The main issue here I guess, is Tesla assisting the bailiffs. Bailiffs (here in the UK) have certain legal rights to enter and repossess your house and/or remove property you haven't fully paid for. They are granted this right via a case-by-case court order.
If Telsa are also granted the rights within the court order to assist the bailiffs, then presumably it would be a fully legal action.
At the end of the day, you sign a contract wherein you agree to keep up payments on an item, and if you don't the item will be repossessed. If you don't like those terms, don't get stuff on payment plans.
Most US car dealerships will make a new key for someone repossessing a car. As Tesla is the dealership this seems like the exact same situation, the only difference is someone with the key can now remote summon the car.
> someone with the key can now remote summon the car
Cars with remote summons features today basically just crawl forward a few metres to help you get out of a parking spot. They aren't self-driving across town to a repossession lot, if that's what you're thinking.
I don’t usually vote up comments that are mostly humorous on HN, but there’s always an exception.
To me the problem isn’t that they might, but that they can. I guess the fault is technically on the person who rented something under terrible terms, but the problem to me is that over time terrible terms seem to win out over reasonable ones.
Not to mention, if Tesla is capable of doing this for rentals, I have to assume they are capable of doing it for any Tesla. Which is not great.
> over time terrible terms seem to win out over reasonable ones
Tyranny of the marketplace, I guess. If most people are not bothered by the terrible terms, then the selection of items with non-terrible terms will be correspondingly small.
Case in point: I'd like to buy a TV (even at a higher price) that does not have ads all over the interface. From what I can tell, as of right now there are approximately a handful of such TVs, not counting older models that probably aren't produced any more. And of course out of that handful, most are not very good in other respects..
I don't know how to solve that apart from regulation, which is often a very poor solution.
My solution is to never setup wifi or provide ethernet to my TVs. They can't vomit ads all over the screen or track what you're watching if they can't get online.
Right. Compromise the right credentials, and you can order a high percentage of parked Teslas to start backing up.
That probably won't make them cause damage immediately -- I assume there's a set of sensors that will apply brakes rather than hit a wall or a detected car -- but there's a lot of chaos to apply that way.
I wonder if Tesla's EULA immunizes them against such breaches.
Ha. Though my guess is, once self-driving is reliable enough to do that, the economics of car ownership are going to flip completely. It won't make sense anymore to have a car that spends most of its time sitting unused in your garage.
Imagine, now, that self-driving combined with Uber pool, so that people who need to get from and to the same destinations at the same time (as is typical for commutes) would be able to share the ride.
Imagine then making those vehicles larger to enable not only a decrease in traffic, but an increase in housing density, local infrastructure in walking distance, and economic growth.
Imagine if we then realized we could charge that elongated car as it's driving if we put electric lines above streets.
Oh, and why not increase rolling efficiency while we're at that, and make the task of self-driving simpler by embedding signaling infrastructure into the road itself.
You just imagined buses, trolley buses, and streetcars respectively.
Which is what makes the most sense, and will continue making the most sense for vehicles that don't sit in your garage most of the time.
There's more to car ownership than being able to get from A to B in principle.
Once you add immediate availability, individual vehicle preferences, having your stuff in the car already, the ability to keep your stuff there once you arrive at your destination, never having to think about small, but normal usage damage (especially if you have kids), or, conversely, having the vehicle just as clean as you want it...
...you will see that garages aren't going anywhere any time soon, self-driving cars or not.
And that we'd be wise to develop actual public transport infrastructure for the people who really do only care about getting from A to B, with some acceptable wait time. It's a win-win for everyone.
My pessimistic prognosis is that the development of the self-driving car will make the taxis slightly cheaper, but instead of paying your Uber driver, you're going to be paying engineers, maintenance, and cleaning staff.
Imagine how different the US would be if it was Big Public Transportation that lobbied to have towns and cities designed around them, rather than the car industry. Walking, cycling, buses, trams, trains, etc. etc. You'd still have cars but they wouldn't be a basic need for survival like they're often treated as, because you can't get anywhere without one.
Because it was basically 100 years ago when the car industry sought to dismantle that infrastructure, and succeeded.
