car clubs/sharing/insurance

[Gibbo2286]

I've been to Sausalito, CA it's over the bay from San-Francisco, maybe I should have popped in with some advice.

We have a lady locally who has TURO as part of her personal number plate, it's known all over the district as 'the turd car'...…..but she don't care.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Rather than trying to sell 1500 of their e-golfs to the Berlin Public, VW have decided to rent them out with their Car Sharing App "WeShare".

Autocar....Volkswagen WeShare fully-electric car sharing service launched

"Customers will download an app and use their smartphone to unlock and start a WeShare car, with payments made digitally. Users must have a German address, be over 21 years old, and have held a driving license for at least a year. An introductory price of 19c per minute will be in place until September, when hire rates will increase to around 29c per minute."

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Co-Wheels Car club doing the sell on their Renault Twizy at the Salutation Hotel Ambleside

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=57441&p=612261#p612261

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

While not a car club in the sense of having access to a car club car when you want it and using an app on your smart phone to book and pay, companies like TESLA, NIO, and latterly PORSCHE, very much want to create a membership club for their products and services. From Charging Networks, to in NIO's case a series of clubhouses across China.

TESLA for one are now offering a bespoke insurance product for their vehicles, and a service which Elon Musk believes will generate a significant revenue stream for the company.

Tesla (TSLA) is about to launch its in-house insurance program in more states

With the vast amount of information a tech savvy car company like TESLA have, on their drivers and their vehicles, they have moved from offering an Insurance service in partnership with another provider, and Tesla plans to use its connected features inside its vehicles, including its driver-assist features, in order to provide an insurance product that is more accurate and cheaper than the competition.

In California so far, many customers have indeed reported paying less with Tesla Insurance.

CEO Elon Musk is extremely bullish about the product:

And as we’ve talked about before, with a much better feedback loop, instead of being statistical, it can be specific. And obviously, somebody does not have to choose our insurance. But I think a lot of people will. It’s going to cost less and be better, so why wouldn’t you?

He estimates that Tesla Insurance could reach a valuation that represents 30% to 40% of Tesla’s car business.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

...and Rivian are also going to follow the TESLA model with their own insurance too, and many others may well do the same.

Another aspect is that just like having a smart meter gives you access to lower electricity tariffs, choosing Rivian's Active Driving Assistance results in lower insurance costs.

Article on Inside EV's Confirmed: Rivian Will Really Sell Its Own Insurance Policies

The curious bit is that the Rivian Insurance will get cheaper for the people who use the Active Driving Assistance that is part of the Driver+ safety pack. That’s the name for Rivian’s equivalent to Autopilot. The more you use Active Driving Assistance, the cheaper your Rivian Insurance gets.

The logic behind offering Rivian Insurance deserves compliments. As a startup, Rivian does not want to be subject to what legacy insurance companies will say it costs to repair its vehicles. A minor crash could mean a write-off. With Rivian Insurance, the automaker plans to offer lower premiums, less time in body shops, and a no-hassle experience when dealing with accidents – which are already a massive headache.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

TURO roughly explained on this thread in the spoiler below, and now the "world's biggest car sharing network",

Spoiler: show

The asset-free business model is alive and kicking.
1 Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles.
2 Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content.
3 Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no stock of goods.
4. Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no hotels.

and Turo over here from over there, gives us AirBnB for peer-to-peer car sharing, and the giants of the car rental world don't like it!

US car-sharing app Turo is here to change how you hit the road

TURO popped up recently in a "Clean Technica" article and on You Tube.

It featured one of those "when things go wrong" stories about a TURO "host" whose "guest" ended up wrecking the "hosts" Tesla. A footnote but important element was that the "guest" allowed another driver to drive and subsequently crash the car.

This is when things get messy although the "blame" would seem obvious, and cast-iron host protection insurance sensibly taken out, becomes less cast-iron than the host thought, and restitution of the host's loss is neither quick, not without a costly legal fight.

The thinking behind the car-sharing platform provided by TURO and others is sound. Lots of cars on lots of driveways doing nothing for most of the time, provide the host with an easy platform to list their car and its availability, and make a bit of easy money for the host with 70% of the rental fee, while the platform providers TURO, make more than a decent worldwide living out of their 30%'s for every hire, and through the Insurance packages sold to the host and to the guest.

