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Tesla Insurance is a kind of small moat. But I think Tesla is really banking on winning the automotive AI race. They currently don't seem to be winning, but tha

Tesla Insurance is a kind of small moat. But I think Tesla is really banking on winning the automotive AI race. They currently don't seem to be winning, but that does appear to be their main gamble. If they can be the first to achieve level 4+ self-driving then they would definitely dominate regardless of charging infrastructure.

garyfirestorm 3y ago
Level 4? Mercedes already beat them to level 3 https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-pilot-level-3-approved-nevada https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-p...
- leetharris 3y ago
  Just like how Samsung beat Apple to face scanning technology. Mercedes version is extremely limited and is only available on $100k+ cars with tons of additional hardware. I have Tesla FSD. It is certainly overpriced, but it has genuinely been getting a lot better in the last year. When I first got it I was disappointed because it was so useless, now I use it probably 70%+ of my drives. IMO Tesla is the closest to a mass-market version of the technology.
  - tnel77 3y ago
    There’s a huge subset of people who just desperately want to “prove” that the popular company is bad. Apple bad, Tesla bad, etc.
    - fomine3 3y ago
      Because fanboys are too verbose for hype
      - simondotau 3y ago
        Fanboys sometimes talk about a favoured corporation with rose coloured glasses. Hateboys (or whatever you might call an inverse fanboy) often talk in reductive and/or derogatory terms about both corporations and anyone who defends them. Both groups are occasionally a bit sad and naive, but it's usually only the latter which become corrosive and openly hateful. Unfortunately the bulk of the internet seems incapable of recognising this and all too often gives hateboys a free pass.
      - tnel77 3y ago
        Fanboys also annoy me. The other side of the coin is that there are people who worship companies no matter what they do. I personally prefer more of a “let’s judge each product on its own” sort of person. I love my iPhone and AirPods, but I don’t personally have any desire to own a Mac or the new Vision Pro.
- jandrese 3y ago
  The Mercedes system is a headline system. In that it was designed to generate headlines without actually accomplishing much.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    MB's system accomplishes the levels of quality defined in the SAE standard. Tesla is taking a different strategy by focusing on quantity of features, although many of them fail to meet the reliability standards of the higher SAE specs. Tesla is stuck at level 2 because the level of reliability required at level 3 would mean they'd have to remove features to meet it.
    - ballenf 3y ago
      And turn it off completely when driving on half the roads in the US.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    To be fair, Tesla calls theirs "FSD" for essentially the same reason.
  - rasz 3y ago
    Tesla generates plenty of headlines every time one decapitates a driver or crashes full speed into large pretty much visible from space police/fire truck blinking all of its lights.
- 93po 3y ago
  This is a tired argument. Level 3 driving in extremely strict conditions in a very small area using technology and software that doesn't scale isn't "beating" Tesla.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    Level 3 is the lowest level of self-driving. Level 2 and below are driver assistance features. Tesla makes very nice driver assistance features, but they have not released any features which operate the vehicle safely by itself under any circumstance. MB is beating Tesla in the self driving game because they've released a car that is >0% self driving. Tesla is beating everyone at the driver assistance game.
    - 93po 3y ago
      This is semantics. Firstly because this difference is largely because Tesla chooses to not deploy it as level 3 in some tiny highly-mapped market with sensors (LIDAR) and software that don't scale (MB's level 3 breaks at the first change in roads like construction). Secondly because Tesla is 90%+ of the way to building level 3 driving in 99% of places. MB is 99% of the way to level 3 driving in 0.1% of places and it would take them years and billions of dollars to get that to 5%. I'll let you do the math and see which is further ahead.
