SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
At least one national insurer, AAA, is raising rates on Tesla vehicles based on data showing that the Model S and Model X had abnormally high claim frequencies and high costs of insurance claims compared with other cars in the same classes.
AAA said premiums for Tesla vehicles could go up 30 percent based on data from the Highway Loss Data Institute and other sources.
Tesla is disputing the analysis.
"This analysis is severely flawed and is not reflective of reality," the electric-vehicle maker said in a statement emailed to Automotive News. "Among other things, it compares Model S and X to cars that are not remotely peers, including even a Volvo station wagon."
Anthony Ptasznik, chief actuary of AAA, said the group noticed the anomaly in company data and then investigated other data sources, primarily relying on the Highway Loss Data Institute because of its scope, to confirm its analysis. "Looking at a much broader set of countrywide data, we saw the same patterns observed in our own data, and that gave us the confidence to change rates," he said.
Other large insurance companies, including State Farm and Geico, said that claims data is a major factor in calculating premiums, but would not disclose if their Tesla-owning customers would also see rates rise.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @03:32PM (2 children)
They don't have to pay off all the insurance companies to produce this article or announcement. I did not claim they had. I said I take announcements with a grain of salt now because it's not the first time damning claims have been made about the cars and the company, and were quickly proven false.
But specifically to your point, the New York Times hatchet job might be the best one to look at. The entire New York Times does not appear to have been conspiring to smear Tesla, but its reviewer John Broder certainly was; the telemetry from the car showed he was lying in his review and was actively trying to get the car to break down, which it never actually did. Why he was preparing a hatchet job was never established (as far as I'm aware), but it's a fact he did, and he did it under the rubric of the New York Times, using their credibility to give his hatchet job more authority.
In other words, it does not take the collusion of every insurance company to produce an article like this. All you need is one guy to supply a juicy quote: "'Teslas get into a lot of crashes and are costly to repair afterward,' said Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety" and a reporter, Katie Burke, at a trade publication called Automotive News to create a narrative around that quote to try to manufacture a perception.
So there might be a legitimate basis to this rate hike. It could be on the up-and-up. Tesla is not perfect. But for me the burden of proof is higher for claims like this because of prior, false stories.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:33PM (1 child)
To be fair, I wasn't just responding to your initial post, but more directly to another parent post below yours that WOULD require some sort of collusion among insurance companies to work. Yes, in the process of replying there, I also made some comments you have related to your post, but I agree that your particular theory doesn't necessarily require that scale of collusion.
On the other hand, it DOES still require more than a NY Times reporter making a few circles in a car during a sort of "product review." Here, you have the AAA chief actuary going on the record saying effectively, "I've crunched the numbers, and these are costing us more to insure." Actuaries are a heavy regulated profession with professional organizations that regulate qualifications and professional behavior. A reporter who skips out on some details in a review might have his reporting labeled as unfair; an actuary who knowingly disseminates a false actuarial opinion could face sanctions that end his career.
Finally, even your claims about the NY Times seem a bit exaggerated, based on your OWN link from Forbes. The Forbes story actually notes at its end that the review was primarily targeted at the Supercharger network, not the Tesla Model S. And the supposed "telemetry" issues that you claim to be "lies" apparently had to do with (1) a 2-mile detour, and (2) circling a bit to find an unlighted charging station at night. The reporter in question responded to Musk's criticism and admits that if he did such a test again, he likely would have plugged in the car for an overnight charge, but he didn't think it was necessary given the car's reputation AND was assured by Tesla that he should be fine even after the charge dropped overnight. Moreover, again as your Forbes link notes, the reporter was trying to evaluate the PRACTICALITY and ease of use for the Supercharger network.
If you have something more than your Forbes account to confirm your "lies," by all means offer it. But from a neutral perspective (I don't care much about Tesla one way or the other), it looks like a reporter who perhaps was slightly less careful in some of decisions than Tesla owners might be, but your assertions for deliberate sabotage aren't supported even in your own link.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:20PM
I've done some of your work for you, since I'm legitimately curious about this story (which I guess I missed when it happened years ago).
Here's Musk's account [tesla.com] and criticisms, including lots of graphs.
Here's a point-by-point rebuttal [nytimes.com] by the reporter, including explanations that he was advised by Tesla personnel to do certain things that Musk then criticized him for.
And here's a Times editor [nytimes.com] commenting on what happened, along with an extended quote from a reader's reaction.
And the tow truck driver [jalopnik.com], who didn't seem to think the Times reporter was "faking" an incident.
And yes, other Tesla owners could make the trip [greencarreports.com], though they didn't recreate the cold night, and it wasn't without incident. (One car wouldn't accept a full charge at a Delaware station, which then caused other cars to be unable to charge properly there, which required calls to Tesla support and pushing new software to fix it.)
Sounds like a bad story, a reporter that was perhaps careless, and a bunch of nonsense dithering with Musk over driving stats. Imprecision in reporting, coupled with an overreaction by Musk that apparently fails to acknowledge most of the reporter's behavior was sanctioned by Tesla. Unless you want to claim that the calls made to Tesla about his drive, during his tow, etc. never happened either.