[HN Gopher] Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive aw...
___________________________________________________________________
Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss
payments
Author : MR4D
Score : 166 points
Date : 2023-02-27 21:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| mirpetri wrote:
| Time to buy Lada stupid LADA.
| lmkg wrote:
| Well if this is how the new cars are gonna be, I guess I'll just
| go ahead and teach myself to be a Car Guy so that the one I have
| now will run forever.
|
| It's not that I'm afraid of missing a payment. At this point I
| would probably buy the car outright. But after the robo-signing
| debacle with BoA repossesssing houses that they were never party
| to, the mere _capability_ renders the machine fundamentally
| untrustworthy.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| > the mere capability renders the machine fundamentally
| untrustworthy.
|
| I've said this a couple of times before, but I find it fairly
| astonishing that we don't have legislation covering what
| manufacturers are allowed to do to a product with embedded
| devices after a user has purchased it.
|
| I want to be very clear - after I have bought a product, ANY
| CHANGE WITHOUT MY CONSENT done by the embedded software at the
| behest of the manufacturer is essentially breaking and entering
| (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)). They have the ability to
| stick a "little green man" inside the car, that should not
| absolve them of the legal repercussions of using it without my
| permission.
|
| I don't believe that sticking a term/clause into a user
| agreement that is not negotiable is an acceptable way to deal
| with this situation.
|
| This is rapidly becoming one of my strongest political beliefs.
| I think the concept of ownership is at stake.
|
| My wishlist is essentially:
|
| 1. Devices that contain digital locks _MUST_ provide all keys
| to all locks to the buyer at time of purchase. The user can opt
| into allowing the manufacturer to keep a copy, but they must be
| allowed to opt out.
|
| 2. Devices that require remote services must explicitly list
| all services and features that depend on those services. The
| user must have the option to opt out of remote services.
|
| 3. Buyers of devices that choose to opt out of remote services
| are revoking consent for manufacturer access to the device. Any
| future access by the manufacturer (at all, from updating code
| to reporting usage to remotely starting a car) will be
| considered a violation of the CFAA.
|
| 4. Manufacturers must justify why a feature requires a remote
| service. "Profit" is not an acceptable answer.
| sliken wrote:
| You haven't bought a car till you pay for it. If you buy it
| with a loan the bank owns it, and can restrict your use of it
| as they see fit.
| Uehreka wrote:
| > I want to be very clear - after I have bought a product,
| ANY CHANGE WITHOUT MY CONSENT done by the embedded software
| at the behest of the manufacturer is essentially breaking and
| entering (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)).
|
| Man, do I have bad news for you about everything.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Sure - although I'll point out that technically the CFAA
| already covers this, it's just never applied in this manner
| (caveat - the CFAA can cover basically anything given the
| vague wording... so the value of it is up for debate)
|
| Basically - I want a simple contract that ensures that the
| device I've bought will continue working as expected
| (assuming no use of remote/internet connected features) and
| that the manufacturer is unable to enter my property and
| change how it functions after sale.
|
| I don't find that particularly unusual. I think the unusual
| part is rather than manufacturers have this new ability _at
| all_. For the majority of our legal history it was either
| prohibitively expensive or downright impossible for a
| manufacturer to embed a device that only obeys the
| manufacturer into consumer products.
|
| Now it's both possible and cheap, and I'd like to see some
| regulation regarding my rights to purchase a tool.
|
| A small number of places are paying at least a little
| attention and beginning to ban the most egregious cases of
| this (ex: NJ considering banning car subscriptions with a
| specific call out to the behavior of BMW around seat
| heaters).
|
| But this is going to become a tidal wave of consumer abuse
| in the very near future - I can fucking guarantee it.
|
| Why would anyone ever sell you a product when they can rent
| it to you and let their "little green man" be the property
| manager for free? They won't - not unless they're forced
| to.
|
| And while I think renting can be a useful way to acquire a
| product - I sure as hell think it shouldn't be the only
| one.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Good luck buying it outright - and even if you do, new cars are
| all delivered with a bunch of tech that takes away your control
| and it gets worse every year.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| I worry more about some hacker type deciding to ddos all the
| McDonalds by telling the cars that's where they need to be.
|
| Kind of surprised it hasn't happened yet honestly.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > Kind of surprised it hasn't happened yet honestly.
|
| https://interestingengineering.com/culture/hacker-
| attacked-y...
| chadlavi wrote:
| I'm not particularly worried about the well-being of the
| McDonald's corporation. I'd be more worried, if anything,
| about some bad actor deciding they want every car on a major
| interstate to wreck all at once.
| VLM wrote:
| Any user interface will be misused, so "click to repo" will
| mostly be used accidentally in error. The vast majority of cars
| are not repo'd and as such the vast majority of clicks on the
| "repo" button will be in error. The customer service rep will
| be trying to click "x" to close some other website's popups or
| they thought they were clicking "reset" but that's right next
| to "repo". Or the new hire is told to click "repo" on every
| loan with no payment last month; I made no payment last month
| because I made my final payment two months ago but it hasn't
| closed out the process.
|
| There will be a few high profile stories of cars driving off
| with newborn babies strapped in the car seat, then the tech
| will be banned.
|
| Weirdly enough by patenting the business method, this makes
| every car mfgr OTHER than Ford much more appealing, so what we
| really is patent trolls as a service patenting really bad ideas
| to make sure nobody can implement them. I don't think Ford's
| new invention was intended to get me to buy a Toyota. Patenting
| bad ideas as a weapon is an interesting concept. Other than the
| obvious fraud issue, what's to stop me from filing a REALLY bad
| idea patent, then selling the stock short, then drumming up
| some PR, then closing out my short position at profit? At some
| point this is inevitable as "the internet" along with "the
| stock market" and everything else becomes more bot than human.
| maxerickson wrote:
| What if they make it take like 2 steps?
| chucksmash wrote:
| Having trouble thinking what user-facing technology cars have
| gained recently that I actually need. Backup cameras are nice,
| my last two cars had them but my current one does not. Life
| goes on. Heard anecdotally that new cars in US require then
| now, so I guess next car will probably have one again.
| Blindspot indicators on side mirrors are nice too, but
| physically turning and looking is too engrained in me to stop
| doing.
|
| It seems like there has to be a market for something other than
| what we are getting. I'd like something that benefits from
| improvements in emissions/gas mileage but doesn't bolt on
| infotainment or phone integrations or networked everything.
| Zero interest in lane-assist technology. Preemptively saying no
| to any O.T.A. updates. I basically want what in 2023 would be
| considered a work-truck level of utilitarianism but in a form I
| can use to get my family from A to B, since throwing young kids
| up front on a bench seat in a work-truck is a no-go. It would
| be nice if it weren't actively ugly as well, but on this point
| I am negotiable.
| chadlavi wrote:
| I think you probably want a 2017ish Subaru
| chucksmash wrote:
| Close. Funnily enough, the last car was a 2014 Subaru we
| bought in 2021. My spouse drives our kids more, so she
| staked out the claim on that one though.
|
| Maybe the Bronco selling like crazy will convince carmakers
| to issue "remastered" versions of previous cars, and maybe
| the remastering won't be "stick a 17inch screen in the
| center console."
