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Self-Driving Cars To Transform Insurance and Other Industries
MarkWhittington writes: The advent of commercially available self-driving cars is about five years away, but already some are thinking about how they will disrupt the economy and how society operates in general. One industry likely to suffer is that of auto insurance. Since the vast majority of auto accidents are caused by human error, having more autonomous vehicles on the road will almost assuredly result in fewer overall accidents. Further, once we've transitioned to a society that mostly gets around using self-driving vehicles, most accidents will be the result of hardware and software malfunctions. Insurance for self-driving cars would more resemble product liability coverage than the sort of auto insurance we have today. Indeed, the technology will also likely impact diverse industries such as auto mechanics, taxi services, and health care, as well as policing.
Really? As long as liability insurance is mandatory, and comprehensive required for as long as you have load on the car, and as long as it takes action on the part of a state legislature followed by years of court battles to force insurance companies to lower rates, no, insurance companies will not suffer from lower accident rates.
In fact, in most states, they will probably use the changing market as an excuse to raise rates, knowing they will continue to sell the same number of policies while paying fewer claims.
Anybody who believes that the legal requirements for insurance will change for self driving cars is smoking dope.
Is that the same kind of years that are used by a lot of other technological advances? Because if it is, we won't have commercially available self-driving cars before 2040.
And by then, I hope they're freakin' flying cars, too.
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“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If I can pile into one drunk and it will drive me home, sign me up. My hunch is that the our current nanny-state way of thinking will never allow this. We will be required to be sober and attentive even if not driving. You'd probably get a ticket for merely reading a book or sending a text message.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
With self-driving cars and collision damages gradually becoming insignificant, legally mandated insurance should end. This would be a huge boon to the economy, as a parasitic and unneeded cost is removed.
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Self-driving cars won't be owned by the general public, they'll be owned in fleets and operated by commercial concerns. Those concerns will negotiate to buy different insurance products of a different class entirely. Overall, the automobile insurance market will shrink dramatically.
Police in small towns would lose a ton of money - much fewer speeding and traffic tickets.
Similarly, the elderly would participate more in life - go out, party, and socialize a lot more.
Movies ( and a bit of books) will increase - think of all the stuff kids do while you drive them around.
But all of this will take 10-20 years, after the first sale, not immediately
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
In this case, the legal industry will welcome the plethora of deep-pocketed targets available to be sued when an accident occurs with a self-driving vehicle.
Won't somebody think of the insurance underwriters!?
No, most people will stop buying cars and just hire them as needed, as it will be cheaper than owning a car. Big companies that own fleets of such vehicles will either negotiate better rates or simple self insure.
It doesn't matter, I just saved 15% on my car insurance . ..
Is that the same argument that renting cars (e.g. Zipcar) or hiring taxis is now cheaper than owning a car? It is, for most people. And yet most still own cars.
Some accidents are cause because they are dumb animals, some because the owner is an idiot and some because the third party is an idiot. A robot car has the same responsibility as a horse.
...what is going to imagine: some insurance company is the first to come up with cheaper insurance for self-driving cars. The others follow. Murderous competition follows, until prices settle at a new, much lower level. Plus: we lose a couple of insurance companies as road-kill. Minus: the survivors may form a cartel.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
My bet... insurance companies will make it nearly impossible to own a human driving car. Since humans create accidents and they do not wish to pay out, liability coverage for a human driven car will increase greatly while robotic cars will drop. Eventually it will be nearly impossible to own a human driven car because of the costs.
Oh wow, the insurance companies have to dream up a new scheme to milk people. They will not have much difficulty with that. This is a subject of no interest or importance to nerds. Why is it on Sloshdat?
The alternate vision of the future is that, as usual, futurists are all hot and horny about how their technology will revolutionize the world, but it will continue to be far too expensive for society to change over and it will never happen on the claimed scale.
So, like when I see things about how we'll have smart cities in which the roads are interconnected and technology will be everywhere .. I'm forced to conclude we're not going to tear down the world and start over to build this shiny stuff the futurists keep telling us is inevitable.
