Tesla launched a car insurance product, then spent the next 24 hours fixing it




Just a few hours after Tesla launched its in-house car insurance product in California on August 28th, the company stopped offering rate quotes and suspended access to the insurance website. It now appears to be live again as of 8PM ET on August 29th. But even during the time Tesla’s insurance site was working and offering owners quotes, some people weren’t happy with the results.
Tesla tells The Verge those two things are actually related; the company says it found “bugs” that were affecting some customers’ rate quotes, but it declined to offer any specifics beyond that. The company said it will get the website back up as soon as that’s resolved, without saying when that resolution might be. We found it had gone live again as of this evening.
Tesla’s insurance mini-site launched around 3PM ET on Wednesday, but users reported trouble accessing the site within just a few hours. At 6:49PM ET, the company tweeted it was “making some updates to Tesla Insurance” and that the service would “be back online shortly.” Seventeen minutes later, the company tweeted again that there was an “Algorithm update in progress.” That same language also shows up if you try to click on the link that originally took people to the Tesla Insurance mini-site.
Both the Tesla Motors subreddit and the company’s owner forums are littered with posts from people who claim they received quotes that were higher than expected. That appears to have disappointed some owners since the company promised rates that were up to 20 percent lower than the competition. (However, most of those irked owners didn’t provide evidence of the comparisons they were complaining about.)
The insurance offering may give Tesla a way to create bigger margins with a product that doesn’t require as much money to set up as the process of designing and manufacturing cars. But the problem with starting up a whole new part of your business is... you have to start up a whole new part of your business. And sometimes, new things break.
Update, 8:20PM ET: Added that Tesla Insurance’s site appears to be live again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Linktree’s free workaround lets you add multiple links to your Instagram bio

Image
Instagram only gives you one opportunity to link to outside resources inside its photo sharing platform. This might not be a problem for a majority of the users, but for those wanting a little more customization and even more options, it leaves much to be desired. Enter  Linktree , a free tool for Instagram designed to improve traffic to your outside link, be it a blog, portfolio, or store. How it works is fairly straightforward. After connecting Linktree to your Instagram profile, you’ll receive a single link to place in your Instagram bio. Once that link in place, you can customize what it’s linked to within your browser, be it a single website, or a collection of sites you’re looking to direct followers to Say you’re a photographer who’s using Instagram as a marketing tool for your wedding photography. Using Linktree, you can direct Instagram followers to your blog, your portfolio site, and even your other social media accounts. Until now, you would’ve been stuck choosing b
Read more

EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT THE PIXEL 4, THE MOST-LEAKED PHONE EVER

Image
Google’s  Pixel 3 might have been the  most-leaked phone in history . Long before its unveiling, we knew practically everything about it from unboxing videos, photo comparisons, even a full review of the device. Surely, for the Pixel 4, Google would clamp down on leaks to leave some surprises for its debut on  October 15th , right? Let’s just say, if that was the plan, it didn’t exactly work out. We’ve now seen the Pixel 4 XL from every angle and in three different colors. At least seven different sources have touched this phone, many of them confirming the same specs. We not only know which cameras it’ll have, but also what they may be capable of, including air gestures (go figure). That doesn’t even count information Google has already shared  on purpose. So if you want to know almost everything about the Pixel 4 nearly a month before it’s announced, buckle up. We’ve sifted through all of the rumors and information we can find to compile everything we know — and everything we
Read more

Our favorite iOS apps for the iPhone and iPad in 2018

Image
As 2018 comes to a close, it’s time to look at some our favorite apps of the year. While not all of these are brand new, many of them popped up onto our radar for the first time in 2018, and are definitely worth the attention. Others are some of our favorites that are still best-in-class despite having been around for some time now. We aim to do things differently at TNW, and as such you’re not going to find the recommendations you’re probably used to seeing: Gmail, Skype, Dropbox, and the like. Instead, we want to focus on the best-of-the-best that you may not have heard of, and others that are just special enough to warrant a mention. As always, we’d encourage you to share some of your favorites in the comments below, or on Facebook. Enlight Pixaloop (Free Pixaloop  is one of my favorite apps on the market. Unlike typical image editors that allow you to remove red eye or apply a filter, Pixaloop allows you to create stunning photo animations with a few clicks on your
Read more