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So this is only an issue if you get Tesla Insurance. I’m guessing private insurance companies don’t consider the safety score? I work remote and have my groce

• elmerfud 4y ago
  Of course they don't want to consider time off the road. Historically they've never had a way to monitor it but now they can they for sure don't want too. It will cut in to their profits. Like my car has been in my garage for 2 months on a battery tender and will probably be there another 2 months before I drive it because I'm out of the country. Even when I'm home stores and food are walking distance. My main driving was too take a fried to work and shopping, but now she has her own car if we go out she drives.
  • bdw5204 4y ago
    That's one reason why I have no interest in purchasing a car or even getting a driver's license. If I can live in a walkable area with public transit and just walk or take the train/bus everywhere, I can save an enormous amount of money by not owning a car. If you're not using a car on a regular basis, it is probably much cheaper to just sell the car, cancel your insurance and use Uber or Lyft when you do need a car.
    • Broken_Hippo 4y ago
      Living in such an area is a luxury. I didn't have access to this stuff until I moved out of the US and into a larger town. Small to medium sized towns in the Midwest aren't exactly known for having public transportation or things conveniently located. Sure, the small towns are walkable, but you might have to drive 25 minutes to buy shoes. And even here, if I move out of town, I realistically will need a car. But it isnt a given since I'm also more likely to have access to intercity bike paths, trains, and a few inconvenient busses.
    • dazc 4y ago
      You should get your licence and own a car for a year - just a cheap one. Then see how enthusiastic you are about public transport and taxis. Fancy a day at the beach, a trip to see friends/relatives, just a day off for the hell of it. All of this is a snap decision if you own a car and a pain in the arse if you don't.
      • cbozeman 4y ago
        Couldn't agree more. Even in a "walkable" city, like say Miami, you still want a car for a multitude of reasons.
        • panick21_ 4y ago
          American standards for walkable and normal standards for walkable aren't the same.
      • plorkyeran 4y ago
        I had a car for about five years, and now haven't for about ten. I don't miss it in the slightest. Maybe in the days before convenient short-term rental carshares I'd want a car for those rare trips that really benefit from one, but it's not actually a big deal to walk a block or two to pick up a car for the day.
      • panick21_ 4y ago
        [flagged]
      • earthling8118 4y ago
        I've owned a car for a decade now. Within the past year I finally moved somewhere with access to transit. It's been the greatest thing ever. The transit here isn't even that good, but it is entirely liberating compared to driving. I can get basically anywhere I need and I don't have to pay attention to the road at risk of my life. My vehicle is just an expensive toy to me at this point and I'd rather it not exist. I don't want it. At all.
      • ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
        This is hugely dependent on where you are; living in a major city in western Europe, a car is a ball-and-chain for me because the transit is fabulous and dirt cheap (and alcohol isn't a factor).
    • cbozeman 4y ago
      Someone really needs to pioneer Car-As-A-Service, but I guess that's what Elon Musk is trying to do with Tesla Autopilot... after all, if you have a car that can be summoned in an app, you can just use it when you need it, then send it on it's way once you're done.
  • harvey9 4y ago
    I'm in the UK and they've always asked how many miles I expect to drive during the policy. I just bought a policy today and for the first time they asked if I drive during peak hours. This is not a black box policy - they can't directly monitor either of those variables. But if I make a collision claim then they will ask where and when it occurred.
    • dazc 4y ago
      'I'm in the UK and they've always asked how many miles I expect to drive during the policy.' The other year I put down 10K as rough estimate and after 4 months realized I'd already done 8K. Changing the policy to cover a more realistic 20K incurred an additional fee of something like £7. From this I reckoned mileage isn't a huge issue. Driving peak hours, as a risk factor, wouldn't surprise me at all given the general standard of driving by people who appear very anxious about being 30 seconds late to work.
• jfghi 4y ago
  Private insurance companies charge higher amounts for insuring Teslas as their repair costs are much higher than a majority of cars on the road.
  • ajross 4y ago
    No more so than any other car of the same price, in my experience. I mean, yes, Teslas are expensive so collision coverage is expensive. But no, they're not particularly expensive to repair in context.
    • stargrazer 4y ago
      How about for the main battery replacement? How often does that occur?