At the end of the day, these are products someone wants to sell us. And if the world doesn't feel like it has billions or trillions of dollars to rebuild everything for your shiny new technology, then either it will never happen, or it will be rolled out in a few limited places for the wealthy.
Take the average age of a car in North America .. hell, take the average age of a car in the world.
Now, ask yourself who is going to replace all of the cars on the planet with your super awesome technology?
From there you can pretty much realize that this stuff will never 100% replace what we have, will only ever benefit a very small amount of people, and likely won't be able to coexist with what we have now. In which case it sounds good on paper, but will never come to fruition.
Technology is cool, and it does move forward. But the economics of technology often means it will never be as practical or achievable as claimed by its proponents.
The world isn't going to rush out and buy self-driving cars just because the people who want to sell self-driving cars tell us how awesome they'll be. It just doesn't work that way.
As usual, I'll believe it when I see it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You've never lived outside of downtown NYC or outside of Silicon Valley, have you?
In just about every other place in the US it is far cheaper to own your own car.
The main gain with automated cars, even with a gradual adoption rate of say 10 years, are cities with traffic. Productive time will shoot up when people can work while being driven to work, traffic will be lessened, optimal driving habits can lower fuel usage. The areas where we will spend less money would be fuel, possibly insurance, and car maintenance.
This saved money doesn't just disappear, it will go into other areas of the economy that might have a better impact. After all, if you spend $2000/yr on fuel for one car, cutting that in half due to ride sharing or 3/4 due to more efficient driving will allow you to spend it on a vacation, clothes, entertainment, industries that are seeing falling revenue due to less expendable money.
Less accidents mean lower rates? Bwahahaha... Yep, they will keep them the same or more likely raise them "because things are different". Ever rising profit targets must be met.
I'm all for self-driving cars in general. As long as they work. That's less people trying to kill me and my motorcycle.
"Self-driving" doesn't really mean around-town does it? I think it only related to highway driving at this point which actually is less dangerous for motorcyclists than surface streets. That's really where we need self-driving cars.
I drive a Mustang. Why would I want a computer driving it? That's 3/4 of the fun of having one. On a 3-4 hour drive on an interstate, that's one thing, but otherwise forget it.
I'm looking forward to the possible end of traffic jams, which is usually the result of thousands of people making seemingly rational but actually very poor decisions. When you get past the jam the cause is either not evident at all or its something head-thumpingly trivial like a merge or something on the side of the road. "That's it? That's the reason? What the hell is wrong with you people!?
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Yes, large companies will try to turn us all into taxi users. A very significant portion of the population will resist not owning a car. The geographic majority of the country still has access to free parking since there's more space than people. A ton of people actually like driving. There are all the trails and things to drive on where self-driving really probably wouldn't work and would defeat the purpose anyway. The automotive aftermarket parts is a massive industry by sales alone.
That said, there will be human-driven cars until they're legislated away, which won't happen that soon since it will be taking away the value of a very large piece of owned investment. The human drivers will presumably pay about what they pay now. Why wouldn't they? If insurance companies jack the rates up too high, a new insurance company will spring up to take those drivers' money without gouging them as much. Insurance companies currently make tons of money off of human drivers. There will be fewer human drivers and the auto insurance will have to scale down proportionately, thereby leading to a loss of scale that could increase costs, but the roads should be overall safer which would lead to fewer claims and reduced costs.
Therefore I think it will be about a wash.
Once some accidents happen, their financial penalties will be off the charts.
the bank will let you take out an unlimited loan so you can go back to school and if you fail there is alleys the jail / prison for room and board + an doctor that does not bill you other then fed system max copay $3.
Right now I have about $50K invested in human-controlled automobiles. These automobiles, with proper maintenance, will last me another 10-20 years.
The real question is, if you want to make auto-cars mandatory, how are you going to get the millions of Americans who are currently paying for non-auto-cars out of their loans? If non-auto-cars become unusable on public streets, how the hell am I supposed to get enough value out of the ones I already own, to be able to afford to replace them with 2 auto-cars?
FYI, if your answer involves a government subsidy, then you're already admitting to failure.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The insurance companies - at least for several decades or
more would not want to lose revenue. They won't charge
lower rates.