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| adaptive cruise control is another good one
| Psychlist wrote:
| There's a lot that can be done by disintegrated systems, too.
|
| I put cameras onto a box truck so I had reversing etc, but I
| used an 8-camera wired security system with video recorder
| and eSIM for that. The screen was optional but I found one
| that only had one button (to toggle views) rather than a
| "command console" type that by its nature gave full control
| over the security system. Driving around displaying the
| bumper-height rear camera on the screen was quite handy,
| normally it's a blind spot of trucks.
|
| Likewise the GPS tracking system, I bought a stand-alone
| navigation system (you need a truck-specific one that you can
| at the very least type height and weight into so it doesn't
| direct you down roads you can't fit through), and obviously a
| separate anti-theft tracker (well, two, because the
| immobiliser also had one).
|
| And of course there was a radio/CD player in the cab, no need
| to wire that into the one computer to rule them all that
| modern mobile infotainment systems have. I mean, "computers
| with wheels" or whatever the transport as a service companies
| call their devices these days.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Go one step further and become a Bicycle Guy. Consider what
| will still be operational 100 years from now once fossil fuels
| have dried up and we have fully transitioned into Life As A
| Service.
| Maken wrote:
| That's true as long as you don't use one of those ungodly
| bluetooth shifters with built-in end-of-life cycle.
| mywittyname wrote:
| The problem with being a "Bicycle Guy" is that people like to
| run them over...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Also not practical for many people.
| jojobas wrote:
| They'll just outlaw "dumb" cars. Can't have too much freedom on
| your hands.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Recently minted Car Guy here. Start with Ford or Chevy anything
| pre-1975, expect to spend 5000-7000 for a running older vehicle
| in need of maintenance and body work. PArts are ubiquitous and
| you'll be blown away by how simple engines can be to understand
| and work on without all of the ECM/emissions-era add-ons under
| the hood to contend with. Learn to love calling the support
| line @ JEGS or Summit Racing before ordering parts to confirm
| your fitment before you pull the trigger. Don't even bother
| thinking about stepping foot in a modern parts store, they
| can't help you.
| pilarphosol wrote:
| 1. Buy Ford.
|
| 2. Don't pay.
|
| 3. Get repoed...
|
| 4. ...while in the car.
|
| 5. Accident.
|
| 6. Collect settlement.
|
| This is not legal or financial advice. As with time travel,
| safety not guaranteed.
| HomeDeLaPot wrote:
| The problem with this isn't the idea of a car repossessing itself
| per se, because repossession is already a legitimate thing; it's
| the idea that your car can be remotely controlled by anyone other
| than you. There are already so many things that can go wrong. I
| don't want to buy a car that can be remotely disabled because I
| drove near a protest, or because there was a "clerical error" at
| Ford, or because my payment didn't go through, or because of a
| spotty connection or a software bug or a hacker! I'm also not
| sure I want to drive a car that collects and uploads analytics to
| my insurance company. (Although maybe it would be interesting as
| an opt-in system with a hardware kill switch that saves you
| boatloads of money if you don't drive like an a-hole...)
|
| I'm pretty happy with the old, non-Internet-connected car that I
| drive. My phone already has all the smarts that my car needs for
| navigation and playing media and stuff. And from backup cameras
| to safer lane changing to full self driving, I can't think of a
| feature that I'd want to be built into the car and _Internet-
| connected_ except for remote start (not sure I 'd use it) or
| full-on "tell my car to drive somewhere without me."
| magic_hamster wrote:
| Brace yourself then, because the future of automotive is highly
| connected, and in many ways it already is. Every car since the
| early 2000s has computerized components that control everything
| from power steering to infotainment systems, and your car
| probably already communicates with some servers using a built
| in cellular sim.
|
| Hackers have been able to compromise cars for at least a couple
| of decades, and while car manufacturers are getting better at
| securing their products, they are all pushing hard for further
| connectivity. This means apps and subscriptions for your car,
| new protocols that lets cars exchange information, and a huge
| reliance on cloud.
|
| Source: first hand sources working in well known automotive
| corporations.
| giobox wrote:
| Every new Ford on sale today, from the cheapest Maverick to
| the most expensive F150 configuration, now has remote
| monitoring and access via 5G as _standard_ - it 's needed if
| nothing else to offer the apps to remote start and unlock the
| car that consumers just expect now.
|
| Its generally the same industry wide.
|
| > https://www.ford.com/support/category/fordpass/
| bearmode wrote:
| What if it's behind a locked gate?
| anaganisk wrote:
| Initiating VTOL sequence...
| grugagag wrote:
| If the car won't start it'd be like a giant paperweight
| mnd999 wrote:
| It'll still do all the annoying things like disable the air con
| or make an annoying noise.
|
| The full self repossession thing is just another use case for
| full self drive, which is complete fantasy land on the part of
| automakers.
| silisili wrote:
| > It'll still do all the annoying things like disable the air
| con or make an annoying noise.
|
| So, it will do what every Ford I've owned since the 80s will
| do...
| amrb wrote:
| I could see this getting hacked with everyone waking up to all
| the cars driving to the beach!
| realworldperson wrote:
| [dead]
| ilovetux wrote:
| > The patent also outlines a potential to lock the vehicle out on
| weekends only so that the driver can still access a job and might
| be able to come through on those delinquent payments
|
| What if you usually work weekends which is common for a lot of
| the jobs people who are missing payments might be working? In
| that case you would be out of luck.
|
| You would also be out of luck if you are trying to get a side-gig
| or pick up a part time job on weekends to make ends meet.
|
| This is what happens when people who have no money troubles make
| decisions in a board room. Completely out of touch.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >You would also be out of luck if you are trying to get a side-
| gig or pick up a part time job on weekends to make ends meet.
|
| "Buy a bus pass like the good poors, cash side work is evil"
|
| -the people peddling these things, but using nicer words"
| spacephysics wrote:
| I think this misses the forest for the trees.
|
| This technology in any car should be a violation of our rights.
| A corporation dictates when to access the vehicle remotely?
|
| It'll start with justifiable use cases. In a not too distant
| future, imagine something like:
|
| * can't access car during peak CO2 emission times because you
| got the cheaper monthly rate that uses a green subsidy to pay
| for the cheaper rate
|
| * your incorrectly a suspect of a petty crime, your car is now
| inaccessible because Ford doesn't want liability if you do
| something bad with their car (despite you cooperating with law
| enforcement)
|
| * you've been categorized as spreading hate
| speech/misinformation/disinformation and that breaks our terms
| of service
|
| I could go on, but you get the point.
| TheCondor wrote:
| >> * can't access car during peak CO2 emission times because
| you got the cheaper monthly rate that uses a green subsidy to
| pay for the cheaper rate
|
| This sounds like a feature that opens up a new avenue of
| potential financial engineering. If your car could enforce
| that it was in 'green mode' or didn't drive at certain times
| and you could get a subsidy or tax break for it, that might
| potentially be a good incentive to encourage more
| environmental friendly lifestyles and practices. That doesn't
| seem like a bad thing to me, I might not want to buy that
| feature but it allows for some interesting possibilities. The
| buyer would have to agree to some stuff at the time of
| purchase (or lease as it sounds like it would be) to enable
| this.
|
| We should be mindful of potential unintended consequences of
| these things. There are some good frameworks in place though,
| despite what you're second point suggests, Ford has
| relatively limited liability in the case that their car is
| driven by a bad actor (cooperating the the police or not) the
| second that car starts driving on its own, for whatever
| reason, Ford has some liability.
|
| I remember my grandfather being relatively upset at the idea
| of GM knowing his GPS coordinates when his Cadillac had
| onstar. Now there have been hundreds or even thousands of
| cases when OnStar has had a positive outcome on peoples lives
| after a crash or something, including times they've reported
| it before anyone else. His tune changed dramatically one time
| they remotely unlocked his car and remotely started it so he
| could get home when his fishing boat turned over and his car
| keys were at the bottom of a lake though.
| userbinator wrote:
| _potentially be a good incentive to encourage more
| environmental friendly lifestyles and practices_
|
| Hell no. It starts that way, and it ends with "you are not
| allowed to live".
| vorpalhex wrote:
| ...And anyways, we had to flee from the wildfire on foot
| because the car decided the ambient CO2 level was too
| high...
|
| Humans are bad at predicting edge cases. That cuts both
| directions. Machines should give guidance, not provide
| enforcement.
| ilovetux wrote:
| I do get your point, and I agree.
|
| My thought process was that the inherent evils were already
| being discussed, so I figured I would point out something
| that I saw in the article which I thought was interesting but
| not already being discussed.
| spacephysics wrote:
| Ah I see your point, I agree
| elashri wrote:
| And who will be liable in case if the car makes an accident while
| in the reprocess process?
| [deleted]
| klyrs wrote:
| And who owns the brick of <s><s>weed</s>heroin</s> fentanyl in
| the wheel well?
| hexo wrote:
| Thanks and this needs to be immediately banned by regulators.
| motohagiography wrote:
| 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 people have recourse to
| principle, whereas when you implement something like this in
| hardware (a car), it's dystopian vigilantism. I realize the
| largest future growth market for cars is in countries without
| reliable legal systems, and whose evolving governments will not
| hamper themselves the way the US did by guaranteeing individual
| freedoms, but this is why discourse about tech is important, as
| for every innovation, there's 100 scumbags like this inventor
| looking to leverage it to exploit people.
