The penultimate month of 2020 is halfway over, so there are only two weeks left to change car insurance at the end of the year if necessary. As usual, insurers are increasingly promoting their offers at this time of the year, and Tesla is also at least indirectly involved: German customers have now received mail with insurance specifically for Tesla electric cars and with an “autopilot discount” offered by a partner. The revolution also in insurance announced by Tesla CEO Elon Musk does not yet bring it.
Tesla sends emails to German customers
Musk already mentioned in spring 2019 that Tesla wants to insure its electric cars itself in the future. There had even been attempts with special tariffs from partners in various countries, including Germany. The 2019 announcement was followed by its own Tesla offer in California, but otherwise not much else was heard for a while. This June, however, teslamag.de discovered two positions for insurance experts at Tesla in Germany, which are supposed to develop offers “for the 21st century” in Europe. And in July, CEO Musk said on a conference call that Tesla needed “revolutionary actuaries”.
Against this background, there was great expectation when the editorial team received an email on Thursday with the subject “InsureMyTesla”; Other Tesla customers also reported it. However, the text of the advertising letter shows that, for the time being, things are still quite conventional at Tesla when it comes to insurance: For example, it speaks of 36 months of replacement value compensation and full battery protection – neither of which is a revolution. In addition, the offer called InsureMyTesla was developed by the partner BavariaDirekt, i.e. not by Tesla itself.
Autopilot discount only marketing sleeve?
The click on the The link in the mail leads to a Tesla website with a button to call up the actual offer, which is operated according to the information “from Marsh GmbH”. These pages are almost in the Tesla style, but still external.
In addition, apart from the design, they are unsightly reminiscent of the usual complicated forms from insurance companies or comparison portals on the web: the place of residence must be entered as well as the annual mileage and no-claims discount. And the announced autopilot discount also seems to be just a marketing sleeve. Despite the many other details, there is no question of whether the respective Tesla is equipped with the FSD option with more autonomy functions, and there is no longer any talk of the discount.
Even in the home market of California, Tesla insurance only reached version 0.9, said CEO Musk in July. From a long-term perspective, Tesla wants to use the large amount of data that is collected when driving its electric cars in order to offer tariffs tailored to the personal risk. Fast driving is likely to be more expensive than careful, Musk made clear.
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