Inside EV's also gave TURO a name check, reporting a survey og TESLA hosts and Guests, presumably not including the host referred to above...

Turo Interviews Tesla Guest & Hosts: The Results Are Fantastic For EVs

The results are super-positive for Tesla, and the electric car industry is a whole. People who drive these cars often want to buy them. This makes Turo one of many indirect marketing schemes that Tesla benefits from over other automakers.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Tesla is working on driver ‘safety rating’ based on driving behaviours and Autopilot use to affect insurance cost

Here are the factors that Tesla will be tracking to determine your safety rating:

ABS Activation – Number of times ABS is activated
Hours Driven – Average daily driving time
Forced Autopilot Disengagements – Number of times Autopilot is disabled due to ignored alerts
Forward Collision Warnings – Number of times car detects a potential forward collision
Unsafe Following Time – Portion of time spent at an unsafe following distance
Intensity of Acceleration and Braking – Speed variance due to extreme acceleration and braking. Shown on a scale from 0-10 as measured against Tesla’s internal fleet.

Your high tech car company now knows more about its customers driving behaviour than the traditional insurance companies. As reported previously, when rolled out Elon Musk believes it will be a significant revenue generator representing up to 30-40% of its car business.

Also control of hiked up prices for insurance repairs on TESLA vehicles and keeping the vast majority of that work in house, is an added benefit.

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Smells far too strongly of "Big brother" to me!! When, if, I do go electric it won't be with any company that gathers data from the car. If necessary I will revert to my idea of converting the MX3 rather than subject myself to further monitoring!!!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Smells far too strongly of "Big brother" to me!!

Reflects many of the comments on the article.

In the UK, lots of new drivers get black boxes fitted that track their driving style, braking habits and time and length of their trips etc to adjust the price of their insurance depending on how safely they are perceived to drive. Most people absolutely hate this big brother supervision approach and can't wait to get onto an insurance policy that doesn't actively monitor their driving.

Tesla are probably top of the tree with vehicle information and monitoring systems, but others are moving in the same direction. Puts them in a powerful position.

1. To set the rules for what they consider to be safe driving, and the weightings for an overall safe driving points score.
2. To adjust monthly invoicing for insurance based on the previous month's safe driving scores. ( on the metric of Intensity of Acceleration and Braking-an individual TESLA driver/car score is measured against the TESLA Fleet on a 0 to 10 scale.)
3. In the event of an incident to have the evidence to support attribution of blame, or to deny liability under the terms of the policy.

Using TESLA as an example, and many other car companies if not currently doing the same thing, will.

They have a vast amount of information on every single car in their fleet, and on how it is driven, where it is driven, when it is driven. They use this to set their own Insurance Policies, and offer them to their owners/drivers.

Obviously this cant be compulsory otherwise there would be enormous miss-selling lawsuits, and TESLA owners/drivers can choose to insure with other companies.

To what extent are other companies entitled to have exactly the same information as Tesla hold when assessing a client for an insurance policy for their TESLA. In the event of an incident full disclosure of information relevant to the incident which TESLA hold would be expected, but is it the same at the assessment phase for a new policy

REgards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

This concept is very alien to my beliefs concerning personal privacy rights etc. I wonder where this stands in terms of the data protection legislation. I would have thought that the owner's permission was required in writing in order to gather data concerning a person's whereabouts, where, when and how they travel etc etc etc.. ? Is that permission included in the sales contract when you buy a Tesla and if so what happens when the car is sold on into the second hand, sorry used, car market? Definitely not something I will ever agree to. I'd rather use shanksey's pony comes to mind!

[GiveMeABreak]

Good luck with that in Europe - you couldn't even have a Dash Camera in Germany because of their strict data protection / privacy laws! I think a judge did allow video evidence in court recently from such a camera as it directly showed the incident, but it contradicts the fact that you are not allowed to arbitrarily 'spy' and record others - which makes the use of these devices unworkable in practice.

