Insurance

Giveaway Alert: Win a set of Performance Caliper Covers (Model Y/3)

To all Model 3 and Model Y owners, here’s a chance to win this very cool new set of Performance Caliper Covers for your Tesla (3/Y). RT and follow @tesletter on Twitter to participate. Good luck!

Introducing Tesla Insurance

Several months ago, Tesla announced they were working on a new Tesla insurance product. Yesterday, they finally released it, and according to Tesla “Tesla insurance is a competitively priced insurance offering, designed to provide Tesla owners with up to 20% lower rates, and in some cases as much as 30%”. Well, we tried it and in our case we got a quote 20% more expensive than what we pay at the moment. At the time of writing this newsletter Tesla has already taken down the quote page to improve the algorithm.

If you are in California, I recommend to at least get a quote, it takes only a couple of minutes. It is really the best insurance quote product that I’ve ever tried.

Read more: Tesla

PSA: Enable 'Smart Technology Discount' on Progressive Insurance Policy to save $$

u/pdobb2101 found out that his Progressive Auto Policy gets ~$90 cheaper over my 6-month by activating the “Smart Technology Discount” which basically seems to be a synonym for Automatic Emergency Breaking. This isn’t available in all states, so check the Reddit post to know if your state is in the list. Thanks u/pdobb2101 for sharing!

Read more: Reddit

Tesla Insurance is giving back customers a 20% credit for the months of March and April

Tesla Insurance is not the only insurance doing this, in fact, most car insurance are giving back some kind of credit to their customers due to the current situation with COVID-19. So if you haven’t done it yet, check with your insurance (some companies may require you to call or reach out) to save some 💵

Tesla insurance product to be fronted by Markel’s State National

During their earnings call, Tesla announced they are working on a new insurance product, potentially targeting people using Autopilot and more of the ADAS systems that our Teslas have. It is obvious that Tesla knows a lot about our driving, speed, routes, type of driving, etc so they can tailor the rates better. From the article:

“The purpose of the product is to use Tesla’s proprietary technology to lower costs and improve the customer experience by embedded technology to support the underwriting, rating, claims, repair, and product manufacturing network, including direct data feeds with customer permission, when required, that eliminate frictional costs and inefficiencies inherent in traditional insurance processes.”

So far, we are happy with Geico but it is good to have other options out there.

Read more: Reinsurance News

Tesla insurance telemetry data

Tesla allows car insurance companies to gather some data about Tesla driver’s behavior. However, Tesla has access to many more insights and information that others can’t get e.g. to get strong signals on bad driving behavior. Here are some of the fields of Tesla’s Insurance Telemetry data shared by @rice_fry on Twitter (the rest are in this Twitter thread). Records are on a per drive basis:

• Unique Drive ID
• Record Version
• Car Firmware Version
• Driver Profile Name
• Start / End Time
• Drive Duration
• Start / End Odometer

Tesla insurance to be introduced in China

During the last earnings call, Tesla shared they should be ready to start offering Tesla insurance outside California by the end of the year, after some more improvements on their telematics product. We’ve now learned they’re going to start with China.

Tesla insurance upgraded algorithm

You probably remember that last week I mentioned the new Tesla insurance, while I loved their UI to get a quote I wasn’t impressed by the actual quote. Well, Tesla put down their page soon after, they re-did their algorithm, and their quote came 20% lower than what I pay now for my Model S on Progressive.

I’ve decided to wait until my next insurance cycle (cancelling, etc it’s just a pain) but I will be definitely considering it seriously when the time comes. If you got a quote early just take a peek again, you may get a better quote this time around, even a cheaper one than with your current insurance.

Read more: Tesla

Tesla Q2 Earnings Call

In yesterday’s Q2 update, Tesla beat the estimates and reported the fourth straight quarter of profits. Elon said he’s never been as excited about Tesla and its future as he is now, and we couldn’t agree more. Here’s a quick summary of the call:

• Confirmed the next Gigafactory in Texas, near Austin. It’ll be the biggest one yet and Elon described it as “an ecological paradise” which will be open to the public.

• Solar prices adjusted

• FSD updates

  • “It’s getting to the point where I can get to work from home with almost no interventions.”
  • “FSD will be the largest financial step-change in history, overnight.”
  • The biggest transition in the FSD computer is going from 2D (image recognition) to 4D (video recognition).

• Hints on Tesla making a compact vehicle as well as a high capacity one, but there’s still a long way to go before it happens

• Tesla App Store coming

• Tesla’s insurance telematics product will be available in California and a handful of other states by the end of the year

• Berlin will have local cell production to serve their needs

Here are some great notes by @dburkland on Twitter. Thank you, Dan!

What is factored into calculating your Tesla Insurance premium?

I think it’s pretty cool that you can save some $$ on the insurance premium based on driving behavior. Tesla Insurance is taking into account things like ABS activation, hours driven, forced Autopilot disengagements, and more, and in any case, the monthly premium will not change by more than 50% based on these factors. Curious to see how other insurance companies are going to try and compete with this.