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Comment by ungreased0675 | Hacker News Reader

Amazon subcontracts their delivery services, so there are probably additional factors driving Teslas decision.

My guess is the insane liability a car accident can create. Trucking companies have had to pay out millions, even for accidents where they weren’t at fault.

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A big part of Amazon's "Delivery Service Partner" program is that it creates many smaller work-forces rather than one big one, which prevents unionization. On the other hand, Amazon can probably afford accident insurance.

The fact that robot taxi's won't form a union makes this rather unlike Amazon DSP's. I suspect the article is correct. There simply aren't net profits here for operators.

I would bet that if self driving software was involved in any accident, it is the company who developed the software who will be paying, even if someone else owns the car.

Bold assumption until there is legal precedent set.

I would be very surprised if the manufacturer would sell you one without you agreeing to indemnify them.

> I would be very surprised if the manufacturer would sell you one without you agreeing to indemnify them.

Why would anyone other than a fool agree to indemnify Tesla against liability for a vehicle whose driving behavior is controlled by Tesla?

As long as the first two letters in LLC hold up, lots of people would be willing to enter into a new market that appears to have a lot of potential upside and profit, with the downside limited to whatever they invested, or borrowed, to get it going.

And in that case, any indemnity clause won't be worth much - the manufacturer will end up paying most of any claim

There are a lot of fools out there. The real question is whether a clickwrap indemnification would hold up in coult; I suspect it wouldn't.

Why wouldn't it? People are agreeing to indemnify and hold manufacturers harmless all the time. IANAL though.

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