Mark Rober just set up one of the most interesting self-driving tests of 2025, and he did it by imitating Looney Tunes. The former NASA engineer and current YouTube mad scientist recreated the classic gag where Wile E. Coyote paints a tunnel onto a wall to fool the Road Runner.
Only this time, the test subject wasn’t a cartoon bird… it was a self-driving Tesla Model Y.
The result? A full-speed, 40 MPH impact straight into the wall. Watch the video and tell us what you think!
There is no way insurance companies would go for that. What is far more likely is that policies simply wont cover accidents due to autonomous systems. Im honeslty surprised they wouls cover them now.
If it’s a feature of a car when you bought it and the insurance company insured the car then anything the car does by design must be covered. The only way an insurance company will get out of this is by making the insured sign a statement that if they use the feature it makes their policy void, the same way they can with rideshare apps if you don’t disclose that you are driving for a rideshare. They also can refuse to insure unless the feature is disabled. I can see in the future insurance companies demanding features be disabled before insuring them. They could say that the giant screens blank or the displayed content be simplified while in motion too.
If the risk is that insurance companies won’t pay for accidents and put people on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, then people won’t use autonomous systems.
This cannot go both ways. Either car makers are legally responsible for their AI systems, or insurance companies are legally responsible to pay for those damages. Somebody has to foot the bill, and if it’s the general public, they will avoid the risk.
I don’t know if I believe that people will avoid the risk. Humans are god awful at wrapping
theirour heads around risk. If the system works well enough that it crashes, let’s say, once in 100,000 miles, many people will probably find the added convenience to be worth the chance that they might be held liable for a collision.E, I almost forgot that I am stupid too
Not sure how it plays for Tesla, but for Waymo, their accidents per mile driven are WAY below non-automation. Insurance companies would LOVE to charge a surplus for automated driving insurance while paying out less incidents.