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All facts aside, people are still required to be in control of their cars and need to be legally able to intervene. "But I used autopilot" is probably the most

All facts aside, people are still required to be in control of their cars and need to be legally able to intervene. "But I used autopilot" is probably the most used excuse to avert fault away from the driver. Especially in the most broken insurance system on the planet where an accident like this leads to such a change in life that the driver is scared of the outcome.

notatoad 5y ago
my understanding is that whether autopilot is in use or not has no bearing on your insurance. as far as the insurance company is concerned, it's an accident while you're responsible for the operation of the car.
- sircastor 5y ago
  I’ve heard that the presence of Autopilot is actually viewed negatively by insurers. This goes against intuition-wouldn’t a machine that behaves very reliably be better than a human driver - but my dad used to say that the insurance company’s calculation was only ever about how likely they thought they could win if they sued the other party. I don’t know if that’s true, but something rings true about it.
  - inopinatus 5y ago
    From an actuarial perspective, all forms of driver assistance contain the potential for moral hazard.
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    My insurance rates are the "same" as a similarly priced Audi or such. As Teslas are safer over time, one would expect rates to gradually go down. Some repairs are a bit more expensive, so could be a bit of a balancing act.
    - cookiengineer 5y ago
      > As Teslas are safer over time, one would expect rates to gradually go down. In Germany it's currently the opposite due to the overly high amount of Teslas that are declared as total damage because the auditors that work for insurers usually don't know that their frames can be partially replaced. Additionally there's no availability to repair a Tesla in practice at that point, but the given software lockout policy of Tesla is a different story.
kaba0 5y ago
At the same time, “he/she used autopilot while it is only drive assist” is a similarly overused excuse made by Tesla all around. If so many do so, maybe they did buy that car anticipating that feature, which makes it at least misleading advertisement.
- cookiengineer 5y ago
  The ironic result of this could be that insuring an Autopilot car gets more expensive than driving a normal car due to the high cost in investigating an accident after it happened.

notatoad 5y ago

my understanding is that whether autopilot is in use or not has no bearing on your insurance. as far as the insurance company is concerned, it's an accident while you're responsible for the operation of the car.

sircastor 5y ago
I’ve heard that the presence of Autopilot is actually viewed negatively by insurers. This goes against intuition-wouldn’t a machine that behaves very reliably be better than a human driver - but my dad used to say that the insurance company’s calculation was only ever about how likely they thought they could win if they sued the other party. I don’t know if that’s true, but something rings true about it.
- inopinatus 5y ago
  From an actuarial perspective, all forms of driver assistance contain the potential for moral hazard.
- brianwawok 5y ago
  My insurance rates are the "same" as a similarly priced Audi or such. As Teslas are safer over time, one would expect rates to gradually go down. Some repairs are a bit more expensive, so could be a bit of a balancing act.
  - cookiengineer 5y ago
    > As Teslas are safer over time, one would expect rates to gradually go down. In Germany it's currently the opposite due to the overly high amount of Teslas that are declared as total damage because the auditors that work for insurers usually don't know that their frames can be partially replaced. Additionally there's no availability to repair a Tesla in practice at that point, but the given software lockout policy of Tesla is a different story.

kaba0 5y ago

At the same time, “he/she used autopilot while it is only drive assist” is a similarly overused excuse made by Tesla all around. If so many do so, maybe they did buy that car anticipating that feature, which makes it at least misleading advertisement.

cookiengineer 5y ago
The ironic result of this could be that insuring an Autopilot car gets more expensive than driving a normal car due to the high cost in investigating an accident after it happened.