To be fair it wasn't some conspiracy. The reason why people began using the car 100 years ago was that the car was becoming widely available and it was super convenient even in the days when roads were caked in horse manure. Even in the peak of the streetcar era, the private car was the best way around town, and as more people bought more cars, it continued to dominate as the streetcar would be bogged down in traffic just like a bus today. Intercity passenger rail also didn't stand much of a chance against the convenience and speed of the jet age.
Regardless of whether or not there was a conspiracy, I think the last 100 years of private vehicle ownership in the US have shown that solely due to the convenience, it would have happened anyway.
I don't think that follows, because you have to prove that car ownership would have increased the same way without any intervention by car manufacturers. You're treating it as a foregone conclusion.
If you follow the same 100 year trajectory in other countries, then you will see an uptick in car ownership for sure, and infrastructure adapts to support this (highways/freeways/motorways), but it's not nearly as drastic as it is stateside.
Of course, the US is a large place and even its states are larger than other countries. And it hasn't existed in its modern form for more than a couple of centuries whereas the civil infra on the other continents has been around for at least a full millennium and most likely longer than that (e.g. Roman roads in the UK that would date back well over 1000 years). So the US got the luxury of a blank slate and, well... see what you got from that.
At the same time...car manufacturers had the perfect opportunity to seize so they could sell more cars and thus have civil infrastructure designed around the fact that everyone has a car. If someone at that point in time had more money than Henry Ford they could have dumped it into trams and trains and the landscape would have been significantly changed.
>If you follow the same 100 year trajectory in other countries, then you will see an uptick in car ownership for sure, and infrastructure adapts to support this (highways/freeways/motorways), but it's not nearly as drastic as it is stateside.
As the Wikipedia article you cited elsewhere discusses, streetcar systems outside the US went out of business at the same time as those in the US for the same reasons.
An Uber (or personal car) also has the advantage of being able to take an alternate route. I used to work on the west side of Capitol Hill in Seattle and lived on the east side of the hill. Any time something like Hempfest or Pride was going on, it literally became faster to walk home than take the bus. If I was driving I could have taken an alternate route and gotten home in a fairly reasonable amount of time.
There's no public transport in the US, aside from a few exceptional places like NYC, Seattle, Boston (maybe), and, like, DC.
Uber is so popular because it actually allows you to get from A to B, for some money.
But I love the circular logic of "nobody wants the buses, why fund them" — "you can't get anywhere on a bus, why fund them" — "look how few people ride the bus" etc.
People keep saying this, but I don't get it. The majority of your possessions spend most of their time sitting idle. Even if I just look at the higher value ones: my riding lawnmower gets used for a couple of hours every few weeks, my garden tractor/snowblower even less frequently, then I've got a trailer, a truck, miscellaneous tools, etc.
I could rent every single one of these, but don't because the economics don't make sense, and the use model would otherwise lead to a lot of inconvenience.
The lynchpin in these arguments is that you'll somehow be able to summon a vehicle on a moments notice and all your usage will still be less expensive than personal ownership. The cost will be low because no humans are involved...
Except it didn't work for ZipCar or the rental agencies that have added hourly options -- sure it's not bad, but is it really pushing people out of car ownership? No...
Ride sharing similarly hasn't worked to push people out of car ownership either -- it's just killed traditional taxi services by compensating drivers less and eliminating the flag down monopoly some cities have maintained (a taxi medallion in Boston/NYC used to be worth hundreds of thousands... no one wants them now)
All these share options work for low use scenarios like the city dweller who wants a weekly trip to a shopping center, but for the daily commuter/driver it won't ever make sense... and it'll never make sense for those that need to keep things in their car like child seats, diapers, a walker, tools, etc...
Bike/Scooter shares haven't eliminated personal ownership either because of the scarcity issue at peak times.
My observation in that all of these things (plus delivery services, Amazon, etc.) can make a difference at the margins. If someone doesn't have a daily commute (or has a reasonable transit or bicycle/walk option) and otherwise isn't transporting themselves, other family members, home improvement stuff, etc. on a daily or near-daily basis, collectively they may let a household do without a car (or at least a second car).
A couple I know in SF don't have a car but they seem to make a lot of use of cars in some form or other pretty regularly.
