Insurers Are Rewarding Tesla Owners For Using Autopilot (reuters.com) 140
Britain's largest auto insurance company Direct Line is testing out an idea to let Tesla owners receive a 5% discount for switching on the car's autopilot system, seeking to encourage use of a system it hopes will cut down on accidents. Reuters reports: The move - confirmed by company representatives in response to Reuters' questions - is Tesla's only tie-up in the UK and comes at a time when the company is trying to convince insurers that its internet-connected vehicles are statistically safer. Direct Line said it was too early to say whether the use of the autopilot system produced a safety record that justified lower premiums. It said it was charging less to encourage use of the system and aid research.
"Crash rates across all Tesla models have fallen by 40 percent since the introduction of the autopilot system ... However, when owners seek to insure their Tesla vehicles, this is not reflected in the pricing of premiums," Daniel Pearce, Financial Analyst at GlobalData, said. Direct Line, which is enjoying soaring motor insurance prices in Britain, said it sets premiums for Tesla drivers based on the risk they present, including who is driving, their age, driving experience and claim history.
"Crash rates across all Tesla models have fallen by 40 percent since the introduction of the autopilot system ... However, when owners seek to insure their Tesla vehicles, this is not reflected in the pricing of premiums," Daniel Pearce, Financial Analyst at GlobalData, said. Direct Line, which is enjoying soaring motor insurance prices in Britain, said it sets premiums for Tesla drivers based on the risk they present, including who is driving, their age, driving experience and claim history.
Insurance Company Math (Score:3, Insightful)
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Yep.
That's how capitalism works, they will try always to get the highest profit, so they will increase the discount until they get the perfect balance, and if they have actual competition, they will get the discount even higher just to cut out the rival.
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And how do they know you are using it? Sounds Orwellian, they must be getting data from Tesla who monitor everything you do. The car logs every action, no matter how trivial, and Tesla get some kind of telemetry from that. Naturally they don't tell you what they know, but from their statements it seems to be everything.
Can I get a discount for not owning a smartphone? (Score:1)
Pretty sure accident rates in that case are pretty dramatically lower too, other things equal.
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Probably would be a thing if it was easy to track if people are not using celphones.
Today (Score:4, Interesting)
... it's switch on your autopilot for a 5% discount.
Tomorrow, it will be manual controls disabled unless you pay the 500% self-drive (i.e.: think "self-serve", you get to drive it your self!) premium.
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we'll just be able to display whatever scenery or videos we want.
That's a funny way to spell "4 foot wide McDonalds ads"
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Myself, I'll have to have scenery to avoid sickness.
It had better be the scenery outside the car, displayed with very low latency, or you'll get sick. One of the biggest factors inducing motion sickness is when the motion reported by the inner ears doesn't match the motion reported by the eyes. This is why many people can't read or watch a movie in a moving vehicle.
OTOH, if the car's screens projected a book or a movie on the displays, but made them appear as though they were on a very large billboard (which somehow kept up with the car), complete with app
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Until your car's display gets the pukalotta virus ;-)
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And windshields - seriously. It won't be long before it will be cheaper to paper the inside of the car with displays, and we'll just be able to display whatever scenery or videos we want. Myself, I'll have to have scenery to avoid sickness.
Which is why passenger trains, busses, and passenger jets don't have windows...
Re:Today (Score:5, Insightful)
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When they hit a steep enough point, there will be a serious discussion of outlawing manual driving so that we can start saving money on all of the vehicle safety equipment such as seat belts, airbags, and bumpers and get rid of speed limits and tailgating laws that reduce drafting efficiency.
We can only hope the first big EMP comes before society makes that many short-sighted utopian decisions in a row so we'll only be partially screwed and will have a chance to recover.
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We can only hope the first big EMP comes before society makes that many short-sighted utopian decisions in a row so we'll only be partially screwed and will have a chance to recover.
Meh, any civilization trying to rebuild is going to have a damn hard time no matter what because of economic efficiency. All the easily accessible ore? Gone. Oil? Pumped up. Coal? Mined. Sure we have plenty of it still, but only deep down where only high tech can reach it. And I expect a collapsing civilization will kill off most remaining large animals, fish and other resources as the excess population starves to death. Sure we could try passing knowledge, but you'd probably be back to struggling with the
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"Roll up your sleeves citizens - Its mosquito time!"
