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The liability concern is almost always raised by people who don't do actuarial math. For a given set of parameters (car/driver/environment) it gets to an accid

The liability concern is almost always raised by people who don't do actuarial math. For a given set of parameters (car/driver/environment) it gets to an accident every X miles causing Y$ in damage. This Y$ is paid out by pool of insurance money which a group of owners have already paid for. Self Driving car is no different. In fact, the Car manufacturers will have more data to ascertain the 'blame' and fewer accidents every X miles and they can actually insure the drivers directly at a much lower rate. Car manufacturers will pay the much lower Y$ from this insurance pool

KennyBlanken 5y ago
> Self Driving car is no different. In fact, the Car manufacturers will have more data to ascertain the 'blame' and fewer accidents every X miles and they can insure the drivers at a much lower rate. They will happily pay from this pool "More self driving capabilities means fewer crashes per mile which means they're cheaper to insure" hasn't really panned out with Teslas. In 2018, Teslas had three times the fatality per mile rate of similar luxury cars: https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17 https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-r... Teslas are also ludicrously more expensive to repair, and often parts availability is so bad that cars are "totaled" or the owner gets stuck in limbo - the insurance company says "well, we're happy to pay out, when you get the repair done..." and Tesla body shops and service centers have months long backups. Result? Teslas, despite getting into fewer crashes per mile than the average, are much more expensive to insure than other cars. The full self driving "beta" looks to be even worse, from sampling a couple of youtube videos of it "driving." The average age of a car in the US is 12 years old, by the way, which significantly skews things away from all the cars that have ADAS features)
- slaw 5y ago
  Tesla doesn’t have any self driving vehicles yet. We don’t know what will be insurance rates for L3 vehicles as Mercedes will be one of the first available to public.
- deltree7 5y ago
  Tesla is not a legally self-driving car and I'm not sure why you bought up that example. All your arguments are void. You clearly didn't get what I said. If a car achieves autonomous driving, and is legally allowed to self-drive, liability isn't an issue. Any idiot who understands actuarial math will understand that
- fy20 5y ago
  In my country there is a difference between insurance that covers others on the road (mandatory) and insurance that covers damages to your own vehicle (optional). I'd imagine insurance companies have something similar internally when calculating premiums, as a $1,000 20yo Toyota involved in an accident could cause the same amount of damage as a $150,000 Mercedes with this tech to others. That would be the part that would become cheaper as they will see over 1,000,000 miles the Toyota would have a higher rate of incidents than the Mercedes which has all these safety features (if it does what it says). If your insurance also covers damages to your own vehicle, of course that's going to be more expensive, as repairs to the Mercedes will be much more expensive than the Toyota.
  - captainredbeard 5y ago
    Who would buy a $150k car, insure it, but not cover damage to the vehicle??
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      People who either completely overstretched their budget and can't afford it or people who are rich enough to save the insurance premium and simply buy a new one in the worst case.
    - deltree7 5y ago
      If I'm rich enough, I don't care replacing my Merc with my own money, instead of going through the pesky insurance. Insurance is great when you can't handle the cost of replacement. That's why you don't buy insurance every time you buy a $100 electronic appliance. Now scale your money to a rich dude's money, you'll get the idea
      - captainredbeard 5y ago
        > instead of going through the pesky insurance I hear ya but at some point that's what administrative staff is there to handle.
- willyt 5y ago
  > The average age of a car in the US is 12 years old… Average age of a car in Britain is 8 years and it’s only recently got this high. I got given a 10 year old car a few years back and I paid to have it taken away by the time it was 12 years old because it was costing too much in repairs and I realised I would be spending the same money on car payments on a new car.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
onion2k 5y ago
Car manufacturers will pay the much lower Y$ from this insurance pool They'll only accept that if they can charge a subscription fee to car owners, and car owners are legally required to have an up to date subscription. There is no way manufacturers will take on the burden of insuring their cars voluntarily.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  So they will replace one subscription (insurance) with another… it essentially allows the car manufacturers to cut the middleman…
pfortuny 5y ago
The key word here being “will”. Which is not where the data IS now.

KennyBlanken 5y ago

> Self Driving car is no different. In fact, the Car manufacturers will have more data to ascertain the 'blame' and fewer accidents every X miles and they can insure the drivers at a much lower rate. They will happily pay from this pool "More self driving capabilities means fewer crashes per mile which means they're cheaper to insure" hasn't really panned out with Teslas. In 2018, Teslas had three times the fatality per mile rate of similar luxury cars: https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-rate-is-more-than-triple-that-of-luxury-cars-and-likely-even-higher-433670ddde17 https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-fatality-r... Teslas are also ludicrously more expensive to repair, and often parts availability is so bad that cars are "totaled" or the owner gets stuck in limbo - the insurance company says "well, we're happy to pay out, when you get the repair done..." and Tesla body shops and service centers have months long backups. Result? Teslas, despite getting into fewer crashes per mile than the average, are much more expensive to insure than other cars. The full self driving "beta" looks to be even worse, from sampling a couple of youtube videos of it "driving." The average age of a car in the US is 12 years old, by the way, which significantly skews things away from all the cars that have ADAS features)

slaw 5y ago
Tesla doesn’t have any self driving vehicles yet. We don’t know what will be insurance rates for L3 vehicles as Mercedes will be one of the first available to public.
deltree7 5y ago
Tesla is not a legally self-driving car and I'm not sure why you bought up that example. All your arguments are void. You clearly didn't get what I said. If a car achieves autonomous driving, and is legally allowed to self-drive, liability isn't an issue. Any idiot who understands actuarial math will understand that
fy20 5y ago
In my country there is a difference between insurance that covers others on the road (mandatory) and insurance that covers damages to your own vehicle (optional). I'd imagine insurance companies have something similar internally when calculating premiums, as a $1,000 20yo Toyota involved in an accident could cause the same amount of damage as a $150,000 Mercedes with this tech to others. That would be the part that would become cheaper as they will see over 1,000,000 miles the Toyota would have a higher rate of incidents than the Mercedes which has all these safety features (if it does what it says). If your insurance also covers damages to your own vehicle, of course that's going to be more expensive, as repairs to the Mercedes will be much more expensive than the Toyota.
- captainredbeard 5y ago
  Who would buy a $150k car, insure it, but not cover damage to the vehicle??
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    People who either completely overstretched their budget and can't afford it or people who are rich enough to save the insurance premium and simply buy a new one in the worst case.
  - deltree7 5y ago
    If I'm rich enough, I don't care replacing my Merc with my own money, instead of going through the pesky insurance. Insurance is great when you can't handle the cost of replacement. That's why you don't buy insurance every time you buy a $100 electronic appliance. Now scale your money to a rich dude's money, you'll get the idea
    - captainredbeard 5y ago
      > instead of going through the pesky insurance I hear ya but at some point that's what administrative staff is there to handle.
willyt 5y ago
> The average age of a car in the US is 12 years old… Average age of a car in Britain is 8 years and it’s only recently got this high. I got given a 10 year old car a few years back and I paid to have it taken away by the time it was 12 years old because it was costing too much in repairs and I realised I would be spending the same money on car payments on a new car.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

onion2k 5y ago

Car manufacturers will pay the much lower Y$ from this insurance pool They'll only accept that if they can charge a subscription fee to car owners, and car owners are legally required to have an up to date subscription. There is no way manufacturers will take on the burden of insuring their cars voluntarily.

dogma1138 5y ago
So they will replace one subscription (insurance) with another… it essentially allows the car manufacturers to cut the middleman…

pfortuny 5y ago

The key word here being “will”. Which is not where the data IS now.