Auto companies would be even more against self-drive.
Gas cars would last 5 X longer. Electric could go for
1 or 2 million miles or more. Servicing would be a lot
less resulting in lower income from parts. It's be a huge
loss of sales among dozens of competing car companies.
Car Dealers would be put out of business.
All will put on a market face making them look
like they care, and will have SOME product.
But it's like telecoms: all smoke and mirrors.
If you don't let the car drive itself, your insurance rates quadruple.
I live in Silicon Valley, and it's cheaper to own a car (or lease an electric) than it is to use Zipcar. And way cheaper than Uber or taxis. A few months ago it cost me $30 to go 5 miles in a San Jose taxi.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Zipcars are great in Boston & inside the subway footprint. In the suburbs, you want a car. I'm 40 minutes north and our town doesn't have sidewalks or bike lanes on most roads. In winter, the few sidewalks don't get cleared.
Almost no buses an the nearest commuter rail is at least 20 minutes drive.
I'm all for driverless. I have adaptive cruise in my Subaru. I don't think not going to work because its snowing is an option. Lots of people & businesses had problems when the MBTA failed.
Pretty soon insurance for driving your own car will only be affordable to the wealthy.
police should be doing fewer traffic stops now and working on real stuff. Also speed limits need to Realistic. As in 65-70+ on most interstates.
All of IL-toll way should be a min of 70 (aka the real enforced limit) posted in some areas in 55 / work zone 45 (try that your own risk)
need a laws to ban dealer only auto repair / oil changes / etc as they can be coded to only go to dealer for any work or even change oil each 1000 miles.
The link to the previous slashdot article states that traffic fines collect 300k per officer.
Strangely no one in the previous article mentioned that based on the numbers given that
would make there only be 20k officers in the USA. In reality, according to google,
there are 900k sworn officers which would make traffic fines only account for 7k per
officer. Still a significant amount but nowhere near the 300k mentioned in the previous
article.
Therefore, the requirement to insure your self-driving car will be the obligation of the owner of the car. So there is no change. In the beginning these cars will drive together with human controlled cars. So there will be accidents. And subsequently insurance claims. If these self-driven cars are indeed able to have less claims the price for the service will drop. However, this will not transform insurance industry. They still sell you insurance and the price includes the real cost of accidents + administrative cost + their profit. If the cost by accident is reduced the overall price is reduced, but certainly they will not reduce the last part of their price.
So no real change for insurance.
If self-driven cars result in less cars, because everyone is borrowing them from their favourite car sharing organization, then the overall driven kilometres might not change much. Only the amount of parking lots can be decreased, but that is happening anyway, as we need more space for bikes, public transport, and people in the cities. As there is no reduction in kilometres the number of accidents will not decrease. Therefore, the business model of car insurance is still save.
The biggest impact of self-driven cars will be in the distribution of goods, if certain technologies are used to automatically and and unload transport devices. Long distance trucks will disappear and drives in taxi cabs and maybe the first leg of postal delivery will be swapped to self-driven vehicles. This will cost a lot of jobs.
My average car age s >20ys.,
US gov view of auto replacement is a 10yrs life cycle. So we are talking about 2025 at the soonest, assuming auto industry start today pushing out ONLY self driving cars.
They can hope for taking over HOV lanes (that took 2 to 3 years to install) to give them more reason to be on the road. But that makes adoption +5 years more. so 2030 with a big question mark.
Bicycle Lanes and Traffic Rules will become a problem of the Past
when self driving vehicles take over our streets.
With the exception of Emergency and delivery vehicles,
alternating streets need to be bicycle and pedestrian only.
Self Driving vehicles will make the largest socio-economic changes the world has seen since the invention of the self binding harvester. Cars will become more expensive as fewer of them will be destroyed in collisions, fewer people will own them, More people will take public transit, they won't need dangerous, exploding, air-bags.
Every city and municipal transit system needs to be FREE.
- Traffic jams will become a thing of the past. Air quality will improve
- No more Impaired Driving
- Thousands of lives will be saved each year due to the absence of collisions.
- Millions of people will be out of work.