I've pretty much abandoned Zipcar for this reason.
In the early days, it was great. But once membership increased, there was an increasing chance that I would get a car that was not particularly usable.
Filthy on the outside (dirt, mud, etc) and/or inside (dog hair, bodily fluids, etc).
Or a car that had one or more warning lights illuminated (check engine, brake, no wiper fluid, low gas, etc).
And each time I had to phone into Zipcar support to report it (and/or swap cars), otherwise the next user could report it -- leading to me being charged some cleaning fee or such.
The best experience I had was in Seattle when I entered a dirty Zipcar and called support who said I had to take the vehicle to a car wash otherwise they would charge me a cleaning fee.
While I understand I could have probably escalated to someone who understood the situation ("oh? you just got into the car 5 minutes ago?"), I decided it was a better use of my time to avoid short-term car rental programs altogether.
It'd be a pain in the ass for zipcar, but every parking space should have an attendant to do a quick once over every time someone parks a car.
Less hassle with verifying who actually trashed it, but also if you have to stare someone in the face after your ride, you'll probably be more respectful of the car.
But really, there's just not a satisfactory solution I can think of to make me want to use the service.
It depends how easily they can be cleaned of others’ odors and messes, and how often they need to get cleaned.
Presumably if the rate of mess is low enough and there are extra cars, you would just request a new one. Then they punish the person who left the mess or odor, disincentivizing them from doing it again. Probably need cameras monitoring the inside of the car.
It's not so much messes. Rentals, including short-term ones, are a thing today. But rather there's a lot of value to many people to have the car that they want when they want it, leaving certain belongings in the car, having the car equipped for their purposes whether child seats or roof racks, etc.
While I honestly don't expect door to door self driving in most places for decades, a lot of people who don't use cars much probably underestimate the degree to which many people customize their vehicles. And even if they sit a lot of the time, most of the cost is often in miles, not time.
In a world where car ownership is limited, I can imagine that the car interiors would be changed drastically. Something like a subway car with hard plastic seats and easily sanitized surfaces.
That is only going to happen for most people if the economics of car rentals are VEEEEEERRY reasonable. I am not willing to wait 10 minutes for an available vehicle every time I need to go somewhere. People who are dreaming of a day of full automation need to take this into account, because while I don't know how long the average trip by car is, I suspect that it's somewhere in the 15-20 minute range, which is impossible to match even with a fully autonomous driving scheme that can ignore things like stop lights and stop signs.
To further this, what are the parameters before requesting the RTB option? If the car is currently driving (assuming the "owner" is currently using the car), will it reroute with them in as an involuntary passenger? Before attempting to RTB, will it determine the route and distance necessary and determine the amount of charge required and then verify there's enough? Will the car need to be in park for a minimum amount of time first? What if it's parked and I'm loading my small child into a car seat when the RTB order is issued? Will it start driving away with my kid? What if the car is currently plugged in when the RTB is ordered? Will it rip out the charging cable and cause further damage to the car or my house? Who will be responsible for that damage?
It's reasonable to assume an open door will prevent movement...
...being plugged in to a charger (that doesn't have some sort of automated disconnect) would also be disable.
The question is valid though after you've put the kid in and you're on 30 second excursion to push the shopping carriage back... what if the car is recalled? Seems like a potential disaster and tragedy.
To this point, after crossing the state line from Nevada into California, there are highway signs that state the fines for littering and abadoning an animal on the side of the highway. The fine for littering is significantly higher than animal abandonment.
This depends entirely on how quickly they get to the vehicle, but given the money involved, I'm sure they will just lobby to have the death of the dog pinned on the owner.
I'm hopeful that by the time cars can be automatically repossessed without a human operator they'll have set up a network of on-demand rentals and I won't have to worry about car ownership and all the nonsense it entails.
Do you actually prefer the subscription hell we are in now with companies like Adobe deciding we can no longer actually own any software and have to continuously rent it?
Google actually seems like they will be first to full self driving. My biggest fear is that they continue to have zero interest in being an actual car company and keep all their Waymo tech locked behind their taxis and Lyfts are replaced by Waymos with no reduction in price, just a loss job for the person who would normally drive the Lyft. Other companies follow suit and the self driving car dream is ruined to make C suite executives richer.