| vintermann wrote:
| I sympathize, but I'm not so sure about the laws. When it comes
| to companies as big as Ford, they could probably get the laws
| rewritten if needed - or even if they didn't, whether they got
| sued would depend more on who they were friends with than with
| the jot and tittle of legal text.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > When you finance a car, the vehicle becomes collateral for a
| loan, but it belongs to you.
|
| The title stays with the lender until all the payments are made
| per the loan agreement. I would not say the vehicle legally
| belongs to a borrower until they have possession of the title.
|
| > The reason we have laws is so that people have recourse to
| principle, whereas when you implement something like this in
| hardware (a car), it's dystopian vigilantism.
|
| The legal system is costly to use. Reducing the costs to
| repossess collateral would reduce borrowing costs, and
| ultimately help borrowers with lower borrowing costs because
| there is less expense towards repossession.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > > When you finance a car, the vehicle becomes collateral
| for a loan, but it belongs to you.
|
| > The title stays with the lender until all the payments are
| made per the loan agreement. I would not say the vehicle
| legally belongs to a borrower until they have possession of
| the title.
|
| Maybe the confusion comes from the meaning of "owning". There
| are essentially three parts to ownership: the right to sell,
| to rent, and to use. A full owner has all three, but there
| are situation where they are distinct and the "owner" may be
| different depending on which aspect you consider. So when
| usage is considered, the borrower is the owner, the lender
| can't get into the car and drive, but when sales are
| considered, the lender can sell the car and get money from
| it, the borrower can't (at least not before the loan is fully
| paid).
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Two of my vehicles are Chrysler's. Both send me a monthly
| email telling how the car is doing: tire psi, oil change
| status, etc. Both are paid off, but I'll bet anything they
| can still disable them. So do I really own them?
| chucksmash wrote:
| > Reducing the costs to repossess collateral would reduce
| borrowing costs, and ultimately help borrowers with lower
| borrowing costs because there is less expense towards
| repossession.
|
| Costs to borrowers _could_ be reduced, which sounds like a
| nice silver lining to what most people would consider an
| anti-feature, but there 's nothing that says the savings will
| necessarily be passed on to borrowers versus retained by the
| lenders instead.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| If the cost of repossession is low it also means that riskier
| buyers are more likely to get financed.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| This is a pretty naive take if you're trying to paint it as
| enabling an even better outcome for "riskier buyers"
|
| This article is something like 5-10 years behind reality:
| Right now subprime auto loans are mostly enforced with GPS
| trackers that buyers are usually not made properly aware
| of, or even worse, tricked into paying for as an add-on
| pitched as being for their own benefit.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/dealbook/gps-
| dev...
|
| -
|
| There are entire businesses built on selling poor people
| cars at truly insane interest rates, on payments they
| clearly can't afford, repossessing the cars on the cheap
| with GPS trackers, then selling then to the next poor
| person with bad credit.
|
| This grift isn't new, but cheap GPS trackers and license
| scanners reduced the cost per repossession in a way that
| enabled these places to be _signficantly_ more brazen about
| it.
|
| Unfortunately the two prevailing takes I see on this are
| "they're subprime for a reason" as if they deserve it, and
| "well at least _someone_ is still giving them a chance, you
| need a car in this country " (and of course some well
| meaning but ill informed people think you can just take
| public transport in every part of the country)
|
| The reality is this is worse than nothing in many cases.
| Buy here, pay here have people pay more frequently so that
| they can repo a car within _days_ not months of someone
| buying them. The process isn 't free either, it's
| disruptive, and they'll continue to leech off the owner in
| collections.
|
| -
|
| Overall it feels like a classic case of short sightedness
| from society. Saying we should _directly_ subsidized
| subprime people 's access to affordable loans and cars
| would be a non-starter: It sounds like some bleeding heart
| charity case making the responsible pay for the
| irresponsible.
|
| But then we'll all indirectly fund a much worse version of
| that when subprime auto loans start to implode (like
| they're probably already starting to with the interest rate
| hikes...) and we're all paying to pick up the pieces in
| multiple ways. If the bottom falls out the car market, well
| right now even middle class families are taking loans with
| insane terms that leave them underwater in a good market.
| The pain will trickle up and out from just subprime lenders
| and cars specifically.
| bko wrote:
| People who give out car loans want you to pay back the
| loan. They don't want to repossess the vehicle. There is
| a real cost associated with it and you can't just take
| the car and make a profit. You'd be able to recoup what
| was owed and some costs may not be coupable. Again,
| they're not in the business to lend out money to people
| they know that can't afford it. There may be fraud at the
| individual level but the system doesn't work like that.
|
| The recovery rates for subprime auto deals are
| historically around 50%
|
| https://www.fitchratings.com/research/structured-
| finance/soa...
| bluGill wrote:
| Not the scummy low end of the auto loan business. They
| want you to pay for a couple months and then reposes the
| car. They are selling older cars, so just a couple months
| of payment is more $ than the depreciation of the car,
| and when it comes back they can sell it again. While they
| maybe have to pay you back for the value of your owned
| part of the car, they can charge repossession and detail
| for sale fees first.
|
| They do need a few people who pay off the whole car.
| These are the case studies they use to shout how great
| they are for taking a chance on someone who turned their
| life around.
| bko wrote:
| You understand that if i lend you $100 to buy a car, you
| pay off 50%, i can sell the car for $70, i would have to
| give you $20 (you only owe me $50). There are strict
| rules what you can do state by state, but generally you
| can't repossess something worth more than the outstanding
| balance and keep the rest as a profit
|
| For example here's NY state
|
| If you've already paid more than 60 percent of the amount
| you owe when the car is repossessed, the creditor must
| auction it within 90 days. During this time, you can
| still get your car back, says the New York City Bar Legal
| Referral Service. You have up until the car is actually
| sold or leased to settle with the lender. You might have
| to pay the past due amounts, but often you'll be asked to
| pay the entire loan balance.
|
| After the auction, the creditor can apply the proceeds
| toward fees and expenses relating to the repossession and
| the unpaid balance on the loan. The lender must give you
| a completed an Affirmation of Repossession and Bill of
| Sale. After all expenses are paid, you're entitled to the
| balance of the proceeds.
|
| https://www.sapling.com/6669128/new-state-car-
| repossession-l...
| brigade wrote:
| An 84 month loan at New York's maximum 16% interest means
| that the 60% threshold isn't reached for 5 years, far
| after the expected loan lifetime.
|
| And the car isn't the only thing being sold, there might
| be a bundled reconditioning fee, a GPS installation fee,
| a documentation fee, a service fee, origination fee,
| nitrogen fee, etc. So when they sell the car again for
| the same $2000 plus fees that you bought it for, they'll
| happily deduct that $2000 from the $3000 you still owe.
|
| Since you mentioned subprime loans, to clarify: this is
| about the level _below_ that, for people that can't
| qualify for a loan from even Santander.
| sangnoir wrote:
| >...if i lend you $100 to buy a car, you pay off 50%, i
| can sell the car for $70, i would have to give you $20
| (you only owe me $50)
|
| The trick is to lend me $100 on a $40 dollar car that I
| cannot sell for $70. Nevermind the fact that in most
| states I can't sell the car for _any_ amount as the
| dealership owns the lien.
|
| > There are strict rules what you can do state by state,
| but generally you can't repossess something worth more
| than the outstanding balance and keep the rest as a
| profit
|
| A lot of articles have been written about scammy "Buy
| Here, Pay Here" autosales that exist despite the strict
| rules. Since the dealership is financing the car, they
| can tweak the _initial_ balance and monthly payments to
| their liking, while following the letter of the law but
| hitting the repo quota on the same '97 Honda Civic.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Not sure why you picked July 2021 on a monthly index...
| easily the most misleading month in the last decade:
|
| https://www.fitchratings.com/structured-finance/abs/auto-
| ind...
|
| As soon as the government assistance I'm advocating dried
| back up we skyrocketed back to historical highs of
| subprime delinquency.
|
| And notice how when graphed together, right on the
| timeframe I describe of 5-10, you see a _massive_
| divergence between subprime and prime trends even in your
| own article. Recovery rates tell you percentages, not
| absolute scale. (graph is a stunning representation of
| our current K-shaped recovery btw)
|
| With cheaper repossessions the _scale_ was what
| increased, and that 's what Fitch is referring to with
| record performance.
