Elon Musk’s hope that Tesla owners could get insurance discounts for using autonomous driving systems is coming to fruition.
An Ohio-based company called Root Insurance has announced that Tesla owners can get a discount on their premium if they use the Autosteer feature of Autopilot, a system that automatically keeps the vehicle in its lane without driving input.
In the announcement, Root Insurance cites a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that concluded crash rates of Tesla models have fallen by almost 40 per cent following the introduction of Autopilot.
To be eligible for an insurance discount, all Tesla owners have to do is download the Root smartphone application. They will then use the app while driving to allow Root to determine Autosteer-eligible highway miles. The company will then apply a tiered discount based on how many highway miles a Tesla owner does.
Root Insurance says that it will introduce similar self-driving discounts later this year for owners of other semi-autonomous vehicles.
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