Tesla Is So Sure Its Cars Are Safe That It Now Offers Insurance For Life (mashable.com)

In the self-driving future envisioned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, car owners might be saying "goodbye" to a whole lot more than steering wheels. From a Mashable report: Musk is so sure of the safety features bundled into Tesla vehicles that his company has begun offering some customers a lifetime insurance and maintenance package at the time of purchase. No more monthly insurance bills. No more unexpected repair costs. "We've been doing it quietly," Tesla President of Global Sales and Service Jonathan McNeill explained on the call, "but in Asia in particular where we started this, now the majority of Tesla cars are sold with an insurance product that is customized to Tesla, that takes into account not only the Autopilot safety features but also the maintenance costs of the car." "It's our vision in the future that we'll be able to offer a single price for the car, maintenance and insurance in a really compelling offering for the consumer," added McNeill. "And we're currently doing that today."

Comments

Re:Supportive

[EnsilZah]

As far as I know they offered free supercharging for five years, and anyone who bought a car in that time period still has it, hardly bait and switch.
Do you expect a company to continue offering an option in perpetuity once it's been introduced, regardless of how the scale and economics change?

Re:Yeah, with a fucking asterisk

[AaronW]

Things are rather different for airplanes than cars. Airplanes are far more complex in terms of what can go wrong, however for the most part autopilot is simpler. My model S already checks the tire pressure. If the car is iced up it likely won't drive itself either, since obviously all the cameras need to work as well as the ultrasonic sensors and radar.

The reliability of a car also does not need to match that of an airplane since with a car you can usually just pull over. With an airplane carrying a lot of passengers it's a whole different story. It's not like it can just pull over and stop at 30,000 feet.

Mechanically they're night and day. The number of moving parts in a Tesla's drivetrain is a small fraction of what it is in a gasoline or hybrid vehicle which is a lot simpler than an airplane. The car already monitors just about everything as it is such as battery temperature, current/voltage, coolant temperature, air temperature, tire pressure, traction control, stability control, etc. There's even a rain/snow sensor. The autopilot feature also won't work if the car can't see the road clearly and it's not supported if it's raining or snowing. The car even monitors the state of the 12v battery. In my model S it warned me before it failed, and my car is a first generation model.

The car also is paying attention to a lot more than a driver can, since with 8 cameras and other sensors it is constantly looking all around the vehicle. It doesn't get distracted either by kids in the back seat, changing radio stations, or cell phones. The software will continue to improve as time goes on.