|
| We gave more people than ever who couldn't afford loans
| loans, and so while the relative rate of recovery didn't
| change, delinquency went insane, and is gearing up to get
| even more insane with the interest rate hikes.
|
| > People who give out car loans want you to pay back the
| loan.
|
| I can't tell if this is just a naive or at least
| uninformed take. At a high enough level _the financial
| system_ wants people to pay back loans... but that 's not
| what's being discussed here.
|
| -
|
| There are _dealers_ who want buyers to fail to pay. They
| 're additionally enabled by both GPS trackers and license
| scanners to be even more efficient in their grift.
|
| Additionally, you accidentally exposed an _amazing_
| example of what I described in terms of "we will
| subsidize it either way"
|
| We don't provide a direct form of assistance specific to
| cars... but we _did_ pay individuals to keep them afloat
| during the pandemic. They then had to take that money and
| pay subprime lenders to keep cars with exorbitant
| interest fees for longer, driving record profitability
| for the subprime market.
|
| Now interest rates are spiking, those people are losing
| their cars. They're in a more desperate situation than
| ever, with less assistance then when interest rates were
| better. Used car prices fell, but not enough to cover all
| the ground they gained during the heat of the pandemic.
|
| It's like this country just lets looming crisis walk up
| face to face without every trying to change course lest
| we seem like communists. To me this shouldn't even be a
| partisan issue, we can enable a smaller need for
| government intervention in the next economic slump by
| just _not donating money to these lenders_
| bko wrote:
| So you're saying car repossessions can yield a profit?
| I've never seen recovery even approaching 100% and every
| state I've seen restricts what you can do with
| repossessed cars (eg new York makes it go to auction if
| 60% has been paid off and give proceeds back to
| borrower). I picked the first site i found that has
| something about subprime auto severities. This is pretty
| common sense to anyone in the industry.
|
| No offense but i don't think you know what you're talking
| about. Where are you getting this information? Talk to
| someone in the industry
| BoorishBears wrote:
| That "site" is Fitch Ratings, and you seem to not know
| much about what they do: subprime auto loans are an ABS
| (asset-backed security) so there are multiple monthly
| indicators you can get from Fitch or any of the big
| three.
|
| > So you're saying car repossessions can yield a profit?
|
| Yes! You don't understand how Buy-Here Pay-Here works if
| you're going on about auctions.
|
| Here in CA it's been legally defined specifically to try
| and help protect a vulnerable population, but the MO is
| the same wherever you go:
|
| - 90% of all their loans are kept in-house for 90 days
|
| - The dealer does _not_ primarily deal with new cars
|
| That means if they repo the car within 90 days, they're
| out of pocket exactly the cost of the recovery and the
| depreciation... so they just lean heavily on cars that
| are at the end of their useful lives, then ask for just
| enough down to cover the repo and a sliver of profit.
|
| They let the fish go, and hope the inevitable* happens
| within 90 days, so they take the car back _and_ sell the
| account to collections for a few extra pennies. And
| obviously it 's the junkiest of junk debt so it's not
| worth much, but there are bottom feeding collection
| agencies that will use barely legal tactics to try and
| squeeze just a tiny bit of extra blood from the stone.
|
| * To understand how far these places are willing to go:
| CA needed to pass a law to prevent them from requiring in
| person payments and force them to disclose the trackers
| (most states don't require this).
|
| That's because they'd require all payments to be made on-
| site, then have recovery waiting for the end of business
| to take cars. Can't get there because of work? Repo'd.
| Can't get there because of a court date? Repo'd. Can't
| get there because the POS they sold you isn't working?
| Repo'd and patched up just enough to hobble along enough
| for the next desperate buyer.
|
| And to be clear, CA is in the minority in preventing
| that, this is still happening across the nation at a
| scale that's never been seen before.
|
| -
|
| To be even more efficient, they're starting to take on
| more of the collections processes themselves, often with
| disastrous results:
| https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-
| takes...
|
| https://www.autoremarketing.com/bhph/three-ways-improve-
| coll...
|
| > After five years, Fransen transitioned from a third-
| party collection environment to a buy-here, pay-here
| finance company and specialized in developing a
| successful in-house recovery department.
|
| -
|
| I mean seriously, what do you think the loss in value on
| a 150k mile 2005 Sentra with a mean belt squeal and an
| extra 1000 miles on it since the last repo is? They're
| dealing with desperate customers at the bottom of their
| list of choices so it's not even factored in into the
| price.
|
| The only "wrench" in this is if someone manages to keep
| the car long enough that they can't keep the loan in-
| house... but by the time that happens they've already
| made their money: They didn't sell the car at a good
| price to a desperate buyer, the loan has matured so it's
| a little more, and it's not their problem if it needs to
| be repo'd.
|
| Overall this is a discussion about the intersection of
| multiple massive industries that each do enough revenue
| to form their own countries. No offense, but you
| _definitely_ don 't know what you're talking about if you
| think you can reduce it to just needing to be "in the
| industry".
| [deleted]
| jessaustin wrote:
| Loans at e.g. luxury-brand dealers are sold with the
| expectation of payment. There are other business models,
| however. There are some auto "dealers" who are really
| just rental places with another name. When they repo a
| vehicle, they perform the minimum of service and repair
| and then it goes back on the lot. A 7yo used car doesn't
| really lose any value from adding 5000 miles to the
| odometer, so the exorbitant finance fees go mostly to
| profit.
|
| Vehicles that get absolutely trashed are a loss, but
| that's why the lenders want every repo to be a surprise
| to the creditor.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Good point!
| kkielhofner wrote:
| Not to mention the (current) alternative is an often
| shady/creative/aggressive repossession agent who in many
| cases[0] has the legal authority to go on your property to
| hook and tow the vehicle (often in the middle of the night).
| Even when they "don't" they often do anyway.
|
| In a country with very high firearm ownership it's actually
| dangerous[0]. From a quick Google search violence breaks out
| pretty often[2][3] in these circumstances.
|
| [0] - https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/car-
| repossession-law...
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti0NHC6oVnk
|
| [2] - https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/crime/2011/03/0
| 2/rep...
|
| [3] - https://www.fox4news.com/news/repo-man-shot-while-
| trying-to-...
| ubermonkey wrote:
| You're on the title at purchase, but the lender has a lien on
| the title.
| lostapathy wrote:
| > The title stays with the lender until all the payments are
| made per the loan agreement.
|
| This varies a lot by state. A lot (most?) states the title
| absolutely goes to the purchaser but it has a lien attached
| that gives the lender rights of repossession.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Interesting, I thought it was only sent to you after the
| final loan payment.
| kube-system wrote:
| It's a pain in the ass, because you just hold a title
| that you can't do anything with. You have to physically
| get the lien signed off the physical title before you can
| sell it. That's why many states have switched to either
| electronic titling, or having the bank hold the title
| until they sign it off.
| bluGill wrote:
| They send you a lien release, but the title is goes to
| you from the beginning. The title has a note that there
| is a lien on it, so if you buy a car with such a title
| you need to ensure you get the lien release with it. You
| cannot transfer a title with a lien notice on it without
| the lien release (I assume there is a way to assume the
| loan as well, but I've never heard of it happening. Most
| loans wouldn't allow that, so it is probably a
| technicality that the government wouldn't know how to
| handle if you actually did attempt that)
| JohnFen wrote:
| In my state, they just send you a new copy of the title
| that omits the lien-holder rather than a lien release.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| Depends on the state, in many states the lienholder
| retains the physical copy of the title to prevent a
| fraudulent sign-off on the lien being used to sell the
| vehicle. In a lot of these states they actually _don 't_
| hold the physical copy because the DMV allows major
| lienholders to use electronic retention. In this case,
| when you pay off the loan the DMV actually produces a
| physical title for the first time so that the lienholder
| can mail it to you. The lienholder isn't interested in
| having filing cabinets full of title certificates to keep
| track of.
|
| That said, physical possession of the paper doesn't
| really matter to ownership---as electronic retention
| demonstrates. The owner listed on the title is the owner
| regardless of who has the paper, and the DMV's electronic
| records are far more important than the paper certificate
| (you can just get the DMV to print a new certificate from
| their records, but of course they'll charge a hefty fee
| and policy usually prevents doing so when there's a
| lien).
|
| The physical possession issue is just around the ability
| to fake a lien release signature and sell the vehicle.
