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Imagine that for a moment: Self driving car companies could promise to pay all accident expenses provided it was on auto drive at the time of accident. Not onl
by cyphunk 11y ago
Imagine that for a moment: Self driving car companies could promise to pay all accident expenses provided it was on auto drive at the time of accident.
Not only is that a marketing win, potentially reducing accidents and saving costs for owners... if you jump forward many years of Google (or other) defending owners in court you would reach a point even judges would be biased to believe that the auto-driven car could not have caused an accident, further disadvantaging non-auto cars in the market.
- jalonso510 11y agoWill be really interesting to see how insurance is priced for these cars.
- fixermark 11y agoIf the safety records meet goals, it's functionally free money for the insurance company regardless of insurance price. So one could predict a race to the bottom for insuring these machines.
- ender7 11y agoKeep in mind that every autocar will have an extremely accurate recording of the accident that can be analyzed and played back during a hearing. Determining fault will be trivial in almost all cases.
- agumonkey 11y agoAccidents, when non fatal, are such a waste of anyone's resources. And there are so many way to be cheated. I'm stunned no manufacturer included a logging device. Nowadays you have dash cams though.
- freehunter 11y agoMany new cars have black boxes that log what the vehicle was doing, and they can be pulled in case of an accident. It's one of the benefits of having everything be electronically controlled these days.
- agumonkey 11y agoHappy to hear that. I don't know why it's not advertised more, it's reassuring and enforcing at the same time. Maybe people would flock toward log-free models out of a reflex to drive carelesly.
- freehunter 11y agoThat's probably why it's not advertised. Because your car will tattle on you. I've often wondered about the black box in my car, if I were in an accident and I was going 71mph in a 70mph and they pulled by black box, would I be given a ticket even though I was not at fault? Although I'm pretty sure only the manufacturer has access to this data (as part of their copyright on the car), so it would take a warrant for law enforcement to get it. I don't have proof of that, but I would guess that's why you don't hear about it more. It's only used when absolutely necessary.
- agumonkey 11y agoAgreed. The issue when collecting data is that it's a rabbithole, you need to have a lot of data to avoid shallow judgement, and careful jurors too. Going at 71 (74,75) instead of 70 might turn against you, but if you have enough evidence that the other vehicle would have it you even at 70mph then the system will work.
- brc 11y ago
- EvanKelly 11y agoIs "autocar" a thing? The ambiguity between automatic/automobile/autonomous really makes me hope a better word surfaces. Self-driving car is a bit too long.
- fixermark 11y ago"autoautomobile" ;)
- jcoffland 11y agoI like robocar.
- agumonkey 11y agoIn France a 'car' is a name for non public buses, a diminutive of 'autocar'. Maybe nowadays car will be demoted to semimobile, or Human Driven Car.
- dclowd9901 11y agoI've always been partial to "robocar". It has a nice tinge of dystopia to it.
- theocs 11y agoautobot
- geoelectric 11y agoThe cool thing being that the official launch will be the "Autobot Rollout"
- DanaDanger 11y agoAll I hear is "this car gets in accidents." Maybe not the message marketing wants to send... ;)
- freehunter 11y agoHow do you hear that? It's basically a guarantee, and companies generally don't warrant against things they know will happen. The reason you get a 1 year warranty on things is because they are engineered to not break down within one year. After that, the incidence of failure goes up. "We will pay for any accidents caused" means "this will not cause accidents". Because no company would do that unless they were sure it wasn't going to happen. Just like when Google gives $100,000 for bugs in Chrome. They wouldn't say that unless they were sure there were no or relatively few bugs.
- schoen 11y agoAnother interpretation of the Google bug bounty is that fixing bugs of a certain kind is actually worth $100,000 to them (but you're right that it would be hard to sustain if they expected to make thousands of payouts at that level).
- baddox 11y agoIt's already common for automobile manufacturers to explicitly market the collision safety features of their cars. Many car commercials have collision test footage.
- btian 11y agoI rather the marketing message be like "we tested the self-driving car for xx million miles, and we had zero at fault accident."
- BurningFrog 11y agoI think that will be necessary. The selling point is that these cars drive better than people and get into far fewer accidents. As the manufacturer, you have to show you believe in that.