- No more Taxi Drivers
- No more Truck Drivers
- No more Interstate Truck Stops
- No more Insurance Agents
- No more Collision Repair Shops
- No more Speeding Tickets
- No more Traffic Cops
- No more Traffic Court
- No more Personal Injury Lawyers
I'd give up my control to an automated system if it saved time driving to and from work. However, I will not give up my privacy as a driver 100% of the time to ever use it. And I'd want to be able to turn off the system on the fly (like the automated system portrayed in the movie "I, Robot").
Good:
1) Traffic could improve with increased speeds, etc.
2) People will be able to use their time in their cars more constructively. Many will just use the time to dork around with their phones, but others will actually get stuff done.
3) There will be more living options as exurbs are made more attractive due to the ability to drive and work at the same time. (This could also bleed over into the auto industry as more comfort is desired for those long treks.)
4) Insurance rates will stabilize for those connected to the system.
Bad:
1) When cars are programmed to travel at the same speed, anyone not on the system will no longer be able to traverse the system as easily. (Example: When photo radar became a statewide system in Arizona, most drivers locked into 65-70 - creating a rolling traffic jam for those who wanted to go faster.) Politicians, environmentalists, and fearmongers ("Speed KILLS") will likely keep speeds from going up, and this will create significant backlash due to the loss of freedom to drive "better" than others. The A.I. will have to have a lot of tracking data and really advanced logic or the system will have a lot of detractors.
2) Average employees will likely be expected to use the system so they can work and commute at the same time.
3) If the system works well, then insurance for people not on the system will likely explode in cost.
Side questions: Will carpool lanes give way to "autodriver" lanes as a carrot to get people to use the system, or because they are ultimately more efficient than carpooling itself in relieving traffic? Will federal, state, or local governments run the system? Or will it be private? How much data will be collected by those entities? Will that data affect other risk-related costs for individuals? Will people even need a drivers' license to "operate" one of these cars?
If taxi drivers are mad against Uber drivers today, wait until they spot a self-driving car tomorrow, which never had an accident until they drove into it... fully insured of course.
The alternate vision of the future is that, as usual, futurists are all hot and horny about how their technology will revolutionize the world, but it will continue to be far too expensive for society to change over and it will never happen on the claimed scale.
As usual, I'll believe it when I see it.
If you'd have written this 100+ years ago while riding your wagon, then I'd be having a laugh at what you thought of those futurist and their super awesome technology called "the car". So, I suspect a 100 years from now my great great grand children will be having a laugh at your actual post while cruising (on the road or flying maybe) on those shiny things called autonomous vehicles which started to pop out somewhere in the early 2000's...
This tech makes perfect sense. faster, better, cheaper, safer....
But I don't see law allowing an unoccupied vehicle on public roads any time soon. There's too many issues. If there is some sort of incident, there's too many legal requirements that a human being be available to deal with it. Whether that's the vehicle at fault for an incident, being damaged in an accident, or a policeman wanting to pull it over for expired plates or something. There's a whole lot of laws that would need to change to enable the scenario you describe, without much upside. You describe some scenarios with upside, but it'll probably cause more trouble as people make their cars drive home to spare themselves parking fees, doubling how much fuel is consumed by those drivers.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Nobody who is driving today will see ubiquitous self-driving passenger cars.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Self-Driving cars to further enhance continuous surveillance by the Corporate State.
Even if you do let it drive you to the bar or liquor store and back, your health insurance premiums just went up in real time (doubly so if you hit a fast food drive thru).
it will be cheaper than owning a car
I don't see how this is likely to be the case. If you have a personalized need for a vehicle basically every day, then you can either own it, or pay someone else to use theirs. The rental model means you still pay for all the maintenance and such, as well as profit margin for the owner of the equipment.
This is easily seen across all industries. If your need is occasional, rental makes sense. If your need is such that you are basically covering the full cost of the rental companies cost to own and operate the product, then you may as well own it and not have to give someone profit.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
While "traditional" accidents may go down, new kinds of threats go up, such as hacking risk.
"Mom, why we are going to Albuquerque, especially since the bridge is down that connects th.....aaaaaahhhhHHHH!"