The Donald
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Find me a car newer than a Model T that won't be rendered inoperable by an EMP. ...and GP is wrong. Safety equipment will always be mandatory, and ever increasing. Heaven forbid someone gets bruised when a deer jumps in front of a self-driving car and totals it.
Re:Today (Score:4, Insightful)
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... it's switch on your autopilot for a 5% discount.
Tomorrow, it will be manual controls disabled unless you pay the 500% self-drive (i.e.: think "self-serve", you get to drive it your self!) premium.
Yep, and at that point traffic fatalities will drop to a miniscule fraction of what they are now. This will be a good thing.
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Yeah, until the first bored teenager with a laptop at an overpass has his way with the mesh network of cars...
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Yeah, until the first bored teenager with a laptop at an overpass has his way with the mesh network of cars...
Meh. Rocks are much easier.
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Tomorrow, it will be manual controls disabled unless you pay the 500% self-drive (i.e.: think "self-serve", you get to drive it your self!) premium.
That day, self drive shouldn't require insurance.
Self drive should just work, no mistakes. Do you expect that from tires? Who buys tire failure insurance? Yet tire failure is damn scary.
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That's as it should be. You can do your own driving on the track. You fools are too dangerous to operate heavy machinery in public...
Adults handing heavy machinery keys to a 16-year old vs. legislators who actually believe that children should be able to legally operate heavy machinery.
Root cause analysis tends to make you wonder who the fool is.
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
Tesla users' umbrella insurance policy premiums just went up 1000%.
Is there decapitation waver to sign? (Score:3)
Re: Is there decapitation waver to sign? (Score:1)
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Is there decapitation waver that I have to sign to get this discount?
Only if you want to watch movies while driving.
You also receive 1000 Darwin Award votes every time you renew your policy...
Driving (Score:2)
Driving is boring, autopilot is safe, here's Tom with the weather.
Driving is a waste of time. (Score:2)
I am amazed that there are so many people with so much free time that they want to sit and rotate a wheel side to side for an hour a day. Are they F-ing crazy? Let's be clear, driving is a waste of time, you could be spending that time doing so many other things like being productive, drafting a presentation, video conferencing to your family, watching TV, playing video games, or Netflix. The more you can do in your car during the commute, the more time you can get back so you can do other life things. Some
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I'm not at home, so I'm missing time with my family anyway
Use facetime/skype/messenger to talk to them from the car.
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Singular (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah look at how all those human drivers crashed into the concrete where the Tesla didn’t [youtube.com].
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And as I keep saying, would it have happened to THAT human? If not, then we are all fools to trust the technology.
That makes as much sense as saying that you should buy lottery tickets because you might win.
If your driving skills are 40% better than average, you might come out ahead by driving yourself. Everyone else has better odds with Autopilot, and the odds will get better as the technology improves.
Self-selecting set, IMHO (Score:1)
Those with such skills likely know it —it's a pretty low bar. Most people drive terribly. The number of drivers who have an intuitive, as-you-go grasp of the physics of the process, a real feel for the road surface and its bank, sightlines and so on, fine tuned abilities to estimate distance and speed and closure... they're not likely users of Tesla's autopilot (or anyone else's) anyway, because they are a
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I see stupid things all the time and I make mistakes as well even if I consider myself a way above average driver. A lot of mistakes are simply increasing risk without anything necessarily going wrong. Often it's 'IF another car had done this you'd have been in trouble'.
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The point is whether you absolutely know whether you are safer than Autopilot or not. If you don't know, then you shouldn't be using it until you do know.
I know I am safer than the average driver on the basis that my insurance premiums are far lower than average (despite driving a car more powerful than most), perhaps because I have never had an accident. Telling me that autopilots are safer than the average driver does not give me me much re-assurance, in fact it is damning with faint praise.
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Can't say I have ever in my life been in a vehicle with a person I didn't feel safe with. Maybe 1 in 10,000 you see doing something stupid and you're ready to call everyone a bad driver.
Incredible. I see drivers doing stupid things all the time. Occasionally I do something stupid, or at least sub-optimal, myself, but at least I recognise it and try to learn from it. I rarely feel at ease with someone else driving, and sometimes I have been terrified.
Having said that, I am unconvinced by autopilots. After all they are programmed by humans who, as we agree, can be stupid. As with driving, I see plenty of examples of stupid programming.
I think OP must be blind or something.