    • lukevp 4y ago
      Does “in your experience” refer to you actually seeing repair bills for Tesla? What I’ve heard is their exterior design is more heavily complex single components vs a more panel-based approach, and the exterior is all aluminum which can’t be repaired in the same way. I’ve also read that repair parts are ridiculously expensive from Tesla. Here is a recent article about this issue: https://www.autoblog.com/amp/2023/01/27/tesla-expensive-to-repair-insurers-writing-off-damaged-cars/ https://www.autoblog.com/amp/2023/01/27/tesla-expensive-to-r...
      • ajross 4y ago
        > Does “in your experience” refer to you actually seeing repair bills for Tesla Yes. > What I’ve heard Pretty much, yeah. That's how this always goes.
      • theluketaylor 4y ago
        Model S is aluminum but Model 3 is all steel. I've only needed one repair of my Model 3: a new side mirror and it was about $725 CDN in parts. My insurance wasn't able to secure the part and going through tesla directly it took about a month before the part was available. On the plus side the part was replaced right in my driveway in under 15 minutes by Tesla mobile service.
• dylan604 4y ago
  I did this when it first came out. At the time, I lived < 5 miles from work and worked offset hours. It did actually lower my insurance, and then when I learned what it was considering hard braking, it went even lower when I eliminated that from my driving habits. All was good until my company moved into the same building I was living. Naturally, my weekly driving dropped to zero with only weekend driving primarily for errands for groceries (I lived on one of those infamous food deserts). Because of this, the battery in the unit was not getting charged because the engine wasn't running enough. They accused me of gaming the system by unplugging the unit and driving around with out it. I told them to check the miles to show it was just not being used. They still argued that I was cheating, and end my trial. They then attempted to charge me an extremely ridiculous fee for not returning their device within their allotted time period.
  • fxtentacle 4y ago
    sounds like the typical customer support of any large insurance to me.
• PebblesRox 4y ago
  We use Metromile since we also work remote and don't drive much. There's a base rate per month plus a per-mile rate of a few cents. For us it ends up being a lot less than other options we've looked into.
  • lowkey 4y ago
    I just tried this approach, using Metromile, as both my wife and I work from home and rarely drive. Pay-per-mile IS cheaper if you only need liability insurance, but if you want collision and comprehensive, it actually works out to almost the same as a conventional policy with Progressive that doesn't track mileage. Notably, to get the slightly better rate from Metromile, you must use their ODB port tracking device and subject yourself to an opaque closed source algorithm that can only increase your rates but never seems to lower them more than 10%.
    • PebblesRox 4y ago
      Got it, we only use liability since we drive a cheap used car.
• ajross 4y ago
  > So this is only an issue if you get Tesla Insurance. Yes, the headline is as ridiculous as you'd expect for one with "Tesla" in the title. For those who aren't aware: Tesla sells its own insurance in some US states. Apparently it's a good deal (I'm not a subscriber and can't testify). And like some other insurers, they have integrated an automated driver behavior metric into the rate computations. Except in this case it's implemented as part of the car and has much more info available. This is expressed to the user as a "Safety Score" in the Tesla app. Doing dangerous things causes it to go down. Apparently driving late at night codes as dangerous now (which... it probably is?). No one's rights are being violated. Just buy standard insurance. No one's privacy is being violated that didn't already sign a contract to let Tesla monitor their driving.
  • starkd 4y ago
    But it is rather deceptive. Seeing your bill jump after driving somewhere that does not conform to your usual schedule feels constraining. People don't consult their policy before driving somewhere. They expect policies to be somewhat reasonable.
• hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  Search for "pay-per-mile car insurance". There are some plans that specifically charge you based on how much you drive.
• MisterTea 4y ago
  > They said that they don’t consider time off the road so it wouldn’t save my anything. Driving less means you are less practiced making you a more of a liability. This is the meaning behind "Sunday driver": a slow, haphazard driver who has poor control and is a road hazard as they rarely drive.
• btgeekboy 4y ago
  I don't drive a Tesla, and clearly don't have their insurance, but have had my rates affected by driving between 12a and 4a. My insurer (not a cut-rate one) did give me a discount for using, for 90 days, one of their OBDII dongles. That dongle measured a few things, one of which was number of times I drove between 12am and 4am. (Others included number of times I hard braked, but none of them was how fast I was actually going.) I'm a night owl, so the 12am part was frustrating. At least for this particular insurer, the discount sticks after you send the dongle back.