> Do you actually prefer the subscription hell we are in now with companies like Adobe deciding we can no longer actually own any software and have to continuously rent it?
No, I don't prefer software subscriptions with monthly fees. I don't find the "maintenance" required for software annoying or onerous. However, I really don't like car maintenance. Waiting for an oil change, tire replacement or rotation, or really any repair is the worst part of car ownership and I could die happy never having to do any of that again. I don't place a lot of value on ownership in general because of maintenance or storage burdens.
I do like pay-as-you-go for most of the stuff I use, for whatever it's worth. Food, electricity, gas, that sort of thing. I use cabs when I go on vacation and look for opportunities to travel by bus, train, or plane instead of driving. A self-serve on-demand auto rental service would be ideal, for me.
I'm with you on detesting car maintenance when owning a vehicle.
To be fair, most of those maintenance options do go away with fully-electric vehicles. For example, you could lease a Tesla Model 3/Y. The process is impressively streamlined: pay $100 using Touch ID and Apple Pay, then select a pick-up date on the calendar. Now you have a vehicle with basically no maintenance, apart from topping up wiper fluid. All managed with an intuitive and highly-polished mobile app. In 3 years, repeat process.
My intention isn't to advertise for Tesla. I'm just pointing out that options exist nowadays for people who dislike the entire hassle of vehicle ownership (dealing with dealerships, negotiation, financing, scheduled & unscheduled maintenance, etc.)
Don't the higher end car brands in your area do pickup/return service? BMW picks my car up from the office parking garage, changes oil or tires and returns it before the end of the day. All I have to do is pick a day in their online portal and leave the keys at he reception desk.
I very much prefer owning a car over renting because I can leave things in the car. Like child seats, but also extra clothes, diapers, a phone charger, some snacks etc.
Usually rental anything is a lot more costly in the long run than outright ownership. So someone getting his Tesla repossessed probably wont be any better of trying to rent one. Thought my biggest problem with large scale car rentals are times like rush hour where nearly everyone needs a car at the same time, so there either has to be a giant capacity or you have to rely on most people still having their own car.
> Cars with remote summons features today basically just crawl forward a few metres to help you get out of a parking spot.
Smart summon on a M3 (what the article is talking about) can back out and navigate parking lots... although horribly and slowly. But it's not just a straight line.
One time someone did this in a Costco parking lot from 2 rows away from me and my parked car. It pulled out of its spot 3 spaces away from my car, started doing a u-turn that would've had it hit my car in order to drive through the row of parking spots. I was standing in front of my car wondering where the eff the driver was (obviously it was smart summon but in the heat of the moment...). Lots of families go to Costco, I could've easily had a small child with me next to my car and we would've been about 8 or so feet from being hit by a car that apparently had no idea I was there.
The worst part about this for me is that the Costco parking lot is already a cluster without having to add in the "show off my car to my brother in law" game to the mix.
I avoid Costco like the plague because the experience is always bad for my mental health. I'd rather pay a few extra bucks to avoid oblivious giant cart drivers, having to show multiple forms of ID , having my receipt validated before I can leave, having to figure out how to transport stuff to and from car, etc. Plus, there is no consistency in the non-grocery inventory. You're forced into the "we _have_ to buy these pans today because we never know when they'll be available again!" psychological trap.
It's just a very inconvenient shopping experience in my opinion. But I know I'm the only person in America who feels this way.
I wouldn't disagree with your experience complaint, but Costco exists precisely because it doesn't care about the "shopping experience". If you go to Costco, you forgo the right to complain about the "shopping experience" because you are explicitly choosing something with a bad one in exchange for very cheap goods.
Walmart and Target: slightly better experience, slightly more expensive.
Supermarkets and Malls: better experience, more expensive
So I guess, you aren't the only person in America, but people make the choice to accept the burden for the price savings.
Odd, I've always considered Costco to have one of the best shopping experiences. Stuff on the shelves, I go find what I want and check out.
I generally hate supermarkets and malls. Annoying music, questionable `sales` pushed on aisle end caps and elsewhere, etc. Not the experience I'm after.