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I see drivers doing stupid things also. I also see many more drivers driving well. I remember the stupid ones better, since (a) they're the ones I have to watch for, (b) they're the ones who probably inconvenienced me, and (c) they're the ones I address comments to from the privacy of my vehicle. However, almost every time I see a driver do a boneheaded maneuver, I see many more people just driving like they should.
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Those with such skills likely know it
Nope. 80% of drivers rate themselves "above average". [sciencedirect.com]
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That's a different proposition. The question is how do the people actually that good rate themselves.
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That's a different proposition. The question is how do the people actually that good rate themselves.
If you "know" your skills are better than average and 80% of drivers think they are better than average, how can you be sure that you are not one of those people who think you are better than average, but are in fact not better than average?
I suppose that, depending on the distribution and how one defines "average" in this context, one could have 80% of the population being slightly better than average, with the 20% who are below average being way below average (80 people scoring 51, and 20 people scoring
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The question is how do the people actually that good rate themselves.
By their insurance discount?
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Those with such skills likely know it
Nope. 80% of drivers rate themselves "above average". [sciencedirect.com]
"Received 27 April 1984, Revised 22 May 1985"
I can think of a billion reasons why your reference study is worthless.
"Do you use your smartphone while driving?" is the only question necessary to prove how bad drivers are today. Self-assessments are now irrelevant.
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You can also say 50% of the drivers ARE about average and they constantly have to hear this argument as a form of denial.
Of course if you use a statistic where 60% of the drivers are average and only 20% above average, then 80% of the drivers have really stupid ideas.
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Driving skill or safety? I don't think my driving skills are up to average. On the other hand, I get into sufficiently few accidents that I get the maximum safety discount on my insurance. I allow for my lack of skill (and possibly overcompensate), and don't do anything likely to cause an accident.
It's complex (Score:2)
An important facet of the task is to be aware enough of other drivers to avoid the accident they are about to cause. Drunks, sleepyheads, lane weavers, light runners, ghosters that cluelessly drive in other people's blind spots (not just yours, either) tailgaters, fail-to-signalers, aggressive speeders, lane laggards, people pulling trailers too fast, poorly loaded, etc. And then there are road haza
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Yup. Part of being cautious, for me, is noting who's likely to be a problem. That saved me from hitting a pedestrian once.
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Fine, so screw the people who actually are better than Autopilot?
It isn't clear that anyone is better. Is the "best" driver 40% less likely to be in an accident as an average driver? I don't know, but perhaps not. Many accidents are unavoidable. If someone pulls out in front of you, and there is no place to swerve except into oncoming traffic, then the only thing that matters is how fast you can brake. Even the best humans take about 1500ms to see the problem, realize what is happening, shift their foot to the brake, and start depressing. At 60 mph, a car can go ab
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Good drivers expect idiocy from others and don't let them get to a point where half a second matters in vehicle operation
So, if you're going 50 MPH on a highway, and some car is coming from a side street, you're going to slow down to 15 MPH, just in case they don't yield ?
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Sometimes it does mean you slow down to a speed where the damage is less. Often it means that before that moment you do the opposite: show your commitment and maintain your speed as long as possible so the other driver won't get the idea he can cut in just in time. There's a lot going on if you're an active driver . You're checking if the other one is aware, if he is slowing down so the moment you see his speed is not matching the situation, you can react.
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Most humans aren't very good at assessing risk, since they tend to rely on emotion and anecdote.
Insurance companies, OTOH, live or die by the accuracy of their risk assessment, and as such they do a proper statistical analysis and go by the actuarial tables -- or they go out of business.
Therefore I'm inclined to weigh the insurance companies' ideas about what improves safety more heavily than shouts of "OMG look what happened that one time though" on Slashdot.
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I'm just saying the person who had Autopilot get them into an accident due to faulty programming and lack of testing, they don't deserve to have their premiums go up
So you would be okay with paying higher premiums if it got into an accident despite sound programming and thorough testing ?
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If that were the case, it wouldn't get into accidents.
So you would only accept a computer driving if it was absolutely perfect. But a human driver getting into accidents after just a few dozen hours of practice is acceptable.
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Re:That's the way to do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you're so convinced that your situational awareness and reaction times are better than a computer's (they're not) you should at least root for everybody else to be using autopilot because it's certainly better than the average driver.
I'll feel a damn sight safer driving when all the other cars aren't being piloted by distracted meat sacks.
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Re:That's the way to do it (Score:4, Insightful)
Who ever said anything about them never getting in an accident. It's not a question of perfect, it's a question of better, and they're demonstrably better.
