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Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

thedrive.com

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Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#181

Post by kube-system »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #140
kube-system wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repos and reporting cars as stolen are two different things.

The poster was talking about "human error". If you are out of a car because your lender messed up (perhaps intentionally to pocket the late fee) you are in trouble, because everyone needs a vehicle to get to work on time. And of course you have as much recourse against your lender as the people at the receiving end of the Hertz case. Didn't Peter Thiel say you need a seven-figure sum to make the legal system work for…

I don't disagree with the end point, but I have a hard time understanding why the Hertz case demonstrates that Ford is likely to lie with criminal intent about a mistaken repo. It has literally nothing in common except that it involves a car.

If Ford wants to lie about repos or lie about human error, they can do that now, they don't need a computer to do it. The whole damn process is subject to human error as it is today.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#183

Post by 20after4 »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #13
rglover wrote: post #8

This is why buying as low-mileage a used car you can get from ~2010 or older is wise. Especially one with a keyed ignition vs. push start.

It might be my conspiracy brain acting up but "multi-ton machine without manual override" sends all the red flashing lights and klaxons off in my head. Political assassination via cyber attack/backdoor? ezpz, find a tree, accelerate into it, claim it was the car acting up. Bug in the software? Sorry you're dying today because they wanted to repossess cars easier, your life is less important than protecting capital. W…

Manual transmissions are almost entirely extinct in new vehicles (in the US at least) and even some manuals have an interlock that can prevent you from taking it out of gear if the power-train control module decides it needs to stay in gear.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#184

Post by sacnoradhq »

motohagiography wrote: post #41

I work in security and anti-fraud is the use case of last resort for terrible ideas. When you finance a car, the vehicle becomes collateral for a loan, but it belongs to you. A technology like this means that the vehicle still belongs to Ford, which means if something goes wrong with it, or if you get sciatica from their shitty seats, you can class action sue them into oblivion. The reason we have laws is so that peo…

In the US, a vehicle doesn't belong to someone free-and-clear if there are any liens against it. Mechanics and car loans are the primary users of this process. With leased vehicles, there's no conveyed ownership per-se because it's a glorified rental.

Might need Steve Lehto to weigh-in on how much "ownership" there is in America.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#185

Post by VLM »

It'll be a net profit loss because its expensive to implement, the lawsuits when it kidnaps children in car seats and whatever will be expensive.

But we will be stuck with it anyway, because of risk aversion. Any car that could have been repo'd at the click of a mouse but doesn't have the functionality will result in explaining to the boss why shareholder value was wasted in that individual situation. It doesn't matter that the project overall will be a net financial loss, just need to avoid that awkward convo with the boss for that one incident.

So we'll all eventually be stuck with this, and we'll all be poorer because of it. But at least risk will be lower and no one will have their feelings hurt at work.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#187

Post by gjsman-1000 »

jader201 wrote: post #149
rootusrootus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, this was the number one comment yesterday on the Reddit thread about this.

When I read the parent comment, I thought “Am I on Reddit?”. HN used to bury Reddit-like comments a while back, but it seems the Reddit influence is becoming more and more accepted on HN these days, as I’m starting to see them more at the top vs. the bottom of threads.

HN guidelines quote:

"Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Whether it actually is, or is not, is irrelevant.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#188

Post by 20after4 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #166
20after4 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes that sales figures are entirely controlled by demand. The OP points out a perfectly plausible mechanism by which demand is not the only factor affecting sales volume. It's almost certainly true that dealerships will stock what's profitable, customer preferences be damned.

This would assume that either the only game in town is Honda or that all the other manufacturers are colluding with Honda. Absent significant evidence, it is safer to assume people’s preferences are causing the lower sales.

Where I live, all of the major new car dealerships are owned by the same company.

No I'm not making this up: https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/business/2014/10/02/w...

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#189

Post by boh »

This article is over-dramatizing what is essentially just a patent document. Companies often write patents for ideas they will likely never execute. It's easy/cheap for them to write, and on the off chance a competitor ever implements it, they can sue.

It would be very unlikely any car company would have this "feature". It's just a litigation nightmare waiting to happen.

Re: Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

#190

Post by astura »

motohagiography wrote: post #41

I work in security and anti-fraud is the use case of last resort for terrible ideas. When you finance a car, the vehicle becomes collateral for a loan, but it belongs to you. A technology like this means that the vehicle still belongs to Ford, which means if something goes wrong with it, or if you get sciatica from their shitty seats, you can class action sue them into oblivion. The reason we have laws is so that peo…

>When you finance a car, the vehicle becomes collateral for a loan, but it belongs to you.

This is not true - In my state you don't get mailed the title to the car until after the loan is paid.

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