My Walmart is awful compared to the Costco. Messy shelves and aisles, carts that clank and clatter. Costco is neater, the employees are friendlier and more helpful... like the two stores have two different cultures. And I appreciate that Costco usually has just one good option—it simplifies things, and it's great when they happen to stock something I've been thinking about buying. I just bought a folding wagon that's bigger and beefier than the Amazon ones for the same price. My experience has been that Costco provides a better shopping experience than Walmart, in the same league as Target, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe's.
Depends on the Costco. The one near me put the main entrance to the parking lot next to the store entrance.
The Walmart near me has the main entrance to the parking lot at the opposite end of the store. There is also a long protected cart path going down the parking lot.
The Costco on the other side of town is almost as good as the Walmart.
My problem is that when a driver hits a small child they go to jail. Are there any consequences for Tesla when they get it wrong? A small dent in share prices that day doesn't cut it for me.
Yes, if they were ruled at fault, just like any other company.
If the operator was ruled at fault, they would receive consequences.
Are you insinuating that Tesla operates on a higher level than the law and is receiving special privileges vs other automakers, or are you saying all automakers should be more accountable? What event are you pointing to they should be more accountable for? Or is this all just a vague hypothetical?
What if instead of hitting a child the car took control killed about 300 people?
And what if it wasn’t in parking lot summons but regular driving assistance?
And maybe it wasn’t a car but an airplane?
Are you sure there would be any material consequences for the board and leadership?
Boing recently face real financial consequences from the 737 Max defect.
Holding companies to the same standards as members of the general public runs into an issue of how large an impact they have. A Surgeon is going to make mistakes that kill people, but just because people are imperfect doesn’t mean effectively banning surgery via sending every surgeon to prison after their first mistake is appropriate. Roll up to a single hospital and mistakes are inevitably common, roll up to a hospital network and serious mistakes happen every day. The only way organizations at that scale can operate is with quite a bit of slack.
The financial consequences are nothing for the company, even less for those responsible. For accountability there need to be personal consequences for cases of extreme and wilful negligence for cases like Boeings.
I’m not advocating for life in prison for the top brass, but some prison time surely.
Unless we just start issuing fines and warnings to the regular people to deal with manslaughter of criminal negligence.
Prison for the top brass 1:1 with negligent death essentially removes the possibility of any large company existing even down to hospitals simply can’t exist in such an environment.
The paradox here is that aviation for example is filled with cases of negligence causing large numbers of fatalities, while at the same time the industry has become extremely safe. It’s not that negligence has become more common it’s simply rolling the dice more frequently. By comparison having someone install solar panels on your roof is stupid dangerous at scale, but individual homeowners don’t notice that risk. Should we send every homeowner that had solar installed into their homes to prison? If not why should it apply at a larger company.
It’s not that these companies get a special expedition, it’s that everyone gets that same exception. Killing a pedestrian for example rarely results in prison time. People are often punished more for a DUI without an accident than a sober fatality caused by simple negligence.
I understand your point, and note I didn’t say 1:1 time.
I don’t think you understand though how bad Boeings case was and that we will never be rid of that kind of risk taking when the trade off for the risk takers is piles of money if it goes right but essentially a slap on the wrist if it goes wrong.
That’s fair, I think most agree that some threshold for punishment is a good idea. Deciding where and when that is if it’s not 1:1 gets politically and ideologically messy.
Can confirm.
When my dad often one-handedly turned around and beat the living crap out of me and my two sisters in the back seat, whilst also one-handedly driving down the autostrada, the most he ever got was a stern look from my mum who was smoking at the time.
While I’m not saying summon is a great feature, it would not have hit the things you’re mentioning.
Its major flaw is thin upright things like small trees or poles (although this may be better on vision only cars, I’m not sure). If it sees a person or child in its path, it’s just going to stop.
You can do dumb summon (straight forward/backword) with the key; not smart summon. The description in the article is consistent with what you could do with the key; likely article author misunderstanding the feature (easy mistake).
I could see that if they are holding the financing. If the car is financed by a third party, I cannot imagine why the dealer would want or care to get involved.
The "main issue" is that Tesla is even able to assist the bailiffs in this manner.
If a remote party can, by design, lock you out of your car and take control of it without your consent, do you even really own the vehicle in the first place?