| For the same reason some buyers won't accept a title with
| a signed-off lien and want a new "clean" title printed by
| the DMV first, but others will just verify the sign-off.
| Dealers usually have direct access to query DMV records
| and can check whether or not a lien sign-off is genuine
| that way (relase of lien is reported to the DMV by the
| lienholder), but private party purchasers don't have such
| an easy way to do this and are more vulnerable to this
| kind of fraud. Multi-sale title certificates that have
| sales logged on the back are also regarded as suspicious
| by a lot of buyers, and they'll want a new clean one.
|
| That said, I think the GP here is making a big assumption
| about how courts would interpret the situation. A
| lienholder has the right to repossess the vehicle as is,
| by sending a tow truck. Whether or not a court would
| interpret "remote repossession" as somehow changing the
| fundamental nature of ownership is an open question and
| I'm pretty skeptical. It's already not that uncommon for
| lienholders to install GPS tracking devices with fuel
| pump cutoff, in which case they have a more limited
| degree of remote control of the vehicle, and I've never
| heard of anyone thinking this changes the fundamental
| owner-lienholder relationship. I just don't think this
| idea about transfer of liability really holds any water.
| lostapathy wrote:
| Just because they hold the title for security doesn't
| mean it's not in your name.
| JohnFen wrote:
| This is how it works in my state, yes. The lender doesn't
| keep the title. You do, and it's in your name, but the
| lender is also listed on it as the lien-holder.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| > Reducing the costs to repossess collateral would reduce
| borrowing costs, and ultimately help LENDERS WITH HIGHER
| PROFITS.
|
| FTFY.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| Perhaps this is true in America where apparently you still
| have a paper title to indicate ownership?? But under
| commonwealth law "title" is a legal concept, not a physical
| document, and can't belong to anyone except the rightful
| owner. An asset can be used as security collateral without
| the ownership changing hands.
| necovek wrote:
| One of the bad "inventions" of software distribution: you don't
| own a copy, you are only licensed to use it.
|
| No surprise the dark tactic is spreading.
| kube-system wrote:
| That is more akin to a lease.
| majani wrote:
| Sorry, but IOT is the only way to try and make hire purchase
| work in a lot of poor countries (speaking as a resident of a
| poor country). This model has already been explored succesfully
| by companies such as M-Kopa Solar. If the car companies don't
| do it themselves, there's definitely going to be an aftermarket
| for this type of thing with lenders in poorer countries.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| The problem with your line of thinking is thinking that people
| truly have recourse. With a large enough player, you basically
| get to make the rules (see: Robosigning https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/2010_United_States_foreclosure...)
| IanCal wrote:
| I'm not sure I really get the difference between this and
| having some people rock up with a truck and take my car.
|
| If they don't have the right to do that, it's theft, either way
| around.
| lukevp wrote:
| Surely they would do this for leases instead of sales? Why
| would Ford want to do this for sales anyway, in the case of a
| sale, the financing company pays ford in full. The only
| exception would be if ford financed the car with its own
| financing arm. Incentives could be aligned to make leasing the
| preferred option for most people who are likely to miss
| payments then.
|
| Also I'm not sure you're correct about the ownership and the
| lawsuits. Sure you can sue anyone for anything but why would
| this be any different from me leasing a car from ford and the
| same thing happening? That doesn't seem to have been an issue
| for automakers so far...
|
| For the record, this sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me.
| I'm not in favor of the concept.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Why would Ford want to do this for sales anyway, in the
| case of a sale, the financing company pays ford in full. The
| only exception would be if ford financed the car with its own
| financing arm.
|
| Ford has a huge financing arm. And it will probably get
| bigger as interest rates rise, because they have more room to
| offer lower than market interest rates as a hidden discount
| without dropping the purchase price.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| Their financing makes money on the differential between the
| rate they pay on demand notes and the rate they lend to car
| buyers. Anyone (well, US Persons at least) can buy the
| demand notes [1], which are currently paying 4.75%. So as
| long as they are lending at an average rate above 4.75%
| after defaults and other problems I guess they are in a
| good position. But they can also move money around
| internally, I suppose, to make lower rates possible.
|
| [1] https://www.ford.com/finance/investor-center/ford-
| interest-a...
| Clubber wrote:
| I've heard people opine that motor companies: Ford, GM,
| Harley Davidson, etc. aren't really motor companies
| anymore, they are finance companies and just use the
| vehicle as a means to get the financing paper. They are
| obviously both, but it would explain why the quality of
| US vehicles keeps deteriorating since around 2007 or so.
| panopticon wrote:
| > _it would explain why the quality of US vehicles keeps
| deteriorating since around 2007 or so_
|
| I hear this meme a lot but is it actually true? By most
| benchmarks cars from the last 10 years are more reliable
| than those from two decades ago.
| Clubber wrote:
| It is in my experience. I used to only buy US cars until
| I had a brand new 2017 GM vehicle have transmission
| issues within 6 months of purchase. This was to replace a
| 2013 GM vehicle that I was having trouble with. I took
| the 2017 to the dealer and they fixed it for another 6
| months, then the issue came back. I took it to my
| personal mechanic and he said I should get rid of it, so
| I did. GM trucks have transmission issues. Look up the
| "Chevy shake," for another example.
|
| I don't know about Ford, so they might still be ok, or at
| least better than GM. I don't want to pay $40K+ to find
| out though.
|
| I expect to be able to drive vehicles without major
| issues for about 10 years. I've done this in the past
| with GM vehicles, but after 2007, the two I owned had
| significant issues all the ones I purchased prior did
| not. I put significantly less than 10k miles a year on my
| vehicles.
| brewdad wrote:
| This has been true since well before 2007. GMAC (now Ally
| Bank) was almost single-handedly keeping General Motors
| afloat in the decade prior to the financial crisis. It
| certainly wasn't the quality of their vehicles.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| N.B. that "leases" today, at least in the consumer auto
| world, ARE sales. They're just sales with a balloon payment
| due at the end.
|
| They are, in all other respects, the same as a traditional
| loan-based purchase.
| motohagiography wrote:
| The rationale I'm using for Ford owning it is there is a
| compelling argument that ownership as the effect of two
| factors, custody and control, as it applies to data today
| could apply to the car, where if Ford can disable the
| vehicle, it has control of it, and the custody the driver has
| is secondary. Leasing companies are different because they
| license the vehicle to you for a term, whereas loan financing
| means it's yours.
|
| I'm not a lawyer at all, however much of my work on privacy
| and security has been about reconciling technology
| architecture and implementations with privacy and other laws
| and regulations, and security architecture is about
| allocating risk between counterparties in a technology
| solution, so from that view, this could be reasonably
| interpreted as a predatory technology.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Nothing prevents that from happening now, though. I'm also
| uncertain how reclaiming the collateral for the loan is any
| different in this scenario.
|
| Granted, I think this is extraordinarily gross and consumer-
| hostile. Aren't there myriad of options on the table for
| reclaiming the vehicle? How often does someone "get away" with
| keeping a car, anyway? That's what the repossession industry
| exists for.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > Granted, I think this is extraordinarily gross and
| consumer-hostile.
|
| It seems like a good idea for stolen autos (at least until
| the car can be modded to remove the ability, so recently
| stolen autos). As long as there are enough checks to ensure
| that only the owner (or law enforcement with a warrant) can
| repossess the car. There just has to also be a requirement
| that the lease holder can't lawfully repossess without a
| court judgement.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Doing an actual repo is much more costly and sometimes
| involves doing PI stuff like trying to track down the
| location of the vehicle. The cost of one repo easily wipes
| out profits on many months' worth of interest payments.
| astura wrote:
| Repos are extremely costly. My friend let his car get
| repossessed because he did not need it anymore thinking that
| was easier than selling it and there wouldn't be any
| negatives other than on his credit. He was surprised to get
| sued for the cost of the repo, which was thousands plus they
| managed to sell the car for much less than it was worth.
| chongli wrote:
| I wonder how costly it would be if one of these self-
| driving cars killed a bystander while repo-ing itself.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| They'll bill it to the person they repossessed it from.
| Someone will introduce a bill to make them liable for
| murder, on the grounds that they were engaged in
| defrauding the car company and are therefore a felon.
| kube-system wrote:
| Probably similar in cost to the people killed by human
| tow truck drivers.
| frumper wrote:
| That sounds more costly for the tow truck driver than for
| Ford.
