One's first thought is that they ought to be running away from underwriting this as fast as they can go. But then one realizes that it is all profit -- they need never pay a claim, because in accidents involving autonomous vehicles, it will never be possible to establish fault; and then one sees that the primary purpose of most automations is to obscure responsibility.
Tesla have their own Insurance product which is already very competitive compared to other providers. Not sure if lemonade can beat them . Tesla's insurance product has similar objective in place already where it rewards self driving over manual driving.
If it autonomous or self-driving then why is the person in the car paying for the insurance? Surely if it's Tesla making the decisions, they need the insurance?
> Surely if it's Tesla making the decisions, they need the insurance?
Why surely? Turning on cruise control doesn't absolve motorists of their insurance requirement.
And the premise is false. While Tesla does "not maintain as much insurance coverage as many other companies do," there are "policies that [they] do have" [1]. (What it insures is a separate question.)
I think there is an even bigger insurance problem to worry about: if autonomous vehicles become common and are a lot safer than manual driven vehicles, insurance rates for human driven cars could wind up exploding as the risk pool becomes much smaller and statistically riskier. We could go from paying $200/month to $2000/month if robo taxis start dominating cities.
> If it autonomous or self-driving then why is the person in the car paying for the insurance? Surely if it's Tesla making the decisions, they need the insurance?
Suppose ACME Corporation produces millions of self-driving cars and then goes out of business because the CEO was embezzling. They no longer exist. But the cars do. They work fine. Who insures them? The person who wants to keep operating them.
Which is the same as it is now. It's your car so you pay to insure it.
I mean think about it. If you buy an autonomous car, would the manufacturer have to keep paying to insure it forever as long as you can keep it on the road? The only real options for making the manufacturer carry the insurance are that the answer is no and then they turn off your car after e.g. 10 years, which is quite objectionable, or that the answer is "yes" but then you have to pay a "subscription fee" to the manufacturer which is really the insurance premium, which is also quite objectionable because then you're then locked into the OEM instead of having a competitive insurance market.
I like your thesis, but what about this: all this self driving debate is nonsense if you require Tesla to pay all damages plus additional damages, "because you were hit by a robot!". That should make sure Tesla improves the system, and that it operates above human safety levels. Then one can forget about legislation and Tesla can do its job.
So to circle back to your thesis: when the car is operating autonomously, the manufacturer is responsible. If it goes broke then what? Then the owner will need to insure the car privately. So Tesla insurance might have to continue to operate (and be profitable).
The question this raises is if Tesla should sell any self-driving cars at all, or instead it should just drive them itself.
Risk gets passed along until someone accepts it, usually an insurance company or the operator. If the risk was accepted and paid for by Tesla, then the cost would simply be passed down to consumers. All consumers, including those that want to accept the risk themselves. In particular, if you have a fleet of cars it can be cheaper to accept the risk and only pay for mandatory insurance, because not all of your cars are going to crash at the same time, and even if they did, not all in the worst way possible. This is how insurance works, by amortizing lots of risk to make it highly improbable to make a loss in the long run.
If your minor child breaks something, or your pet bites someone, you are liable.
This analogy may be more apt than Tesla would like to admit, but from a liability perspective it makes sense.
You could in turn try to sue Tesla for defective FSD, but the now-clearly-advertised "(supervised)" caveat, plus the lengthy agreement you clicked through, plus lots of lawyers, makes you unlikely to win.
I own a Model Y with hardware version 4. FSD prevented my from getting in an accident with a drunk driver. It reacted much faster to the situation than I could have. Ever since, I’m sold that in a lot of circumstances, machines can drive better than humans.
Yeah I'm actually very curious about this, it's the first I've heard.
I'd like to know what data this is based on, and if Tesla is providing any kind of subsidy or guarantee.
There's also a big difference between the value of car damages and, well, death. E.g. what if FSD is much less likely to get into otherwise common fender benders that don't harm you, but more likely to occasionally accidentally drive you straight into a divider, killing you?
A discount they get to set on a subset of miles of their choice may just be a marketing expense for an insurance startup which makes losses and relies on VC capital and needs growth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemonade,_Inc.#2015%E2%80%9320... I was impressed by this until I looked Lemonade up.
A 50% discount when using FSD or just doubling insurance company profits when when not using FSD. The only evidence that actually matters is cost in comparison to other insurance companies. If this product is cheaper for you, then it probably does indicate FSD is better at driving than you (well, than the average driver in your demographic). Maybe this is damning with faint praise.
I'm sure from an underwriting perspective, they could also offer a significant discount for miles driven with LKAS turned on for the same reason they can do it for FSD: you only do it in certain (lower risk) conditions.
> automatically tracking FSD miles versus manual miles through direct Tesla integration.
No thanks. I unplugged the cellular modem in my car precisely because I can't stand the idea that the manufacturer/dealer/insurance company or other unauthorized third parties could have access to my location and driving habits.
I also generally avoid dealers like the plague and only trust the kind of shops where the guy who answers the phone is the guy doing the work.
And yet you have a phone on you, probably using its navigation too. You’re totally right so much safer to trust Google/Apple with your location and driving habits
The whole point of self-driving cars (to me) is I don't have to own or insure it, someone else deals with that and I just make it show up with my phone when I need it.