Others have argued "well, you don't own the car, the bank does", but unless Tesla is somehow unable to do this with cars not owned by a lienholder, that's kinda beside the point as far as I'm concerned.
It's not owned by the bank until you foreclose, after which it's most certainly owned by the bank.
As an aside, how often is it for the manufacturer/dealer to own the bank that issues auto loans. I got mine from Capital One, and I assumed most auto loans outside of the sketchy loanshark used car dealers were issued by the big national banks
In most states the financing bank owns the title to the car and is the "Legal Owner" as opposed to the "Registered Owner" who is the one who is buying the car.
The used market is likely different but for new cars from Dealerships, GM Financial, Toyota Financial, Ford Credit etc are Billion Dollar subsidiaries.
Is that true? In my state the financing bank has a lien recorded on on the title, but they are not the owner. Maybe that is the exception?
Edit: reading some other comments ... I'm talking about the traditional financed purchase of a car, not a lease. Agree that for a leased car (which is quite common now though I've never done it), the ownership stays with the leasing entity.
When you live in a title-holding state, the title will be issued to the registered owner/operator of the car, regardless of lien holder. Though your lien holder will receive a separate document verifying their connection to the loan, you will be in possession of the title itself.
There are only nine title-holding states: Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oklahoma, Wisconsin. In the other 41 states, titles are issued to the lien holder of your vehicle until the loan is fully paid off.
It used to be quite common; at various times in its history you can make the argument Ford sold cars at a loss to help Ford Credit sell profitable car loans. Even today, Ford Credit (loans/leases etc) is responsible for about 50% of Ford's annual profits:
There have been quite a few years Ford made more profit as a "bank" than they did from making and selling the cars. If you get a new Ford from a dealer and request finance/lease options, its pretty typical for Ford Credit to provide the backing.
In my mind there's a significant difference between a dealership using their knowledge of the car to assist with repossession, and a manufacturer demonstrating that you never really had control of your own car in the first place.
It just feels like a betrayal. Your car is loyal to the manufacturer, not to you. It will act in a manner directly opposed to your best interests as the owner if company that sold it to you orders it. I understand that's true for most software these days, but that doesn't make me any happier about it, and it really feels worse when the software in question is inextricably tied to and in control of an expensive piece of physical hardware that you purchased.
> That is why there are legal contracts. This is just automated repossession.
There is value in adding friction to enforcing law/contracts: I don't know if FSD-repo crosses the line for me, but I know automating enforcement is bad for society.
What if everytime Tesla cameras detect the car speeding, or has crossed double-lines, it helpfully charges the fine to the linked credit card? After all, its just automated ticketing, right?
I agree with your point about automated enforcement being bad, but there is nothing automated about the situation .
A lien-holder determined that the lender wasn’t paying the bills, so they manually made a decision to repossess the car. Just like with any other brand of a car, they reached out to the dealership (in this specific case, manufacturer is the same as the dealership, because Tesla sells directly with no franchises) and requested a way to access the vehicle. Normally it is done via a key copy. In this case, they used a digital version of it. Not that it matters meaningfully at all, but the car didn’t drive across town to the repo parking lot, current summoning feature cannot do that (the distance limit for the feature is a few hundred feet iirc).
And why does it matter if it was made easier to actually repossess the vehicle? It isn’t related to the automated ticketing analogy at all. There was no automatic detection, only automated enforcement. Just like with speeding tickets, i am totally ok with the cop not wasting his and my time writing me the ticket manually or making me wait for it by email, if it instead can be automated with a digital ticket/infraction in the system that i can check out when i get home.
To be more clear on why i think it is a bad analogy. Automated ticketing is automating human decision-making, which is an ambiguous blackbox process open to interpretation. As you said, doing so leads to a lot of unintended consequences. Actually physically repoing a car (after a manual decision to repo the car was made by a human) isn’t automating decision-making. The decision has already been consciously made, and there is not much room for interpretation when it comes to the physical process of repoing a car. The only variable is if the lender decides to hide the car or do something equally dumb, so it is not a good variable to have. And remotely disabling the car based on a manual human evaluation just seems to make the process of repoing it less prone to unintended bad variables.
