At this point many competitors have an incentive to provoke this type of crash and make negative news. They can do it for very cheap relative to what's at stake

At this point many competitors have an incentive to provoke this type of crash and make negative news. They can do it for very cheap relative to what's at stake, given that most of the damages will paid by insurance. It doesn't even matter who is at fault. They can pay drivers to "find bugs" or test their competitor's car reaction to certain edge cases.