road construction and lane shifts. It seems I am being dinged for being vigilant and not letting Autopilot drive recklessly. I also drive up canyon roads and there is no way to use AP safely, and likewise, unless I want to keep an unacceptable distance and slow traffic down on the decent, I'll get a bad score for that route as well. All and all, very frustrating. What a scam that I paid for this software. It's a major deterrent to ever buying a Tesla again.
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