I'd have no issue with the lienholder having ultimate control of car until the loan is paid off. As I said in my initial comment, that's completely beside the point.
The problem here is that Model 3s are apparently "loyal" to their manufacturer rather than the owner, regardless of who that owner is (whether that be a lienholder, the car's "user", or anyone else that's not Tesla).
That Tesla used that misplaced loyalty to give the car back to the lienholder in this case is irrelevant to my point.
If you don't own the car outright, why would an entity with a lien on the vehicle not also have access to such "strong crypto" legally? This is an issued with a secured loan, presumably in a crypto world the repossession would be allowed by "smart contract" if the borrower defaulted.
This is by no means limited to Tesla, and is true of almost every new car sold now.
As an example, almost every new Ford sold in the USA since 2019 has standard 5G/GPS remote connectivity; even the cheapest entry level cars at Ford like the new Maverick can remotely over 5G unlock doors and remote start the engine (just like the 'owner' can in the Ford pass app, now standard spec on virtually all Fords.). The manufacturers of course love the extra usage metrics and can also over the air sell upgrades like 5G hotspot access and so forth. Many cars now have 5G/GPS receiver for metrics even if no connectivity or nav features whatsoever exposed to user.
My point is; aside from the use of "summon", this kind of locate, remote unlock and start by manufacturer is available on almost all new cars sold today, no matter how cheap - the 5G remote access tech has become increasingly ubiquitous. This is not something unique to the way Tesla creates it cars at all, especially in 2021.
In the UK that would be interference with goods (a tort) or taking a vehicle without the owner's consent (a criminal offense).
Still in the UK, although I suspect that holds more generally, when you buy something using a loan you own it. What you bought may be a security for the loan but that's different. Leasing a car or using a lease/purchase scheme is also different since leasing means you rent but don't own.
Yes, you really own the vehicle, and that is why if Tesla intentionally just bricks/locks you out of your car because they feel like it, you would sue them and almost certainly win in court.
I agree, though I think that ideally companies are advocates for their customers. For example, companies have to turn information over to courts, but they can push back on some, and publish transparency reports for others. Yes, they have to comply with the law, but imo a company has an obligation to advocate for their customers.
This depends on the jurisdiction and the agreement you've entered into.
In general:
Lease - Finance company owns the asset, you are obliged to service the payments. You may have an option to transfer title at the end of the period (depending on jurisdiction).
Loan - You own the asset, secured against the asset.
(There are some UK/US-specfic product types due to difference in things like tax law)
Leasing (in general) is popular as it has tax-advantages for smaller businesses/individuals around depreciation, which can lead to good pricing for end lessee.
(source: Made software for the asset finance industry for a decade or so in the UK/EU + US)
At the time of repossession - You no longer own the asset. It's not like they send the repossession guy out the first time you miss a payment. Repossession happens after the bank has taken you to court (Admittedly, through an expedited process, because this type of claim is so so common), and the repo guy is acting as an agent of the court.
This is the law. It is working as intended. It's also moral - If you enter into a contract to buy something on credit, you should uphold your end of the contract. Specific instances have been wrong, and we can argue the merits of this particular case, but car manufacturers assisting the new owners of assets that have been repossessed in securing their asset is at worst morally neutral.
The bank uses title of vehicle as collateral. You own the vehicle but allow repossession for failing to clear the debt. But just because the car is repossessed doesn’t clear the debt unless the vehicle covers the debt wholly. Bank will sue for the difference.
The UK has some tricky loan contract law which allows a lender to do this, unless the purchaser challenges it in court it using a very specific procedure - which of course most of the population doesn't know about.
Many people are surprised by this. They assume repossession means the loan is paid off - until they discover they've lost their car and are still on the hook for more or less the current market value.
I don't think that's quite right, you own the vehicle legally and you owe the bank the loan. However as soon as a repossession takes place the legal title to the vehicle does change.
That varies by state. Where I live, the financing institution with the lien keeps the title until it is paid off.
Kinda nice when you trade in a car you still owe a bit of money on, as you don't really need to bring anything with you other than the key and your drivers license; the dealer does all the work getting it cleared and transferred.
