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The most likely scenario at this point it: - autonomous cars cause fewer accidents - so either insurance will be cheaper for them - AND/OR human driving car
by alexpotato 2mo ago
The most likely scenario at this point it:
- autonomous cars cause fewer accidents
- so either insurance will be cheaper for them
- AND/OR human driving car insurance goes up
- even if only one happens, the relative cost of insurance will change in favor of autonomous
- driving your own car becomes a kind of "prestige" thing where only really wealthy people do it (similar to owning your own plane etc)
- ceejayoz 2mo ago> so either insurance will be cheaper for them lol
- jdm2212 2mo agoInsurance will just be bundled with the self-driving car software. Insurance and car are separate today because driver and car are separate today. Once they're the same, there's lots of money to be saved by bundling the sale.
- alexpotato 2mo ago> Insurance and car are separate today because driver and car are separate today. This is an excellent point.
- Someone 2mo agoThat already is happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-driving_car_liability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-driving_car_liability: In 2015, Volvo issued a press release claiming that Volvo would accept full liability whenever its cars are in autonomous mode. […] Starting in September 2023 in the United States, Mercedes-Benz takes liability for the Level 3 Drive Pilot as long as the "user operates Drive Pilot as designed," but "the driver must be ready to take control of the vehicle at all times when prompted to intervene by the vehicle."
- ceejayoz 2mo ago> when prompted to intervene by the vehicle There'll be a decade of court cases over how fast this means. Mercedes will argue 10ms before the crash counts; ambulance chasers will claim it's five minutes.
- ceejayoz 2mo ago> Once they're the same, there's lots of money to be saved by bundling the sale. There’s a lot of money to be made. Just look at the prices for travel insurance direct from the airline versus a third party. 2-3x. It’ll be like BMW with the heated seat subscription fee.
- jdm2212 2mo agoThe actual money will be made because the driverless car manufacturer is self-insuring and cutting out the insurance company. Competition among manufacturers will then pass most of those savings on to you. Similarly, many car makers offer heated seats without a subscription fee, because of the magic of competition.
- GolfPopper 2mo agoAnd the wage slaves lose even more freedom and autonomy.
- hamdingers 2mo agoIf freedom is being shackled to an expensive appliance by a yearslong loan and autonomy is being trapped at home if it breaks or you lose the ability to operate it... I'll pass on both. Using my phone to make a car show up when I need it and disappear when I don't feels like utopia.
- GolfPopper 2mo agoSorry Citizen, your ID / payment account / device has been flagged for <reason withheld>. If you believe you are being denied transportation in error, please engage with our automated attempts to pretend to help you.
- hamdingers 2mo agoAs if the government does not control your license to drive today... They'll never stop me from riding my bike at least.
- jeffbee 2mo agoWaymo is already self-insured so if they have an advantage it's already on their balance sheet. In California nobody is going to get a discount for having ADAS software because we encoded into the state law in the 1980s, part of a long magical thinking campaign by boomers, that insurance companies can't use that type of thing to set prices.
- lelanthran 2mo ago> The most likely scenario at this point it: > - autonomous cars cause fewer accidents > - so either insurance will be cheaper for them > - AND/OR human driving car insurance goes up If they were going to do that, they would have done it by now for those drivers opting into the insurance monitor device: they can literally tell that you're a driver that never took a risk, never got into a situation to brake hard, never drove recklessly, etc, and yet, the insurance cost with the device is only slightly less than the insurance cost without the device. In any case, if this was strictly a financial decision, why would the human cost go up? The larger the percentage of SDVs there are on the road, the less likely a human driver gets into an accident, their risk goes down too, so their insurance should also go down.
- bretthoerner 2mo agoIt's a pool. If all the drunks switch to autonomous vehicles then we all win. If all the school teachers switch to autonomous vehicles then the drunks lose. In my own life I see the most reasonable/thoughtful drivers raving about autonomous driving and the most reckless ones ranting against it. YMMV.
- Gigachad 2mo agoHaven't wealthy people spent most of history paying someone else to drive for them? Driving yourself will become like horse riding, something you do on private property for sport rather than transport.
- madamelic 2mo ago> Haven't wealthy people spent most of history paying someone else to drive for them? My understanding is that it is a legal and safety liability for them to drive. The driver is employed by and the car is owned by a company that the wealthy person founded and pays so if the driver hits & kills someone, the company gets sued for a bunch of money then the liability can be discharged in bankruptcy / isolated to the company's coffers rather than the wealthy person's. It's the same gambit as their security. I am sure more than just Gates and Musk do it but I know that both of them own personal security companies who only provide security to themselves. It's all just shells of liability shielding.
- MarioMan 2mo agoMaybe I’m missing something. I can’t imagine that paying a chauffeur can be cheaper than umbrella insurance.
- inemesitaffia 2mo agoIt's cheaper for the person being driven.
- jakzurr 2mo agoI expected this to happen a few years ago, but I think I was over optimistic. Now, who knows? Maybe it will finally start to make a difference.
- arjie 2mo agoWell, there is the alternative that prosecution is low enough in case of accidents that insurance payouts are low and consequently insurance is low priced. Also, the majority could easily vote for price controls on car insurance like they have on home insurance. I can easily construct arguments along the lines of “cars are necessary to drive and insurance costs are regressive since they don’t scale with income so we need to have price controls on insurance for low-income drivers”. These will be quite popular.
- kakwa_ 2mo agoThat's assuming people are rational with their money. Cars already are extremely wasteful assets in terms of resource, space and money if you live in a decently served urban area. It already irrational to have one 90% of the times. An indirect and somewhat hidden cost like insurance is unlikely to move the needle anywhere near significantly.