>Why would manual driving be more expensive to insure in the future? The same risks exist today, at today's rates, but with the benefit that over time the other cars will get harder to hit, reducing the rate of accidents even for humans (kinda like herd immunity).
I think it will get cheaper because people who want to do risky things that detract from driving will self select to drive autonomous vehicles.
Interesting theory, I would have assumed the exact opposite. People who want to drive fast and take risks will select manual driving because they'll find the autonomous cars too boring.
It's a numbers game. Those people basically don't exist compared to cheapskates who want to drive old cars and people who crash cars driving distracted. It's gonna come down to how many people who want to text and drive or do other sketchy stuff want to make the jump to autonomous cars. Classic car insurance is already stupid cheap just because it implicitly excluded a bunch of risky demographics.
Waymo does a lot of urban miles and they do so fairly timidly. The flip side of the that coin is Tesla FSD and you don't hear people simping for their safety record much around here.
What if the difference between human and computer is basically nil (for the next ten years or so) and turns out to cost as much as glass coverage?
Furthermore, it's not like you can slap this stuff on a 2000 Ford Tarus. You're inherently incurring the insurance burden of a fancy modern car with obscenely expensive everything to even get into the kind of vehicle that could/would be equipped with autonomy.
They put one in front of my friend's house. It's a big plastic one almost as big as a speed table. The complainer Karens drive .03mph over it and get honked at or driven around. The trucks and vans, anything driven by an employee or a teenager just speeds right over and a small number of people go for air time. 11/10. Highly entertaining. And this is all in addition to having to listen to every vehicle accelerate after it of course.
Because a hard long wearing tire is a low grip tire and the direct tradeoff between safety and the environment is not something either crowd wants to deal with because there's so much overlap.
>Yes, they're banned, but nobody is checking aftermarket brake pads..
On one hand you've got the people who insisted on regulating all of our manufacturing out of the country on environmental and safety grounds. On the other hand you've got the people who want to band asbestos and lead and all manner of other dangerous chemicals in consumer products. Both these people are dressed like Spiderman and they're pointing at each other. <facepalm>
And you gotta have soft tires to harness that EV torque people expect. Not like the old days where they put hard stiff tires on Priuses to wring out every MPG.
>They are also heavily subsidized by the US government in the form of relaxed regulations. The profit margins are higher which...
Look in the mirror, that's who's responsible for this.
You people levied regulations. You levied them in half baked ways that resulted in the demise of sedans and station wagons. And now you complain that SUVs are "subsidized". Get out of here with that nonsense and take your stupid regulations with you so the rest of us can have diversity of vehicle choice back.
None of this stuff is a subsidy, construing "exempt from the screwing some other product category gets" is just a lie.
I take a less libertarian view on this. It because trucks and truck-like vehicles are under-regulated. The result being excess pollution and pedestrian fatalities. We need to remove the loop hole.
When operating beyond your comfortable range you have to strategically plan charging the way shitbox owners have to stop and top up fluids. If it's your only car it's absolutely a degradation in the ~monthly ownership experience though you (in my opinion) make it back not doing oil changes and the like.
Even without the tax credit I still think that EVs are a great buy for most though. Charging shenanigans is simple and a "known known" whereas ICE maintenance is far more unclear at the time of purchase
So I was actually looking at it yesterday, and the top end ranges of todays EVs are actually the same range as my 2007 Honda Accord. Maybe I am unique, but I have never taken a road trip so long that I needed to get gas midway going one way, maybe this is more common out west. I have done some round trips for sure though that would require a top up on more than a charge.
I was surprised though that ranges, at least on the top end and very expensive EVs, are now comparable to ICE cars. This will continue to improve and hopefully alleviate any form of range anxiety in the future, especially as chargers just become more ubiquitous. I feel people really fail to realize they can just essentially top up each night and start out with a full "tank." I don't know, it all just feels very overblown with today's EVs.
It's not the overall range that gets you. It's when all the chargers in the work parking lot are taken and you need to go somewhere that doesn't have chargers after work and it's also winter that results in an inconvenient stop or cutting it uncomfortably close. It's absolutely surmountable but it requires planning you didn't have to do before.
IMO what you save by not going to the gas station is a wash if you have to habitually charge more than just at home. You're replacing one habit with another.
I still think they're worth it since you basically never get hit with an exorbitant repair bill for the engine/trans.
Nobody was even thinking about CO2 when the policies that got Europe where they are were enacted.
Europe began embracing diesels 40yr ago when they were noisy and stinky and they did it because they taxed the crap out of fuel so people rightfully prioritized buying vehicles that got better fuel economy.
I don't know about mainland Europe, but in the UK it really was exclusively about CO2 emissions per distance travelled, to the extent that Vehicle Excise Duty (the annual tax you pay on a car) was defined in terms of g/km of CO2 emitted. This happened in 2001 and wasn't changed until the wake of the emissions cheating scandals [1].
Interesting. If not to reduce CO2 emissions, what was the rationale presented to the voters for having high taxes on fuel 40 yr ago?
In the US, Federal lawmakers would be voted out of office (even now after the science of climate change has settled) if they imposed taxes on fuels anywhere near as high as European lawmakers do.
>Interesting. If not to reduce CO2 emissions, what was the rationale presented to the voters for having high taxes on fuel 40 yr ago?
Energy security. They didn't have north sea oil back then. Buying from Russia or the ME was fraught with political peril. And of course the .gov is never gonna pass up a chance to increase revenue.
I think it will get cheaper because people who want to do risky things that detract from driving will self select to drive autonomous vehicles.
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