Lemonade purchased Metromile and significantly increased prices. 2.5x if I recall correctly. This has forced me to move to Geico. Now, since prices have increased and new self driving car insurance is giving a discount, are you effectively paying same old rate?
It would be interesting to see if Lemonade requires a Driver Monitoring System (DMS) to see if the driver/operator is actually paying attention (or, like sleeping / watching Netflix / whatever) while at the driver's seat.
Anybody know??
Tesla FSD is still a supervised system (= ADAS), afaik.
FSD won’t stay engaged for very long if you’re not paying attention. It’s getting pretty smart about how much attention it wants you to pay in different situations, but there are no situations where it will let you just sleep.
Hmmm. The source for the "FSD is safer" claim might not be wholly independent: "Tesla’s data shows that Full Self-Driving miles are twice as safe as manual driving"
I have Lemonade for my home insurance. It's been reliable for several years and the customer service is great. I don't have a self-driving car but I wouldn't hesitate to sign up. Their rates are very affordable.
I was curious what the break-even is where the insurance discount covers the $99/mo FSD subscription. I got a Lemonade quote around $240/mo (12k mi/yr lease on a Model 3), so 50% off would save ~$120/mo - i.e. it would cover FSD and still leave ~$21/mo net. Or, "free FSD is you use it".
I believe, at the end of the day, insurance companies will be the ones driving FSD adoption. The media will sensationalize the outlier issues of FSD software, but insurance companies will set the incentives for humans to stop driving.
I'm quite skeptical of Tesla's reliability claims. But for exactly that reason, I welcome a company like Lemonade betting actual money on those claims. Either way, this is bound to generate some visibility into the actual accident rates.
If FSD is going to be a subscription and you will never own our fancy autopilot feature. Why should the user pay for insurance?
The user is paying for a service that they do not control and which workings are completely opaque. How can responsibility ever lie with the user in such a situation?
You know what's weird? This is a company that has been using the fleet api for quite a while now to monitor non-professional drivers using FSD on their daily commute, often while distracted doing other things. The latest versions even allow some phone usage.
And yet people are skeptical. I mean, they should be skeptical, given that the company is using this for marketing purposes. It doesn't make sense to just believe them.
But it is strange to see this healthy skepticism juxtaposed with the many unskeptical comments attached to recent Electrek articles with outlandish claims.
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Why surely? Turning on cruise control doesn't absolve motorists of their insurance requirement.
And the premise is false. While Tesla does "not maintain as much insurance coverage as many other companies do," there are "policies that [they] do have" [1]. (What it insures is a separate question.)
[1] https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001318605/0...
Suppose ACME Corporation produces millions of self-driving cars and then goes out of business because the CEO was embezzling. They no longer exist. But the cars do. They work fine. Who insures them? The person who wants to keep operating them.
Which is the same as it is now. It's your car so you pay to insure it.
I mean think about it. If you buy an autonomous car, would the manufacturer have to keep paying to insure it forever as long as you can keep it on the road? The only real options for making the manufacturer carry the insurance are that the answer is no and then they turn off your car after e.g. 10 years, which is quite objectionable, or that the answer is "yes" but then you have to pay a "subscription fee" to the manufacturer which is really the insurance premium, which is also quite objectionable because then you're then locked into the OEM instead of having a competitive insurance market.
So to circle back to your thesis: when the car is operating autonomously, the manufacturer is responsible. If it goes broke then what? Then the owner will need to insure the car privately. So Tesla insurance might have to continue to operate (and be profitable).
The question this raises is if Tesla should sell any self-driving cars at all, or instead it should just drive them itself.
This analogy may be more apt than Tesla would like to admit, but from a liability perspective it makes sense.
You could in turn try to sue Tesla for defective FSD, but the now-clearly-advertised "(supervised)" caveat, plus the lengthy agreement you clicked through, plus lots of lawyers, makes you unlikely to win.
I'd like to know what data this is based on, and if Tesla is providing any kind of subsidy or guarantee.
There's also a big difference between the value of car damages and, well, death. E.g. what if FSD is much less likely to get into otherwise common fender benders that don't harm you, but more likely to occasionally accidentally drive you straight into a divider, killing you?
No thanks. I unplugged the cellular modem in my car precisely because I can't stand the idea that the manufacturer/dealer/insurance company or other unauthorized third parties could have access to my location and driving habits.
I also generally avoid dealers like the plague and only trust the kind of shops where the guy who answers the phone is the guy doing the work.
This is about a self-driving car you own.
Anybody know??
Tesla FSD is still a supervised system (= ADAS), afaik.
Its their own bet to make
On the surface, this looks like an endorsement of Tesla's claims about FSD safety.
I believe, at the end of the day, insurance companies will be the ones driving FSD adoption. The media will sensationalize the outlier issues of FSD software, but insurance companies will set the incentives for humans to stop driving.
If FSD is going to be a subscription and you will never own our fancy autopilot feature. Why should the user pay for insurance?
The user is paying for a service that they do not control and which workings are completely opaque. How can responsibility ever lie with the user in such a situation?
And yet people are skeptical. I mean, they should be skeptical, given that the company is using this for marketing purposes. It doesn't make sense to just believe them.
But it is strange to see this healthy skepticism juxtaposed with the many unskeptical comments attached to recent Electrek articles with outlandish claims.