Isn't it reversed: that the repossession takes place because the legal title to the vehicle changed, due to the contract being broken by lack of payment?
If the car was titled to the bank, they would have to be involved and would be listed in the registration process with the state getting plates, etc.
You are the owner, they simply have a lien on the vehicle which is noted on the title. Once you pay off the loan, they send you information to get the lien removed and a clean title.
It could be we're not distinguishing lease vs. finance in these threads. In my experience in Massachusetts, lease titles were in a holding company's name, while financed vehicles were in my own.
P.S. Looking around a bit there is a lot of variation on how this works depending on locale. So I guess lease vs. finance is just another way things can differ out there.
I wouldn’t be surprised it varies a lot. Just vehicle registration varies. In California the plate stays with the car, but in other states new plates are issue and old plates move to the original owners new car.
No doubt it would be fascinating to see how each state does it. I only have experience with a few.
It's not universal. Some places have specific regulations that govern this and so they specifically carve out a weird "ownership but non-ownership" scenario. E.g. mortgages here in South Africa. Other places yes it's in your name but you put it up as collateral on the loan itself, etc etc etc.
Bottom line, the government just makes it obscure and difficult to determine the real dynamics between the two parties, and the weird interaction it may have with existing laws governing theft/ownership.
You don't own the vehicle if you have a loan, the bank has the title. The title holder is the owner. The best part about paying off a financed car, to me anyway, is the day the title shows up in the mail and you actually own your car.
I'm sure that somewhere has crazy rules but the general idea of a secured loan is the lender can easily take your security if you don't pay the debt. If not for that it isn't secured, is it?
Car loans are secured on a car. If you want to just borrow money with no security you can get a (likely far more expensive) unsecured loan if the bank judges this to be a good risk, or take an overdraft on a current account or use a credit card, all unsecured debt.
Collaterals don't require ownership by bank where I live. Loaned cars are owned by their loaners (but leased cars aren't, although they may transfer ownership to the leaser after a period of time, depending on the terms of the lease). Not sure how these things work in the UK, though.
1. Unsecured loan - if you have the credit facility available then you can borrow an unsecured amount of money and purchase a car. Neither the seller nor the bank have any ownership interest in the car. The loan isn't secured on the car. You are free to sell the car on and transfer its title to anyone else. If you default on the loan then different proceedings may take place to recover the money owed, but that may not necessarily include re-possessing the car (if it's valued under GBP3000.00). The loan company can come after any of your assets.
2. Hire Purchase - the seller lends you through a credit company the price of the car (and interest). The seller transfers the title of the to the credit company. You do not become the "owner" of the car, instead you rent it until such time the total amount of the loan is paid off. You don't have any right to sell or transfer ownership of the car. If you do the unfortunate buyer of the car may wake up one morning to find that it's been repossessed. This is why as a buyer performing HPI checks for any outstanding hire purchase or secured loans on the car are fairly important.
There are also other schemes such as leasing which make it more obvious that if you don't keep up with the payments then the seller or finance company can come along and repossess the car.
To take a contradicting pov... I think this sort of expectation/ideal has done us more harm than helped.
As advocates, companies are fickle and unreliable.
Presenting as advocates, companies always stress how aligned their interests are with customers'. We'll, that's true until it isn't. Once it isn't, it flips.
That's useless. Better to keep in mind that companies aren't your advocates. They're your salesman.
The principle-agent problem is not just limited to companies. Everything you've written applies to people in general. Advocacy in and and of itself is a fickle enterprise.
> If Telsa are also granted the rights within the court order to assist the bailiffs
From what limited knowledge of law enforcement I have (and it's very little, I admit), it's reversed: everyone by default is legally obliged to assist a law officer, on their request, to enforce the law and order; there are some limits beyond which explicit court orders are required, but those limits are rather broad.
This is an assumption based on current events and climate toward LEOs and is very far from the truth. There are very clear boundaries for assisting with law enforcement. Warrants are not magical documents that allow anything to happen.
If Telsa are also granted the rights within the court order to assist the bailiffs, then presumably it would be a fully legal action.
At the end of the day, you sign a contract wherein you agree to keep up payments on an item, and if you don't the item will be repossessed. If you don't like those terms, don't get stuff on payment plans.