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I find the whole "X or Y" discussion a little funny. If you have a system X that can prevent some cases of problems, and a system Y that can prevent some other cases of problems, then the logical solution would be to combine those systems, so that when of of the systems doesn't detect an oncoming accident the other does.
And if it were computer systems who have no other thoughts, never get bored and paid full attention 100% of the time that would be a great idea. How long could you watch the car drive before your mind starts to wander, five minutes? Fifteen? Maybe you'd pay attention the first time. The tenth? Hundredth? There's a reason semi-autonomous driving systems have tons of checks and warnings to make sure you're paying attention because otherwise we wouldn't do that. In fact many people try to cheat the systems alr
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Reaction times? No. Situational awareness? Hell yes.
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It doesn't matter if a computer has perfect reaction times if it can't recognise deadly scenarios in any time frame. Computers as no-where near as good at recognising hazards as humans.
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Computers as no-where near as good at recognising hazards as humans.
Computers are already better than a human driver looking at something else.
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That may be so but if a computer can't tell the difference between a road and a river then it really doesn't matter that it's not distracted whilst being cognitively deficient.
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In other words: what matters is the overall statistics. And apparently, the insurance company believes that computers can make an improvement.
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No, the insurance company believes it can sell more insurance, that's what matters to them.
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No, the insurance company believes it can sell more insurance, that's what matters to them.
If they wanted to sell more insurance by lowering the rates, they could have done that at any time before.
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You seem not to understand how insurance works. Insurance companies carefully calculate the cost of insuring certain market segments, and they base their premium rates on those. That's how they avoid going out of business.
Offering lower rates to a certain group will indeed attract more business for that group, but it will mean losing money, which companies in general don't like to do. It isn't going to attract much business to other groups. When I talk to an agent, I want to know how much I'll be pay
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And as I keep saying, would it have happened to THAT human? If not, then we are all fools to trust the technology.
Would you toss a coin or play russian roulette for your life? The outcome is not given, but statistics matter. You can't take the guy who just blew his brains out and say "should have taken the coin toss" except as snark. Same way with a self-driving car, you pick the least risk but sometimes luck is against you. Unless you think it's because THAT human is actually better than average, but that's just moving the goal posts a little to say "better than sober, drug clean rested female age 40 with 20+ years ex
Re: That's the way to do it (Score:2)
You know you are advocating not using anything until a perfect safety record can be achieved, right? In that spirit, here is an incomplete list of things you should stop using immediately in order to not appear to be a hypocrite:
Any car, with autonomous driving capability or not
Any motorized transport whatsoever
Any aircraft
Any boat
Any animal-powered transport, including but not limited to horses, oxen, cattle, elephants, dogs, or humans
Elevators, escalators / stair lifts
Bicycles / tricycles
Electricity
Candl
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It's hardly a driving service - at least yet.
But let's say a common scenario in traffic: you need to peek to your shoulder to ensure there's no another vehicle. And what if at that instant someone in front you you does something surprising? Well, you just enable autopilot before the peek and you're better off than before.
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If that occasional fuckup happens on a motorway in fog and black ice conditions, it's going to be a category 5 splatterfest.
Re: That's the way to do it (Score:1)
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Actually they do. You'll find that most all autopilots have cell connections that they send telemetry out on.
The difference is a true multitasking OS and multiple cores so they can truly multitask with the texting niced.
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So therefore, what? The bloody mess (oh excuse me, 'failure modes') that gets us there is justified? They can't/won't even fully automate trains yet. Lets start with that one first.
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I know you're in Pensacola, Florida tonight, Mr President, but you really can't use that in your speech again. I mean, our supporters hate the shvoogies, but that's just not acceptable.
How does this compare with Toyota? (Score:2)
How does Autopilot compare with "Forward collision warning, auto-pedestrian detection with auto braking, lane-departure warning and driver lane assist with adaptive cruise control"? I guess it has this long name because "Autopilot" (for an automobile) is already trademarked?
This whole shebang is standard on the 2018 Camry and an option on the Ford Fusion. I believe the sensors are millimeter-wave radar and cameras.
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This is the question nobody has answered.
Of course it has been answered. The whole article is about the answer: the insurance company will pay for it.
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How does taking 5% off translate into paying for it?
You can't take 5% off the premium if you're not willing to provide the insurance in the first place.
The real cost comes when the premiums go up after the accident
So what ? Overall you're still paying less. You get 5% discount, and fewer accidents.
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