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Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

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348 points doctoboggan | 3 comments | 11 Dec 25 18:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.603s | source
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TulliusCicero ◴[11 Dec 25 18:50 UTC] No.46235375[source]▶
Autonomy subscriptions are how things are going to go, I called this a long time ago. It makes too much sense in terms of continuous development and operations/support to not have a subscription -- and subscriptions will likely double as insurance at some point in the future (once the car is driving itself 100% of the time, and liability is always with the self driving stack anyway).

Of course, people won't like this, I'm not exactly enthused either, but the alternative would be a corporation constantly providing -- for free -- updates and even support if your car gets into an accident or stuck. That doesn't really make sense from a business perspective.

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bryanlarsen ◴[11 Dec 25 19:30 UTC] No.46236024[source]▶
Agreed, it seems inevitable that autonomy and insurance are going to be bundled.

1. Courts are finding Tesla partially liable for collisions, so they've already got some of the downsides of insurance (aka the payout) without the upside (the premium).

2. Waymo data shows a significant injury reduction rate. If it's true and not manipulated data, it's natural for the car companies to want to capture some of this upside.

3. It just seems like a much easier sell. I wouldn't pay $100/month for self-driving, but $150 a month for self-driving + insurance? That's more than I currently pay for insurance, but not a lot more. And I've got relatively cheap insurance: charging $250/month for insurance + self-driving will be cheaper than what some people pay for just insurance alone.

I don't think we need to hit 100% self-driving for the bundled insurance to be viable. 90% self-driving should still have a substantially lower accident rate if the Waymo data is accurate and extends.

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harikb ◴[11 Dec 25 22:55 UTC] No.46238483[source]▶
History suggests it won't be that clean.

1. High-severity accidents might drop, but the industry bleeds money on high-frequency, low-speed incidents (parking lots, neighborhood scrapes). Autonomy has diminishing returns here; it doesn't magically prevent the chaos of mixed-use environments.

2. Insurance is a capital management game. We’ll likely see a tech company try this, fail to cover a catastrophic liability due to lack of reserves, and trigger a massive backlash.

It reminds me of early internet optimism: we thought connectivity would make truth impossible to hide. Instead, we got the opposite. Tech rarely solves complex markets linearly.

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bsder ◴[12 Dec 25 03:09 UTC] No.46240456[source]▶
> Autonomy has diminishing returns here; it doesn't magically prevent the chaos of mixed-use environments.

It doesn't prevent chaos, but it does provide ubiquitous cameras. That will be used against people.

I'm ambivalent about that and mostly in a negative direction. On the one hand, I'd very much love to see people who cause accidents have their insurance go through the roof.

On the other hand, the insurance companies will force self-driving on everybody through massive insurance rate increases for manual driving. Given that we do not have protections against companies that can make you a Digital Non-Person with a click of a mouse, I have significant problems with that.

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vineyardmike ◴[12 Dec 25 07:05 UTC] No.46241597[source]▶
> I'd very much love to see people who cause accidents have their insurance go through the roof.

Life is hard and people make mistakes. Let the actuaries do their job, but causing an accident is not a moral failure, except in cases like drunk driving, where we have actual criminal liability already.

> the insurance companies will force self-driving on everybody through massive insurance rate increases for manual driving.

Why would manual driving be more expensive to insure in the future? The same risks exist today, at today's rates, but with the benefit that over time the other cars will get harder to hit, reducing the rate of accidents even for humans (kinda like herd immunity).

> Given that we do not have protections against companies that can make you a Digital Non-Person with a click of a mouse, I have significant problems with that.

I absolutely think this is going to be one of the greater social issues of the next generation.

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1. potato3732842 ◴[12 Dec 25 11:55 UTC] No.46243283[source]▶
>Why would manual driving be more expensive to insure in the future? The same risks exist today, at today's rates, but with the benefit that over time the other cars will get harder to hit, reducing the rate of accidents even for humans (kinda like herd immunity).

I think it will get cheaper because people who want to do risky things that detract from driving will self select to drive autonomous vehicles.

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2. xmcqdpt2 ◴[12 Dec 25 14:00 UTC] No.46244212[source]▶
Interesting theory, I would have assumed the exact opposite. People who want to drive fast and take risks will select manual driving because they'll find the autonomous cars too boring.
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3. potato3732842 ◴[12 Dec 25 14:57 UTC] No.46244734[source]▶
It's a numbers game. Those people basically don't exist compared to cheapskates who want to drive old cars and people who crash cars driving distracted. It's gonna come down to how many people who want to text and drive or do other sketchy stuff want to make the jump to autonomous cars. Classic car insurance is already stupid cheap just because it implicitly excluded a bunch of risky demographics.