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| I don't think that's legally correct. Including automated
| repossession technology in the vehicle wouldn't cause ownership
| to stay with the manufacturer or dealer. Even if the
| manufacturer retained legal ownership it wouldn't change
| anything from a product liability standpoint. Many drivers
| lease their vehicles today instead of buying and so the vehicle
| still belongs to the lessor. If a person is injured by a faulty
| vehicle then they can potentially sue the original manufacturer
| anyway regardless of who happens to own the vehicle.
| idontpost wrote:
| [dead]
| astura wrote:
| >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.
| bluGill wrote:
| Many banks will hold the title for you, but the title is
| technically in your name. For most people there safe is a
| better place to keep the title, most people don't really have
| a good safe to store documents like this. You only need a
| title when you sell or move states. Either way you will need
| the bank involved.
| lostapathy wrote:
| You don't get mailed the title, but it's your name on the
| title that the state holds (whether on title or
| electronically). So you don't have the ability to sell it
| directly, you still own and are responsible for it.
| bm3719 wrote:
| > When you finance a car, the vehicle becomes collateral for a
| loan, but it belongs to you
|
| Is it not correct that the lending entity you use to purchase a
| vehicle is the party that legally owns it? The borrower has
| possession and right to use the vehicle, but the lender holds
| the title. That's why you get the title transferred over to
| your name once the balance of the load is repaid.
| impl wrote:
| No. When you finance a car the lender gets a lien on the
| title. The title is still in your name. Usually one of the
| stipulations the lender places in their contract is that they
| hold the title for you in what is effectively "escrow" until
| the loan is paid off. Then they release the lien and send you
| your title.
|
| The reason they do that is because a lien gives them the
| ability to, within a particular legal framework, get
| ownership of the car if you don't pay your loan, prevent the
| title from being transferred to someone they don't trust,
| etc. It's basically just risk mitigation.
| daveslash wrote:
| That's what I thought too. I got pulled over once and the cop
| asked me " _Is this your car?_ ". I replied " _Well, no...
| the bank owns it, but they let me drive it_ ". He was _not_
| amused, but I was not being snarky -- I took the question to
| mean: " _Do you own this car?_ ", and the honest answer was
| no - at least, as I understood it, because the owner name on
| the title was the bank, not mine.
| SilasX wrote:
| As others have noted, states typically have you on the
| title and the bank just has a lien, so I'm not sure that
| would even be technically accurate. And even if accurate,
| your tone is too lackadaisical and overclever for this kind
| of interaction. You could have said, "in the lay sense,
| yes, though the bank is the owner of record."
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I assume the majority of people would understand the cop's
| question as "Are you the person responsible and have the
| legal right to control this vehicle right now in this very
| moment".
| geocrasher wrote:
| This isn't surprising at all. It's basically DRM for a physical
| object.
| thesimp wrote:
| As a current Ford Mustang Mach E owner I laugh about stories like
| this. The Mach E had so many TSBs, recalls, software updates,
| attempted software updates, updates that _bricked_ the update ECU
| (the APIM module) that I have no worry what so ever that this
| will ever work reliably in this decade.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Great, now we're going to get country music about how some guy's
| truck left him.
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| With narrow AI, the truck will drive to the Austin-Bergstrom
| airport and launch a generative country music career. (There
| are venues at AUS where country music legends play.)
| toast0 wrote:
| I thought country music was already about my wife died, my dog
| won't start, and my truck ran away?
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| No: your beer died, you cried into your dog, and your wife
| wouldn't start.
|
| Yes: your truck still ran away with your fishing boat and
| eloped on BLM land.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| You know what happens when you play it backwards?
|
| You get out of jail, your wife comes back, your dog comes
| back to life, you get your truck back, you get your farm
| back...
| [deleted]
| meghan_rain wrote:
| Funny but reddit-tier comment, dang??
| [deleted]
| skyyler wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Taking a look at this now, for the first time in months.
| There's nothing in here about comedy not being allowed. It
| does discourage users from making comments like yours,
| though.
|
| Shallow jokes to break up heavy conversations, like about our
| society slipping into a dystopia, are very human.
| korroziya wrote:
| This but unironically.
| jhoelzel wrote:
| Take my angry upvote.
|
| "My truck done left me and my cellphone said I'm broke"
| piinbinary wrote:
| I had some fun with the ChatGPT prompt:
|
| > Write a country song about a guy whose truck left him. The
| first verse starts "My truck done left me and my cellphone
| said I'm broke"
| rootusrootus wrote:
| FWIW, this was the number one comment yesterday on the Reddit
| thread about this.
| jwilber wrote:
| Yeah these comments are awful. Someone even wrote, "take my
| upvote." Not a good look for HN discus quality.
|
| Back on topic:
|
| I find this hard to believe, what happens if it repossess
| itself by mistake? Gets in an accident on the way home
| during said repo? Especially since nowadays most Fords are
| just oversized trucks.
|
| And why is this even a desired feature? Is the average Ford
| customer that untrustworthy? I'm curious what the expected
| amount of use for a feature like this is.
|
| In any case, autonomous driving isn't far along enough yet
| for this to be practical and out in the streets, so I
| wonder how it even got approval.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Aren't mistaken repossessions and accidents during
| repossession things that happen already? The used car
| market is incredibly predatory and full of the same car
| getting repeatedly repossessed from new owners.
| jwilber wrote:
| I'm sure they are, though probably pretty rare.
|
| But my comment isn't about the occurrence of them, it's
| about the muddied waters when a vehicle repo's itself
| with no driver. Who's at fault if the vehicle crashes?
|
| The purchaser of the vehicle clearly did not crash - they
| may not even know the vehicle was being repo'd. So then
| is the dealership or bank to blame? (If so, will this add
| to higher premiums?) Say a predatory dealership has some
| stake in the game. Given the asymmetry of information,
| maybe they will claim the car wasn't being repo'd at all,
| rather the purchaser must have caused the damage and
| lied.
|
| What if no repo even occurs but the software malfunction?
|
| It just seems like such a mess.
| harvey9 wrote:
| I take it to mean they're writing this into the lease
| agreement in readiness for full autonomous driving.
|
| Desired feature for leasing companies and as to damage
| after the company takes remote possession I expect the
| same shenanigans you get when returning rentals.
| jader201 wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| c-fe wrote:
| I agree. I was not sure if it was just me making this up,
| but I have been browsing hacker news for 2 years now, and
| yet I do noticed some kind of regime shift where reddit-
| like comments are more prominent. I dont like this
| development, as HN used to be a safe-space from the
| reddit hivemind, I wish HN moderation would more heavily
| moderate them.
|
| Edit: Thanks for the upvotes kind stranger!
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| 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.
| nickff wrote:
| But Jader's account is over ten years old, as is mine, so
| I don't think you can credibly accuse them of being a
| noob. I happen to believe that HN has gotten
| substantially worse, and more Reddit-like over the 15
| years I've been using it. That said, this change is
| likely because more people (from a broader spectrum of
| backgrounds) are using it, and the site's total utility
| has probably increased.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I didn't say it. The site rules do.
| nickff wrote:
| They're guidelines, and they say it's an illusion. The
| examples linked are to accounts only a few months old,
| from 14 years ago. At this point, some of us have been
| around long enough to understand what's going on.
| ethanwillis wrote:
| The total utility has increased for who? Not for me. Half
| the time when I want to have a more nuanced discussion or
| talk about primary sources it just doesn't happen.
| tarotuser wrote:
| It's a great way to get up to the 500+ threshold as a
| full account here on HN.
| drnonsense42 wrote:
| Serious question. Are there any alternatives to HN? Been
| reading HN on and off since 2010 and the decline to this
| is painfully obvious. Used to learn a lot from reading on
| here but now only check or post out of habit and lack of
| a high quality alternative.
| goostavos wrote:
| These comments take me all the way back to Digg days.
|
| Please make it stop...
| Symbiote wrote:
| Press the [-] button on the parent comment, or the Back
| button, or the downvote button.
| knodi123 wrote:
| We can't keep reddit influence out entirely. But with heavy
| moderation, we can keep out the worst of it, and that will
| have to be good enough.
|
| If you liked my comment, please upvote and subscribe, and
| consider donating to my Patreon to have access to my future
| comments one day earlier.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I think you've confused Reddit and youtube
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I thought Reddit is the "Internet"? And YouTube is the
| television...
