Self Driving Car Insurance • Hacker News Board

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#311

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 12:52 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #295

Retric wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren’t talking about the average human here. On average you include sleep deprived people, driving way over the speed limit, at night, in bad weather, while drunk, and talking to someone. FSD is very likely situationally useful. But you can know most of those adverse conditions don’t apply when you engage FSD on a given trip. As such the standard needs to be extremely high to avoid increased risks when you’re sobe…

> On average you include sleep deprived people, driving way over the speed limit, at night, in bad weather, while drunk, and talking to someone. FSD is very likely situationally useful. Are those people also able to suprevise FSD like the law and Tesla expects them to? That's also a question.

[deleted]

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#312

Post by einpoklum » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #261

einpoklum wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but could one not argue that the owner of the self-driving car is _not_ the operator, and it is the car, or perhaps Tesla, which operates it?

All Tesla vehicles require the person behind the steering wheel to supervise the operations of the vehicle and avoid accidents at all times. Also, even if a system is fully automated, that doesn’t necessarily legally isolate the person who owns it or set it into motion from liability. Vehicle law would generally need to be updated to change this.

But that might be considered a legal trick. Suppose that, when you pay for a taxi, the standard conditions of carriage would make it your responsibility to supervise the vehicle operation and alert the driver so as to avoid accidents. Would the taxi driver and taxi company be able to eschew liability through that formalism? Probably not. The fact that Tesla makes you sign something does not automatically make the signed document valid and enforceable.

It may be that it is; but then, if you are required to be watchful at all time, and be able to take over from the autonomous vehicle at all times, then - the autonomy doesn't really help you all that much, does it?

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#313

Post by rogerrogerr » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:13 PM UTC

aanet wrote: post #57

It would be interesting to see if Lemonade requires a Driver Monitoring System (DMS) to see if the driver/operator is actually paying attention (or, like sleeping / watching Netflix / whatever) while at the driver's seat. Anybody know?? Tesla FSD is still a supervised system (= ADAS), afaik.

FSD won’t stay engaged for very long if you’re not paying attention. It’s getting pretty smart about how much attention it wants you to pay in different situations, but there are no situations where it will let you just sleep.

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#314

Post by thegreatpeter » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:57 PM UTC

microtherion wrote: post #170

I'm quite skeptical of Tesla's reliability claims. But for exactly that reason, I welcome a company like Lemonade betting actual money on those claims. Either way, this is bound to generate some visibility into the actual accident rates.

Do you drive a HW4? I’m 90% FSD on my total car miles

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#315

Post by sMarsIntruder » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 2:07 PM UTC

microtherion wrote: post #304

sMarsIntruder wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t bet money on just “I’m quite skeptical because I hate the man”, but on actual data provided by the company. That’s the difference.

The skepticism and hate is based on observing decades of shameless dishonesty, which is itself a form of data provided by the company: https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/

Still doesn’t change my point: as of today being skeptic because relying on outdated data or historical series is just nonsense. I mean, insurance quotes work in a totally different way.

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#316

Post by paulryanrogers » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

pests wrote: post #280

paulryanrogers wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tacking "Supervised" on the end of "Full Self Driving" is just contradictory. Perhaps if it was "Partial Self Driving" then it wouldn't be so confusing.

Its only to differentiate it from their "Unsupervised FSD" which is what they call it now.

That is redundant and doesn't make the other any less contradictory

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#317

Post by paulryanrogers » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 2:30 PM UTC

pfannkuchen wrote: post #287

paulryanrogers wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...but also might negatively impact the fsd safety record (an interesting experiment!) As a father of kids in a neighborhood with a lot of Teslas, how do I opt out of this experiment?

Do your kids randomly run into the road? I was worried about that but then mine just don’t run into the road for some reason, they are quite careful about it seemingly by default after having “getting bumped into by a car” explained to them. I’m not sure if this is something people are just paranoid about because the consequences are so bad or if some kids really do just run out into the road randomly.

I'm more worried about the Teslas hitting my kids when they're on bicycles or Teslas swerving off the road into the yards. Regardless, it sure would be nice if technology controlling multi-ton vehicles on public roads were subject to regulations, or at least had clearly define liability.

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#318

Post by amelius » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

DaSHacka wrote: post #114

amelius wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or at some point subscribing to a service may be easier than owning the damn thing.

All according to plan

If you take off the conspiracy hat, you will see that there are many advantages to not owning a product. Such as that the vendor's incentives are better aligned with yours. For example, if the thing breaks, it is in __their__ best interest to fix it (or to not let it break in the first place). This also has positive implications for sustainability.

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#319

Post by physicles » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #318

DaSHacka wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All according to plan

If you take off the conspiracy hat, you will see that there are many advantages to not owning a product. Such as that the vendor's incentives are better aligned with yours. For example, if the thing breaks, it is in __their__ best interest to fix it (or to not let it break in the first place). This also has positive implications for sustainability.

It’s also in their best interest to set the price so as to maximize their own profits. If switching costs or monopoly power allow them to set a higher price, they will do so.

Have we learned nothing from a decade of subscription services?

Re: Self Driving Car Insurance

#320

Post by amelius » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:56 PM UTC

physicles wrote: post #319

amelius wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take off the conspiracy hat, you will see that there are many advantages to not owning a product. Such as that the vendor's incentives are better aligned with yours. For example, if the thing breaks, it is in __their__ best interest to fix it (or to not let it break in the first place). This also has positive implications for sustainability.

It’s also in their best interest to set the price so as to maximize their own profits. If switching costs or monopoly power allow them to set a higher price, they will do so. Have we learned nothing from a decade of subscription services?

Nobody said we should allow monopolies?