Elon Musk Creating Insurance Company For Tesla Drivers, With Premiums Based On Telematics

Despite a rocky rollout from its first attempt, Tesla is eyeing a full-fledged insurance product using data collected from its vehicles to offer cheaper premiums than traditional insurers.

"We’re building a great — like a major insurance company," CEO Elon Musk told investors on Tesla’s second-quarter earnings conference call after reporting a fourth consecutive profitable period, its longest streak in company history.

"Ultimately, where we want to get to with Tesla Insurance is to be able to use the data that’s captured in the car, in the driving profile of the person in the car, to be able to assess correlations and probabilities of crash and be able then to assess a premium on a monthly basis for that customer," he said.

Musk’s interest in offering a cheaper insurance product to Tesla owners isn’t new. For years, drivers have complained of higher costs, mostly because of more expensive fixes on the cars.

The company first talked about insurance in April 2019, before launching a product in California a few months later. That launch, however, was marred with issues.