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| "but I won't let that bother me like it does other folk. I'll
| stand out on the roadside, thumb up in the air, and wait for
| some good passer buy to show me that they care"
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Aite I'm sold
| jwally wrote:
| Elon says I'm lazy. I think he's a joke. Folks told me to
| learn to code. That's great, but now I'm broke.
| carlmr wrote:
| Little do they know, I might not be thrifty. But I still
| have my ol' F150.
| daveslash wrote:
| And my tractor tole' me I don't matter, ever since John
| Deere told me to Steer clear, from them old repairs. Used
| to be, you could fix'em for free, now it's all John Deere
| IP.
|
| Edit: And Monsanto, don't you know, told me ya'best not
| go, usin' your own seeds.
|
| ( _no joke folks, I think there 's some real potential
| for a satire country song here, I'm thinkin' by a
| Jonathan Coulton type singer_)
| tough wrote:
| I had to ask ChatGPT to write one
|
| Verse 1: My truck was my pride and joy, it was my
| everything But now it's gone, and I'm feeling the sting
| Ford said I couldn't pay, so they took it away And now
| I'm left here, with nothing to say
|
| Chorus: My truck done left me, and my heart is broke I'm
| just a heartbroken man, and it ain't no joke But I'll
| find a way to get back on my feet And maybe someday, my
| truck and I will meet
|
| Verse 2: Elon says I'm lazy, but he don't know me I
| worked hard every day, but still couldn't keep my truck,
| you see Folks told me to learn to code, but that ain't
| for me I just want my truck back, and to be free
|
| Chorus: My truck done left me, and my heart is broke I'm
| just a heartbroken man, and it ain't no joke But I'll
| find a way to get back on my feet And maybe someday, my
| truck and I will meet
|
| Verse 3: My tractor used to be my trusty steed But John
| Deere said I couldn't fix it, no indeed Used to be, I
| could do it all myself But now it's all about John
| Deere's wealth
|
| Chorus: My truck done left me, and my heart is broke I'm
| just a heartbroken man, and it ain't no joke But I'll
| find a way to get back on my feet And maybe someday, my
| truck and I will meet
|
| Verse 4: Monsanto told me not to plant my own seeds But I
| didn't listen, and now I'm in need Of some help, to get
| back on my feet But I won't give up, no, not me
|
| Chorus: My truck done left me, and my heart is broke I'm
| just a heartbroken man, and it ain't no joke But I'll
| find a way to get back on my feet And maybe someday, my
| truck and I will meet
|
| Outro: My truck may be gone, but I still have my pride
| And I won't let anyone, take that away inside I'll find a
| way to make it right And maybe someday, my truck will be
| back in sight.
| pdntspa wrote:
| Someone on reddit posted something extremely similar to
| this!
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/11dnngu/futu
| re_...
|
| Except theirs is way funnier :)
|
| edit- err sorry, it was this one!
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/11drf6o/fut
| ure...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Ford: Fix or Repossess Daily
| [deleted]
| xivzgrev wrote:
| ChatGPT to the rescue:
|
| Verse 1: I had a trusty truck, my pride and joy Took me
| everywhere, never did destroy But times were tough, I fell
| behind Missed some payments, the bank declined
|
| Chorus: Now my truck's gone, it drove away Left me feeling low,
| I gotta say I'm stuck here on this dusty land Holding onto
| memories of what I had
|
| Verse 2: That old truck had a mind of its own But it always
| knew the way back home Now it's gone, and I'm all alone Sitting
| here, trying not to moan
|
| Chorus: Now my truck's gone, it drove away Left me feeling low,
| I gotta say I'm stuck here on this dusty land Holding onto
| memories of what I had
|
| Bridge: I should have known better, I should have tried To keep
| my payments up, to keep my ride Now I'm here, looking at the
| road Wondering where my truck has gone to roam
|
| Chorus: Now my truck's gone, it drove away Left me feeling low,
| I gotta say I'm stuck here on this dusty land Holding onto
| memories of what I had
|
| Outro: Maybe someday, I'll get another ride One that won't
| drive away, won't make me cry But for now, I'll just sit here
| and sing About the truck that was my everything.
| aintgonnatakeit wrote:
| Needs more pandering
|
| Verse 1: Had a pickup truck, my favorite toy, Whiskey in
| console, feeling coy, Drove on dirt roads, feeling free, With
| a girl on the tailgate, in tight blue jeans for all to see.
|
| Chorus: My truck left me, feeling stuck, Drinking whiskey in
| my blue jeans, feeling yuck, Miss the girl on the tailgate,
| her pretty look, Truck is gone, now I cry like a rook.
|
| Verse 2: Fell behind on payments, lost my ride, The truck
| drove off, with the girl by its side, She wore tight blue
| jeans, hugged her curves just right, Now the truck and the
| girl are out of sight.
|
| Chorus: My truck left me, feeling stuck, Drinking whiskey in
| my blue jeans, feeling yuck, Miss the girl on the tailgate,
| her pretty look, Truck is gone, now I cry like a rook.
|
| Bridge: It was just a truck, I know, But its departure dealt
| a painful blow, I'll find a new ride and try to mend, But
| memories of the girl and the truck will never end.
|
| Chorus: My truck left me, feeling stuck, Drinking whiskey in
| my blue jeans, feeling yuck, Miss the girl on the tailgate,
| her pretty look, Truck is gone, now I cry like a rook.
|
| Outro: Maybe one day my truck will return, With the girl in
| tight blue jeans for all to yearn, Until then, I'll sip my
| whiskey and dream, Of the truck and the girl, a perfect team.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| Not a fan of the implicit approval of drinking and driving.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| Was this song written by ChatGPT or a pair of blue jeans?
| pleb_nz wrote:
| ChatGPT sucks
|
| It didn't even mention a can of beer or shotgun
| TomK32 wrote:
| "Jesus took the wheel..."
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| So I guess we can look forward to world's first trillion dollar
| lawsuit when one of those backs up from a driveway to drive
| itself to junkard and kills a kid.
| SN76477 wrote:
| This isn't the future anyone wanted.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Regardless of the legal mechanics of leases and ownership, as
| soon as this capability exists it will become the target of
| ransomware, pranks, and law enforcement (who will 'ask' to
| activate the car's self-driving capability for just long enough
| to perform a search. Sure, there was no consent, but you didn't
| pick up the phone in time.)
| hd95489 wrote:
| I hope they defend it with a vengeance so nobody can copy it
| rkangel wrote:
| Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see this as particularly evil.
| It's just a more efficient of what already happens in terms of
| care repossession.
|
| What needs to happen is better consumer protection to prevent
| americans buying cars on finance that they are never going to
| be able to afford.
| saxonww wrote:
| I had a different thought - this makes it very appealing to
| stop selling cars altogether, and only lease or rent them.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| This. I anecdotally seen this happen to my wife's friends.
| Long story short, their credit is shot so they are forced to
| either purchase car by cash ( they seemingly can't ) or go to
| one of those places that will give them a car loan at
| ridiculous rate and installed with gizmos to allow easy
| repossession once payment is missed.
|
| << What needs to happen is better consumer protection to
| prevent americans buying cars on finance that they are never
| going to be able to afford.
|
| I think you would have everyone and their mother fighting
| against this saying you need freedom to make stupid
| decisions. Even I am personally on the fence. You do need
| better protections, but you need to have an ability to make
| your choices ( and in US - not having a car is not really a
| valid solution ).
| ultrarunner wrote:
| The solution is probably to work on that very last part
| macinjosh wrote:
| I can see it now: A cash-strapped, frazzled single-mom parks
| her car on her driveway to unload groceries, leaving her
| child in the car seat while she carries bags inside the
| garage. While the mom is walking toward the door the car
| repossesses itself and heads back to the dealership, child
| trapped inside.
| willyt wrote:
| After this happens the first time they will add some kind
| of checking mechanism which means you can defeat
| repossession by putting a doll sitting on some bricks in a
| child car seat to avoid this happening automatically.
| macinjosh wrote:
| haha! At this rate, in the future, fooling an AI will be
| considered a form of hacking and met with computer fraud
| and abuse or inauthentic behavior charges.