      - kube-system 3y ago
        It's not semantics at all. They're both currently focused on solving very different problems under the broad category of "driving automation". While MBs approach has obvious coverage limitations, the advantage to that approach is that the solution is a more clearly scoped problem with a more obvious answer: expand the coverage. Tesla's approach doesn't have nearly as clear of a path to advancement. They need technology that doesn't yet exist to get there. Some have posed some serious concerns about whether Tesla's feature-first maturity-second approach is an engineering dead end and will ever be able to mature to the point of being able to operate unsupervised. They may be close, but the Pareto principle is a bitch. Time will tell, but I suspect we'll see Tesla adopt some of the same strategies that other automakers are taking before this race is over.
- fastball 3y ago
  The self-driving car level system is stupid because it is implies linearity but it is absolutely not. It also implies that higher level == better, which is certainly not a given. Is a system that can drive well on 10% of roads 99% of the time better than a system that can drive on 90% of roads 80% of the time? Not objectively. The former is "level 3" and the latter is "level 2". A solution that can get you to 3 quickly might never get you to 4. And just because you beat someone else to market with "level 3" doesn't mean their solution won't skip over yours straight to 4/5.
w0m 3y ago
As a current Tesla model 3 owner, when I bought it - there was nothing remotely similar on the market. Today, I see the SC network, AutoPilot and general-'fun' factor as the Tesla differentiators. When I need to buy a new car in a few years (I honestly have no idea what kind of lifespan to expect), I'm looking forward to more options.
traceroute66 3y ago
> Tesla Insurance is a kind of small moat. Only idiots buy black-box based car insurance (whether Tesla or any other). I mean, come on, insurance companies are already renowned for slippery policy wordings and the desire to get out of paying-out. Do you seriously think an insurance company having access to your driving data is really being done for your benefit ? I would be willing to bet its so that Mr Risk Adjustor at the insurance company can say "computer AI algorithm says it thinks you were driving 'aggressively' that morning". And once "computer says no" you'll have a hell of a time trying to fight it.
- justrealist 3y ago
  > Do you seriously think an insurance company having access to your driving data is really being done for your benefit ? Well yes, there's marginal value for both you and Tesla in excluding aggressive drivers from the program. Some company with worse telemetry eats the cost of the accidents from those drivers. It's fine to argue that this is a privacy tradeoff you don't think should be legal but there's pretty obviously value to be had for both insurance and customer.
- ajross 3y ago
  > Only idiots buy black-box based car insurance Monitored policies are almost always significantly cheaper. That's why people buy them. I won't engage on who the "idiot" is in that analysis except to say that Adam Smith probably has an opinion. The reason this works is that it forces the consumers to self-partition into those who think they drive safely and those who know they don't. That doesn't correlate perfectly with actual safety, but it's clear that it's a good proxy signal. Insurance companies may be renowned for "slippery policy wordings", but they're even better known for doing good statistics.
  - gleenn 3y ago
    Anecdata but my mother opted for the sensor tracking on her phone through her insurance company while driving and she saw almost zero cost savings.
- 3pt14159 3y ago
pfisch 3y ago
I'm not sure it will really matter that much if they have level 4+ 1 year before their competition.
sakopov 3y ago
> They currently don't seem to be winning, but that does appear to be their main gamble. So who do you think is winning it?
- ActorNightly 3y ago
  In terms of usefulness, right now, not Tesla. At some point there will be a research breakthrough in ML with models that can extrapolate physics which is the current thing that is missing from self driving being actually good. At that point Tesla is going to be the winner without a doubt because they have the hardware and data to train en masse and deploy to cars.
  - 01100011 3y ago
    This assumes their HW is capable enough to run that algorithm. This remains to be seen.