It's unacceptable for insurance companies to allow this to become defacto - as this will unfairly affect owners that live in rural locations with gravel roads where their ABS / ESP will go off a lot more than if you live in a place where they have this marvellous black stuff on the roads which I believe is called tarmac. Country lanes with single lanes are another issue where this won't work - having to keep pulling in at short notice to allow cars to pass and avoiding those coming round the bends that don't know the roads, etc. etc.

I avoid any insurance companies that want black boxes, like I avoid any electric companies that want smart meters. They can swing for it as far as I'm concerned.

Your data is just that - yours and it is becoming (if not already) a very sought after asset for companies.

Example:

Amazon has four major mid-term goals:
1. Expand Prime offerings.
2. Acquire more customer data.
3. Continue building massive competitive efficiencies....

and here's my unofficial number 4) Continue flooding Amazon with more cheap Chinese crap.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Car clubs and sharing do exist, but haven't been embraced as much in the UK as yet as for example Germany. So Transport and Environment (Europe's leading clean transport campaign group) have been having a look at it.

Shared Vision: Tackling the barriers to electric car clubs in the UK

The average British car sits parked for more than 95% of the time, and when used rarely travels very far: well under half the journeys undertaken by car are under five miles. Some 29% of cars drive less than 5,000 miles in a year. A large proportion of those car owners would be financially better off by not owning their vehicles, and using car clubs for their journeys.......

Sound enough approach, wider adoption of such schemes could well have result in less new vehicles needed and less on the roads.

Before I actually have a read and see what they say this is my take.

I can see for me personally, why I wouldn't want to participate in a car club, apart from the number 1 reason that I enjoy having my own personal car. I wouldn't trust the insurance arrangements and liabilities however they were stated and however much I could be bothered to pour over the very small print of the contractual arrangements, and couldn't be faffed with retaining for my own protection details of damage with photos checklists etc etc on accessing the vehicle, and at the end of my journey in it, or indeed being lumbered with potential damage in between my use and the next person using the car.

Same on a smaller scale for the various bikes/scooters etc hireable in Cities.

Maybe that's where the autonomous city transport vehicles come in. Jump in take no responsibility at all for the vehicle and get transported where you want to go. Yes just invented the taxi/bus/tram/pod....but without the driver

REgards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I would be prepared to consider a car sharing scheme where the users are a closed club all known to each other; this idea works for Bob in his airplane sharing syndicate where each member owns an equal share in the aircraft and pays an equally distributed share in the maintenance costs based on hours logged by each user. Each member is responsible for his own fuel usage and landing fees incurred etc when using the plane. On returning to the home field the plane is refuelled by the user and staked back in its place fully fuelled and ready for the next member. Thus the insurance/'who did it' issues don't arise because everyone has an equal interest to preserve.

The main thing for me is that only people you choose to share with use the vehicle, so it is your choice from day one who you can trust to hold up their share. Under a similar arrangement it would be quite practicle to share a car with neighbours or family etc. However I would also have a second car for my personal pleasure, as I do now, and for the security of a non start at a crucial moment which would be added to by a possible non availability at a crucial moment. So I guess what I am saying is I would give up my second car in favour of a neighbourhood shared vehicle with a simple booking system.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Peer to Peer Sharing/Renting

Looks a piece of cake...all you need is a smart phone and a car...and the money rolls into your piggy bank.



Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Another News story from Stellantis, fits in with this thread

BMW and Mercedes to sell "Share Now" to Stellantis

(gobbledegook warning!)

BMW and Mercedes behold that the sale comes at a time of growth and is a move to consolidate. With the sale of Share Now to Stellantis, they intend to focus on digital multimodality (Free Now app) and digital services related to EV charging (Charge Now). They see more significant growth potential in these two areas than capital-intensive car sharing.

I'm sure BMW/Mercedes/Stellantis all think they know what they are doing.

I just about got the repeated revenues and profitability model of robotaxis and self drive cars, fuelling their development and investment, rather than making cars for individuals to buy/lease/rent as personal vehicles where the asset is underused, idle for the vast majority of every day, and the potential to generate revenues from that asset foregone.

There are apps and schemes coming out all the time in this area. Stellantis already have their scheme "Free2Move" but will acquire from their point of view, the network set up across many European cities by Mercedes/BMW as they choose to exit the car sharing arena. Maybe Merc/BMW think they are still in the big car/ personal ownership business.

Regards Neil