Table-ized A.I.
"Since the vast majority of auto accidents are caused by human error, having more autonomous vehicles on the road will almost assuredly result in fewer overall accidents. " Yeah, and you know, since the vast majority of auto accidents are caused by human error, putting mutated donkeys behind the wheel of every car on the road will almost assuredly result in fewer overall accidents. That follow exactly as much as the original argument.
Taxis become much more economical when you don't need a human to drive it any longer.
Imagine the social upheaval of all those now unemployed taxi drivers. And will people in the future understand Scorsese's film?
A lot of organ transplants come from those killed in car / motorcycle accidents. As deaths sharply decline with self-driving vehicles this will be a grim predicament.
Self-driving cars might lower accident rates, but they won't do away with them completely. Equipment, especially complex equipment, does malfunction, and there are limits to what equipment can do. There will still be unexpected icy spots that the computer can't compensate for, and blowouts, and road debris, and so on.
And then there are the drivers of the OTHER cards on the road. Even if self-driving cars became a reality in 5 years, it will take years, maybe decades, for the cars to become economically priced. And then there are all the existing cars on the road. The average car on US roads is 10 years old, so we have to add at least another 15-20 years before the number of human-driven cars drops to negligible numbers.
Self-driving cars will do nothing to change the need for comprehensive coverage, such as hail damage, or theft.
Insurance coverage and pricing will change, but it won't be going away.
Don't forget the auto body industry thrives on damaged cars. If there are no more accidents, then they will also suffer and be put out of work. Also the majority of money made on parts in the back counter at dealerships is to auto body so Dealer Franchises will also take a hit.
Since when did what someone "deserves" matter? There are probably more models for what people deserve than there are people.
Just what purpose do you think money serves? Would you rather they just printed more money and didn't create this weird situation where you are said to own temporarily something you never actually see, then it gets handed to the government?
Currently my prevailing theory is that this type of news is propaganda put out by car manufacturers to dissuade anyone from actively researching real applications of this technology. It's such BS I can't even breathe when I read it for the most part.
I wish this were true, but in five years? Not gonna happen
Some minor version like using autonomous cars in carpool lanes might be more common in five years, but not the.."call a self drive taxi to take you to the restaurant in the city" version that we are all thinking of.
Which is completely irrelevant to the discussion. What someone does with the money they earn is their business. If they choose to give it to someone, that's fine, but the government forcing them to hand over money whether they want to or not is wrong. On many levels.
Considering how often people on here rail against government intrusion in their personal lives, it's amazing how those same folks have no problem with the government poking into people's private lives in this situation.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
One part of the problem, now, is that cars can't drive themselves away after you use them.
nosig today
Am I missing something or do all the planned self driving cars still retain the ability to be driven by humans? Seems like if they can still be driven by humans, the insurance companies will still have a reason to exist and [possibly]thrive.
Don't get it. When I need it, I hire a truck. 7.5 ton truck for a day is quite cheap.
You are correct, you don't get it. Maybe you think that everyone is just like you, but we are not. In my case I'm not talking about needing a large truck, but still needing the capacity to take things when I go on trips (luggage, camping gear, a bike, and perhaps other items I'm taking to or bring back from the people I visit). My preferred day-to-day car would be a little two seater sports car like a Miata or a Scion, but there just isn't room in such a car when making a long trip. Plus rental mileage costs can add up quickly on a cross country trip and any vehicle would be rented for a couple of weeks, not a day. Also, I take very good care of my car and know it will serve me well on such a trip, I'm not comfortable with risking such trips on less trust worthy rental vehicles.
If you are happy renting that 7.5 tom truck on occasion, fine. But it doesn't really respond to the argument that I presented. The insurance is really on the driver. The insurance rate goes up when there is a teen driver or a driver with a less than perfect record. So we should stop lying about the insurance being on the vehicle rather than the driver (a lie promoted by the insurance companies so that they can get their double hits). We should tie having insurance to having a drivers license, and not penalize the driver who wants to drive a more efficient, lighter weight, less capable of doing damage vehicle on occasion. I would even be fine with the insurance rate being tied to the largest registered vehicle that the driver drives, even if it is not the vehicle that he drives the most, but I really object to being charged for insurance twice if I want to own two vehicles in a single driver household (and there could certainly be "no loan" clauses tied to insurance policies if the industry saw that as an issue, they don't because they would rather get the double hits).
