All the comments in this thread seem to be implying that AutoPilot causes crashes, thus leading to higher insurance claims. I don't know if that's true, but that's not what this post says.
Correlation does not imply causation. It can be true that Teslas cost more to insure without Tesla being "at fault" for the discrepancy. When they compared electric vehicles with their ICE counterparts, they found that "the seven electric vehicles with exact conventional counterparts had lower claim frequencies and higher claim severities than their comparison vehicles". Electric vehicles had less claims, but when there was a claim they tended to be more severe. I assume this is because if there is damage to the battery pack replacing that part is extremely expensive. So it's not surprising that when Teslas crash they can be expensive to fix given that "crash severity" tends to be higher with electric cars, and that Tesla is a small luxury car maker.
The other thing you have to think about is selection bias. All the groups you're sampling are not equal. Because Tesla's are known for being extremely fast, they might tend to attract people who want to... drive their car fast. To make a scientific comparison you'd want to randomly assign people to a Tesla or Non-Tesla to get a comparable sample population.
The other thing they mention is that "Teslas also are on the road more than comparable large luxury cars. On average, Teslas travel three more miles per day than other large luxury cars, HLDI found." Obviously, if a car drives three times as much as another car it's going to be roughly three times as likely to crash given a consistent probability of collision per mile, right? Since Teslas don't need gas, the more miles you drive the more money you save -- and the more financial sense they make. Therefore it's not surprising that Tesla owners tend to drive their cars much more as the financial incentives would tend to favor people who drive more -- especially with free unlimited supercharging in early Model S and X. Even someone who might not have driven a lot before will be more likely to drive more if the price of doing so is reduced -- that's just the basic law of demand. Plus, if you had a Tesla wouldn't you want to drive it all the time? People are leaving their Bolt in the garage while they drive their Telas three times as much as comparable luxury cars, and yet what we take away from the data is "AutoPilot is causing crashes".
I know this won't make a difference in how the media and public perceive this, and this line of thinking will just be seen as a defense of Tesla, but I don't think that higher claim frequencies for Model S means Tesla has necessarily done anything wrong, just on a purely statistical basis.
They're probably less concerned about the cost of driving on average, but knowing that something costs less does tend to make you do it more all other things being equal.
If that extra driving averages to only 3 miles a day it might as well be explained by people in SFBA (Tesla's major market as I understand) just not being able to afford to live within a reasonable commuting distance.
Correlation does not imply causation. It can be true that Teslas cost more to insure without Tesla being "at fault" for the discrepancy. When they compared electric vehicles with their ICE counterparts, they found that "the seven electric vehicles with exact conventional counterparts had lower claim frequencies and higher claim severities than their comparison vehicles". Electric vehicles had less claims, but when there was a claim they tended to be more severe. I assume this is because if there is damage to the battery pack replacing that part is extremely expensive. So it's not surprising that when Teslas crash they can be expensive to fix given that "crash severity" tends to be higher with electric cars, and that Tesla is a small luxury car maker.
The other thing you have to think about is selection bias. All the groups you're sampling are not equal. Because Tesla's are known for being extremely fast, they might tend to attract people who want to... drive their car fast. To make a scientific comparison you'd want to randomly assign people to a Tesla or Non-Tesla to get a comparable sample population.
The other thing they mention is that "Teslas also are on the road more than comparable large luxury cars. On average, Teslas travel three more miles per day than other large luxury cars, HLDI found." Obviously, if a car drives three times as much as another car it's going to be roughly three times as likely to crash given a consistent probability of collision per mile, right? Since Teslas don't need gas, the more miles you drive the more money you save -- and the more financial sense they make. Therefore it's not surprising that Tesla owners tend to drive their cars much more as the financial incentives would tend to favor people who drive more -- especially with free unlimited supercharging in early Model S and X. Even someone who might not have driven a lot before will be more likely to drive more if the price of doing so is reduced -- that's just the basic law of demand. Plus, if you had a Tesla wouldn't you want to drive it all the time? People are leaving their Bolt in the garage while they drive their Telas three times as much as comparable luxury cars, and yet what we take away from the data is "AutoPilot is causing crashes".
I know this won't make a difference in how the media and public perceive this, and this line of thinking will just be seen as a defense of Tesla, but I don't think that higher claim frequencies for Model S means Tesla has necessarily done anything wrong, just on a purely statistical basis.