garyfirestorm 3y ago

Level 4? Mercedes already beat them to level 3 https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-pilot-level-3-approved-nevada https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/27/23572942/mercedes-drive-p...

leetharris 3y ago
Just like how Samsung beat Apple to face scanning technology. Mercedes version is extremely limited and is only available on $100k+ cars with tons of additional hardware. I have Tesla FSD. It is certainly overpriced, but it has genuinely been getting a lot better in the last year. When I first got it I was disappointed because it was so useless, now I use it probably 70%+ of my drives. IMO Tesla is the closest to a mass-market version of the technology.
- tnel77 3y ago
  There’s a huge subset of people who just desperately want to “prove” that the popular company is bad. Apple bad, Tesla bad, etc.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    Because fanboys are too verbose for hype
    - simondotau 3y ago
      Fanboys sometimes talk about a favoured corporation with rose coloured glasses. Hateboys (or whatever you might call an inverse fanboy) often talk in reductive and/or derogatory terms about both corporations and anyone who defends them. Both groups are occasionally a bit sad and naive, but it's usually only the latter which become corrosive and openly hateful. Unfortunately the bulk of the internet seems incapable of recognising this and all too often gives hateboys a free pass.
    - tnel77 3y ago
      Fanboys also annoy me. The other side of the coin is that there are people who worship companies no matter what they do. I personally prefer more of a “let’s judge each product on its own” sort of person. I love my iPhone and AirPods, but I don’t personally have any desire to own a Mac or the new Vision Pro.
jandrese 3y ago
The Mercedes system is a headline system. In that it was designed to generate headlines without actually accomplishing much.
- kube-system 3y ago
  MB's system accomplishes the levels of quality defined in the SAE standard. Tesla is taking a different strategy by focusing on quantity of features, although many of them fail to meet the reliability standards of the higher SAE specs. Tesla is stuck at level 2 because the level of reliability required at level 3 would mean they'd have to remove features to meet it.
  - ballenf 3y ago
    And turn it off completely when driving on half the roads in the US.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  To be fair, Tesla calls theirs "FSD" for essentially the same reason.
- rasz 3y ago
  Tesla generates plenty of headlines every time one decapitates a driver or crashes full speed into large pretty much visible from space police/fire truck blinking all of its lights.
93po 3y ago
This is a tired argument. Level 3 driving in extremely strict conditions in a very small area using technology and software that doesn't scale isn't "beating" Tesla.
- kube-system 3y ago
  Level 3 is the lowest level of self-driving. Level 2 and below are driver assistance features. Tesla makes very nice driver assistance features, but they have not released any features which operate the vehicle safely by itself under any circumstance. MB is beating Tesla in the self driving game because they've released a car that is >0% self driving. Tesla is beating everyone at the driver assistance game.
  - 93po 3y ago
    This is semantics. Firstly because this difference is largely because Tesla chooses to not deploy it as level 3 in some tiny highly-mapped market with sensors (LIDAR) and software that don't scale (MB's level 3 breaks at the first change in roads like construction). Secondly because Tesla is 90%+ of the way to building level 3 driving in 99% of places. MB is 99% of the way to level 3 driving in 0.1% of places and it would take them years and billions of dollars to get that to 5%. I'll let you do the math and see which is further ahead.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      It's not semantics at all. They're both currently focused on solving very different problems under the broad category of "driving automation". While MBs approach has obvious coverage limitations, the advantage to that approach is that the solution is a more clearly scoped problem with a more obvious answer: expand the coverage. Tesla's approach doesn't have nearly as clear of a path to advancement. They need technology that doesn't yet exist to get there. Some have posed some serious concerns about whether Tesla's feature-first maturity-second approach is an engineering dead end and will ever be able to mature to the point of being able to operate unsupervised. They may be close, but the Pareto principle is a bitch. Time will tell, but I suspect we'll see Tesla adopt some of the same strategies that other automakers are taking before this race is over.
fastball 3y ago
The self-driving car level system is stupid because it is implies linearity but it is absolutely not. It also implies that higher level == better, which is certainly not a given. Is a system that can drive well on 10% of roads 99% of the time better than a system that can drive on 90% of roads 80% of the time? Not objectively. The former is "level 3" and the latter is "level 2". A solution that can get you to 3 quickly might never get you to 4. And just because you beat someone else to market with "level 3" doesn't mean their solution won't skip over yours straight to 4/5.

w0m 3y ago

As a current Tesla model 3 owner, when I bought it - there was nothing remotely similar on the market. Today, I see the SC network, AutoPilot and general-'fun' factor as the Tesla differentiators. When I need to buy a new car in a few years (I honestly have no idea what kind of lifespan to expect), I'm looking forward to more options.

traceroute66 3y ago

> Tesla Insurance is a kind of small moat. Only idiots buy black-box based car insurance (whether Tesla or any other). I mean, come on, insurance companies are already renowned for slippery policy wordings and the desire to get out of paying-out. Do you seriously think an insurance company having access to your driving data is really being done for your benefit ? I would be willing to bet its so that Mr Risk Adjustor at the insurance company can say "computer AI algorithm says it thinks you were driving 'aggressively' that morning". And once "computer says no" you'll have a hell of a time trying to fight it.

justrealist 3y ago
> Do you seriously think an insurance company having access to your driving data is really being done for your benefit ? Well yes, there's marginal value for both you and Tesla in excluding aggressive drivers from the program. Some company with worse telemetry eats the cost of the accidents from those drivers. It's fine to argue that this is a privacy tradeoff you don't think should be legal but there's pretty obviously value to be had for both insurance and customer.
ajross 3y ago
> Only idiots buy black-box based car insurance Monitored policies are almost always significantly cheaper. That's why people buy them. I won't engage on who the "idiot" is in that analysis except to say that Adam Smith probably has an opinion. The reason this works is that it forces the consumers to self-partition into those who think they drive safely and those who know they don't. That doesn't correlate perfectly with actual safety, but it's clear that it's a good proxy signal. Insurance companies may be renowned for "slippery policy wordings", but they're even better known for doing good statistics.
- gleenn 3y ago
  Anecdata but my mother opted for the sensor tracking on her phone through her insurance company while driving and she saw almost zero cost savings.
3pt14159 3y ago

pfisch 3y ago

I'm not sure it will really matter that much if they have level 4+ 1 year before their competition.

sakopov 3y ago

> They currently don't seem to be winning, but that does appear to be their main gamble. So who do you think is winning it?

ActorNightly 3y ago
In terms of usefulness, right now, not Tesla. At some point there will be a research breakthrough in ML with models that can extrapolate physics which is the current thing that is missing from self driving being actually good. At that point Tesla is going to be the winner without a doubt because they have the hardware and data to train en masse and deploy to cars.
- 01100011 3y ago
  This assumes their HW is capable enough to run that algorithm. This remains to be seen.