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Insurance companies are already offering discounts for using their apps while in car. I was debating on whether I should include mention of these apps. Here's

Insurance companies are already offering discounts for using their apps while in car. I was debating on whether I should include mention of these apps. Here's the thing about that: The data available to these apps is nothing compared to the data available to Tesla. Tesla can figure out how often you get close to bumping into something, exactly how far, how fast you were going, and what the lighting/weather conditions were like at the time. That data is orders of magnitude better than the stuff coming out of the app. It's very analogous to iOS app makers competing with in-house Apple iOS apps. It's hard to compete, when your competitor controls the APIs.

StillBored 6y ago
All the things you name are available to a phone app as well. Particularly, if it has enough penetration to be in the vehicles near you. Local weather + data aggregation from all the insurance companies apps and suddenly about the only thing they don't have is whether you were looking at the road, and the condition of your tires and other vehicle specific metrics. Sure the GPS/accel data might be off a few percent vs the car but does that matter? (BTW, Assuming a deal with your credit card company, they probably can approximate your tire age too).
- stcredzero 6y ago
  All the things you name are available to a phone app as well. Only 'kinda'. You might get 1 camera feed, and you can see what the weather report was for the area. Tesla has something like 8 camera feeds, and they can tell if visibility was compromised because the other car situated at 7-o'clock to the rear was in a building's deep shadow. The app could only kinda get that if one were lucky. suddenly about the only thing they don't have is whether you were looking at the road, and the condition of your tires and other vehicle specific metrics That and a lot more! Also, with far superior granularity, and with fewer data quality problems. (BTW, Assuming a deal with your credit card company, they probably can approximate your tire age too). Again, mostly. I would agree that the apps could compete. They're competing at a significant disadvantage, though.
balls187 6y ago
I agree with your point. I think the insurance companies are doing what they can to compete but wont be able to match the platform builders offering. Perhaps they look at licensing data from other platforms like Ford, Yota, etc.

StillBored 6y ago

All the things you name are available to a phone app as well. Particularly, if it has enough penetration to be in the vehicles near you. Local weather + data aggregation from all the insurance companies apps and suddenly about the only thing they don't have is whether you were looking at the road, and the condition of your tires and other vehicle specific metrics. Sure the GPS/accel data might be off a few percent vs the car but does that matter? (BTW, Assuming a deal with your credit card company, they probably can approximate your tire age too).

stcredzero 6y ago
All the things you name are available to a phone app as well. Only 'kinda'. You might get 1 camera feed, and you can see what the weather report was for the area. Tesla has something like 8 camera feeds, and they can tell if visibility was compromised because the other car situated at 7-o'clock to the rear was in a building's deep shadow. The app could only kinda get that if one were lucky. suddenly about the only thing they don't have is whether you were looking at the road, and the condition of your tires and other vehicle specific metrics That and a lot more! Also, with far superior granularity, and with fewer data quality problems. (BTW, Assuming a deal with your credit card company, they probably can approximate your tire age too). Again, mostly. I would agree that the apps could compete. They're competing at a significant disadvantage, though.

balls187 6y ago

I agree with your point. I think the insurance companies are doing what they can to compete but wont be able to match the platform builders offering. Perhaps they look at licensing data from other platforms like Ford, Yota, etc.