“Insurers can adjust the envelope [in which a car can operate] to control the risk on the policy,” explains Newman. “The autonomy system has insurance built into it that allows it to control risk over a fleet.” Oxbotica reckons that this kind of close relationship with insurers could help encourage lawmakers to allow more autonomous cars on the roads for testing, buoyed by the knowledge that expert risk assessors are involved in controlling them. Newman also suggests that this could make it easier to get the go-ahead to test autonomous vehicles in other high-stakes environments, like airports.

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