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
As someone who has never lived in either place, it depends on what you are doing. I've certainly needed to *own* a car quite rarely, but do anyway. Having it be my car with my things in it is really useful.
That said, 10% of the United States does live in those particular places, and most of the population lives in dense urban areas.
I predict that owning a car will soon become a thing of the past, and we won't have to worry about paying insurance and all the other costs associated with owning a vehicle. We'll end up with mass rental pools of vehicles, which are owned, maintained, insured, refueled, etc by the rental company. We'll simply summon a ride using an app, and minutes later the nearest car will pick you up, take you directly to where you want to go, then it'll zoom off and service the next customer (or back to the depo to refuel/recharge).
Step right up, boys and girls, for what you see here will revolutionise the way we think, smell, feel, work... hell even what we don't. The magic in this marvellous oil is irrefutably stupendous as to drive the regular folk insanely crazy over the price!
The Self Driving car has been 5 years out for the last 40 years, much like the Flying Car I was promised.
I know Westeros is pretty much one big cesspit but what does that have to do with ships?
I still don't understand the hype for them.
The last four vehicles I owned - Escort zx-2 that one had a check engine light come on from a faulty sensor in the first ten thousand miles. Nissan pickup - that one after two years started stalling and stopping on damp days because of a fuel sensor, my mercury sable had a sensor break in the first 5000 miles - when the check engine light popped on , I pulled into the dealership at closing time and forced them to fix it. I have a jeep wrangler now, and whenever the outside temp goes over 89 degrees f and I turn the air conditioning on, the car shudders and jerkes then the check engine light pops on with a low speed idle fault in the OBD (finally bought an obd kit to clear faults to pass inspection).
The point is, I've owned 4 brand new cars, and each car had faults.
How can anyone expect that the car driving itself won't fault and cause cataclysmic accidents? maybe 100,000 cars will be perfect. Maybe a 1,000,000 cars will be perfect. But based on my experience - I'll be freaking terrified if everyone else has self driving cars.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Every time this comes up, I keep posting the same link : http://missingbytes.blogspot.com/2012/12/self-drive-engage.html.. and I keep getting down mods..
Now if only someone would tell me *why the downmods*, I could finally move on with my life.
I mean will you need hacking skills to hotwire one. Also will it be like my mobile? Will I be able to install a speeding/drag racing app?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
I predict that owning a car will soon become a thing of the past, and we won't have to worry about paying insurance and all the other costs associated with owning a vehicle. We'll end up with mass rental pools of vehicles, which are owned, maintained, insured, refueled, etc by the rental company. We'll simply summon a ride using an app, and minutes later the nearest car will pick you up, take you directly to where you want to go, then it'll zoom off and service the next customer (or back to the depo to refuel/recharge).
This post brought to you by the Uber marketing department.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If you are an adult and don't understand, you really need help.
Money has no value unless it is spent in a sense that is in public. All transactions are public. Furthermore all property is a social convention. You only own stuff because the majority of society agree that owning stuff is a good.
That will be an option, sure, and a lot of people will take advantage of it. But if you think the general public is going to give up private ownership of cars, then you haven't thought this through at all. There are too many benefits associated with it.
Right now autonomous cars have maybe conquered 80% of the task.
The last 20%, like always, is a bitch.
Try it! Library of Babel
Another thing wrong with the "Total Recall" remake: no Johnny Cab.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Yes, but specialization has benefits. Economies of scale and such. You can pay for ALL of that on someone else's self-driven car and still pay significantly less than you do for your own car. This is because they can get a bulk rate on their insurance, or even self insure if they are big enough. They can have their own staff mechanics, get bulk pricing on parts fuel, and fluids, etc etc. That plus it is far more economical to have the car rolling 24/7 than to have it mouldering in driveways or parking lots for 20 hours a day.