Hacker News Reader

Comment by tough | Hacker News Reader

one would think the global -lets deface teslas- movement might have something to be with insurance premiums going up for teslas no?

View on HN

A rounding error in the economics of insuring cars. Much of the cost of insurance is what your car does to other things on the road.

The insurance company quoted seems to claim that they have not seen an increase of vandalism.

They say however that one reason is that 2nd hand prices are dropping rapidly and that gives some uncertainty how to put value on the car for replacement. Don't quite understand what they mean with that.

When you write off a car, you don't get the value of a new car, you get the value of the car at the point of time it was written off. So if you write a 3 year old car, you get the value of a 3 year old second hand car. Uncertainty on the price I guess increase financial risk.

But the price has consistently falling, so that would suggest a reduction in the insurance costs. I think it's more likely that drivers reliance on teslas assistant driver programme is likely to cause accidents, the costs of which are likely to dwarf what it costs to replace the Tesla.

Probably not. Most of those vehicles at dealers would be covered under commercial policies separate from the loss ratios reported here. Also the backlash is more recent than the loss ratios reported (2024 results).

I would imagine it's because Tesla replacement parts and repair outlets are far more expensive and limited in supply than ICE car manufacturers which make up the majority of insured vehicles. Longer repair time would mean the driver needs a loaner car for longer, increasing costs.

That's unlikely to be a significant percentage of insurance claims.

so its more about tesla's owners being bad drivers then?

That’s one possibility, but there’s also the well-known horror stories of dealing with Tesla service centers.

one legitimate explanation I have heard is that when a Tesla gets in an accident, even with minor damage, they have to replace the Battery, because they are not able to accurately assess the damage to battery and the risk of not changing it. This balloons the insurance cost.

This seems like a real public policy problem; a custodian in a Ford Escort should not incur an extra $20k in repair liability after a fender bender simply because the other car happened to be a wealthy lawyer's Tesla. At some point the owner of the glass car has to take responsibility for the risk of having it on the road.

Mostly propaganda. Narcissists love being "the victim". "Victims" are granted more leeway when using "defensive" powers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com