The largest insurance company in the UK gives a discount to motorists using Autopilot from Tesla

Direct Line, the largest UK insurance company, offers a 5% discount to all motorists who own a Tesla electric car and use the Autopilot function. According to representatives of the company, this technology can significantly reduce the number of incidents on the road.

As far as can be understood, all this is the result of the collaboration of Tesla Inc. with UK insurance companies. For some time, the electric car maker has been trying to convince its partners in this country that cars with a computer assistant are safer than regular cars. “Right now, Direct Line offers an excellent opportunity for drivers to explore the future and understand what it will look like,” said Dan Friedman, head of the automotive division of the Direct Line.

The Direct Line said that it is too early to judge the results of the project. It is necessary that a certain time has passed, after which it will be possible to state with confidence about success or failure. The project was also initiated in order to interest Tesla Inc. owners. in the use of technology Autopilot. The more people will work with the “digital assistant”, the more objective the obtained statistics will be.
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For motorists, all this is an opportunity to get at least a small discount on the services of the insurer.

In this project, Tesla provides full consulting support to representatives of the company and its customers regarding the capabilities of Autopilot. The site Tesla Inc indicated that the autopilot helps the owner of the car to better adapt to current traffic conditions. The car helps in this, automatically changing the lane on the road or parking without the participation of the driver. In addition, the electric car can be "called" from the garage with one click on the button of the electronic device. Similarly, an electric car can be sent to the garage, being outside.

“The level of emergencies involving Tesla has decreased by 40% since the introduction of the autopilot system. Unfortunately, when the owner of the Tesla car wants to insure it, companies usually do not offer preferential terms based on the level of reliability of electric vehicles, ”said Daniel Pierce, financial analyst from GlobalData. He believes that thanks to the innovations introduced into the automotive field by the Tesla autopilot, the insurance industry will gradually change.



So far, Tesla itself has not provided statistics on how many of its cars with the Autopilot option turned on, moving around the UK. However, there is information that this number may already exceed 4,500.

It is also worth noting that Tesla Inc is gradually moving to a strategy of autonomous work on the hardware and software complex of the autopilot system. Previously, the company used third-party chips, now Ilon Musk said that the electronic components will be produced by the company independently. He spoke about this at the NIPS conference devoted to artificial intelligence technologies. “I would like to state that Tesla attaches great importance to artificial intelligence, both in software and in hardware. We develop custom AI chips ourselves. ”

Musk did not provide any additional data, but said that the chips created by Tesla, in his opinion, will be the best in the world. The head of the development of these electronic components was Jim Keller, widely known in their respective circles a professional who participated in the development of a number of chips from AMD and Appe. He joined the Tesla team in 2016.

Ilon Musk has repeatedly expressed the idea that cars with an autonomous control system are the future. At the same time, he believes that AI outside the sphere of human influence can be extremely dangerous. Musk says he believes that in ten years, about half of new cars will be autonomous entirely.

Stephen Merity, an AI researcher from Saleforce, claims that autonomous cars will take many people off the job in the not too distant future.


Mask, on the other hand, believes that autonomous electric cars are generally a blessing for humanity, and digital human helpers can be extremely useful, provided that their capabilities are improved.