Tesla has made a significant update to its Safety Score, removing one of the most controversial metrics – Forward Collision Warnings (FCW)- from the system’s formula. The removal of FCW comes as the company is dealing with a potential class action lawsuit claiming the metric artificially inflated insurance premiums.
Tesla first introduced its Safety Score system to Tesla Insurance in 2021. The system uses real-time driving telemetry to determine scores for several metrics, such as Hard Braking, Aggressive Turning, and more, all of which combine into one overall Safety Score. This score is then used to determine your monthly Tesla Insurance premiums. If you have a good, or high, Safety Score you get a lower insurance premium than someone who has a low Safety Score.
There was one metric that was particularly controversial, and that was FCW. According to Tesla, FCWs were triggered “in events where a possible collision due to an object in front of the vehicle is considered likely without driver intervention.” However, ask any Tesla owner and they will say the FCW system is far from perfect, often giving out false positives when there was no real danger of a collision.
It was enough of a problem that one owner from Illinois filed a potential class action lawsuit against the company, claiming customers were being overcharged on their monthly insurance premiums based on these false warnings.
Tesla tried to get the lawsuit dismissed, but a judge ruled in December 2023 that the case can proceed. As of the most recent update, Tesla was given an extension to October 2025 to collect evidence for their defence, but ahead of that court date, Tesla has quietly removed FCW from its Safety Score formula.
On Tesla’s Safety Score support page, version 2.2 released last week now only includes Hard Braking, Aggressive Turning, Unsafe Following, Excessive Speeding, Late-Night Driving, Forced Autopilot Disengagement, and Unbuckled Driving.
With the removal, it is unclear what will happen with the lawsuit. A review of court records by Drive Tesla shows it is still before the courts. The company could opt to settle the case now that FCW has been removed from the formula, but if the case does proceed, it could limit the plaintiffs’ ability to claim ongoing harm, potentially reducing the case to a dispute over past damages and Tesla’s accountability for when FCW was part of the formula.