| kube-system wrote:
| > prevent americans buying cars on finance that they are
| never going to be able to afford
|
| The issue is that "Making finance accessible to low income
| Americans" and "predatory lending" are approximately two
| sides of the same coin. And so it is not politically popular.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| That's part of the narrative for the financial crisis. Even
| without waging that particular fight, it's important to
| remember that, for a long time, there were plenty of
| barriers to full participation that had nothing to do with
| the individual's ability to afford something. Redlining is
| probably the best documented of these practices.
| kube-system wrote:
| Every creditworthiness measure is subject to some bias.
| Most practical ways of tightening lending is going to end
| up with some correlative demographic being
| disproportionately excluded.
| notch898a wrote:
| Lowering the cost of repossession lowers the risk/cost to
| lending to low income. It's good for the poor.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes, I agree with that.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Exactly (on both sides). We should help people to find and
| choose cars they can afford.
|
| And, when someone does not pay as agreed to a significant
| degree, the more efficient that a repossession can happen,
| the better a deal can be offered to borrowers who do pay as
| agreed.
| trelane wrote:
| > Exactly (on both sides). We should help people to find
| and choose cars they can afford.
|
| I'd personally much prefer to make public transit that is
| so good that everyone uses it.
| macinjosh wrote:
| No such thing exists.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Sure. Make better public transit and many people will
| choose the null car.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| In the 1970s my dad found that American car dealerships had
| no interest in selling small and economical cars at all.
|
| Japanese car dealerships have been this way recently,
| before the pandemic hit we tried to buy a new Honda Fit and
| had to buy a used one because they had none in inventory
| because, allegedly, the factory had washed away in a flood
| but they had a row of 50 CR-Vs made in the same factory.
| The dealer tried to push us into one of those.
|
| The automotive press uncritically reports that American
| consumers are crazy about huge vehicles but what I've
| observed is that dealers are crazy about selling huge
| vehicles. Before the pandemic you would frequently see
| small cars were selling out as fast they arrived on the lot
| but dealers would have a sea of huge and expensive vehicles
| and be offering $8000 or so in incentives to sell them. If
| small vehicles were really unpopular it would be the other
| way around.
|
| There are rumors that Toyota and Honda would love to kill
| the Corolla and Civic but the quality of those vehicles is
| so legendary and the attachment of owners is so fanatical
| that they know people aren't going to "trade up" but will
| be paying new car prices for high mileage vehicles.
| VLM wrote:
| Most of the costs of manufacture are fixed or at most
| scale linear with mass, so the range of costs to mfgr the
| smallest commuter car vs the hugest truck are, at most,
| perhaps 3 to 1 but more realistically 2 to 1.
|
| "The market will bear" a consumer paying 5 to 10 times as
| much for the largest fanciest SUV or pickup truck vs the
| smallest cheapest commuter car. Therefore the profit is
| VASTLY higher on larger cars and there's an immense
| motivation to get as many customers as possible into the
| biggest cars. If you can get a customer to pay 6 times as
| much for a SUV that costs 3 times as much to make, that's
| a huge profit lost if the customer is permitted to buy
| the commuter car.
|
| Another way to phrase it is if almost all your profit
| comes from selling giant cars, then the customer
| experience of buying a small car is always going to be
| awful.
|
| The people buying the largest vehicles are not concerned
| by cost, so increasing the cost of large vehicles via
| taxes or fees or regulation only makes the situation
| worse. You'd like to think that a 20% surcharge on large
| cars would result in fewer large cars sold, but the guy
| buying them is a general contractor and he needs the
| pickup truck to make money so he's just going to pass the
| cost on to real estate inflation and the extra 20% is
| going to motivate the dealership even harder to only sell
| expensive cars.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| "The automotive press uncritically reports that American
| consumers are crazy about huge vehicles but what I've
| observed is that dealers are crazy about selling huge
| vehicles."
|
| Very true. Same for houses. A lot of people probably
| would prefer a small house over not being able to afford
| a big house and renting eternally. But big houses are
| more profitable, so that's what's being built. That's why
| in a lot of markets supply and demand don't really work
| if the supply can be restricted.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| In both scenarios there are laws encouraging these
| outcomes. Minimum lot sizes and CAFE standards,
| respectively, lead to bigger cars and houses. There are
| also small utility trucks and electric vehicles in other
| countries, but they're unfortunately illegal in the land
| of the free, ostensibly for crash test performance
| opposite the giant trucks that are considered safe.
| Indeed, distorted markets are worse.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| Always seems bizarre to me I can ride an ATV around or
| even a motorcycle on the highway, but a cheap 1980s style
| Honda CRV is apparently to unsafe to sell anymore because
| it doesn't meet crash test standards.
| kube-system wrote:
| Your dealer doesn't know what they're talking about,
| which is par for the course. You couldn't find a Fit
| because Honda stopped importing them. They were
| discontinued in the US due to poor sales.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Not in my neighborhood. The Blue Honda Fit is the ideal
| getaway car in Tompkins County because you could do
| donuts in somebody's yard and they tell the cops and then
| they'd have to flag down every 20th car.
| kube-system wrote:
| They're great cars, but (unfortunately) compact SUVs are
| far outselling them. Compare the Fit and HRV sales
| figures and it's clear why Honda did it.
| 20after4 wrote:
| 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.
| kube-system wrote:
| HRV sales have consistently blown away even the all-time
| peak year of US Fit sales.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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.
| 20after4 wrote:
| 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...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| This is true in my town. Believe it or not some customers
| and employees really love some car dealers and speak
| reverently about them and that was true of the last
| Toyota dealer but it is not true of the current one.
| kube-system wrote:
| It's not hard in a small market. Often, large dealership
| chains don't put all their eggs in one brand basket. It
| works the same way in other cities, but larger cities can
| support multiple dealers of the same brand.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I'd rather a human was involved in the process. With this all
| you get is "computer says no" and poof your car is gone.
|
| With a human tasked with the repo, at the very least even if
| "computer says no" to _them_ , they have some leeway (even if
| it's slim-to-none) in talking to you about it.
| pengaru wrote:
| > care repossession
|
| Does autocorrect make Freudian slips?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| You're giving Ford the benefit of the doubt that it will work
| as described and won't be abused.
|
| Have they earned that reputation regarding automated systems,
| and how will they deal with false positive/bugs etc. when the
| wrong car is repossessed at the worst time for its owner ?
| kube-system wrote:
| I suspect it would be dealt with in the same way that human
| error is dealt with today.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Which means, not at all, look at the recent Hertz case
| about rental cars reported as stolen and then doubling
| down, because admitting to problems with the process
| would mean admitting to criminal intent.
| kube-system wrote:
| Repos and reporting cars as stolen are two different
| things.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| 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 you?
| kube-system wrote:
| 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.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| The reduction of friction has me worried here. Nowadays
| you have to get a tow truck out to retrieve the vehicle,
| and you have an incentive not to do that pointlessly. But
| once the car can drive itself back to the dealership the
| bar will be lowered pretty quickly.
| kube-system wrote:
| It's all the same to the lender, no? They file the
| correct paperwork to do it, and it is handled by some
| outside process.
| throwuwu wrote:
| People are going to use this to steal cars and scam people.
| It will almost certainly screw up and kill somebody at some
| point.
|
| No amount of new features will ever convince me to buy a car
| that does this but the people who do buy them will
| undoubtedly be poor and marginalized and offered a great deal
| on their financing if they choose the roborepo car.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I feel like in order to patent a thing, you should need have to
| have a credible implementation of the thing being patented. An
| implementation of this clearly requires at least level 4
| autonomy[0], which AFAIK, nobody has demonstrated.
|
| This is only slightly closer to a real-world implementation than
| a patent for asteroid mining, never mind commercial viability.
|
| Mind you, I don't consider that a bad thing; this is pretty
| dystopian, but still.
|
| [0] https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update
| SrslyJosh wrote:
| > This is only slightly closer to a real-world implementation
| than a patent for asteroid mining
|
| I think we actually have a better idea of how to mine an
| asteroid.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| Can I reapply for a patent every week until I can prove that
| someone else demonstrated the tech, then claim their
| developments? We already have patent trolls, I don't think this
| would necessarily help.
|
| I think the better solution would be to say "you registered the
| patent, you get credit for the idea, but whoever makes it first
| gets the legal rights to sell it" - then people get credit for
| idea creation and also for making it a reality. I'd ideally add
| that they have to publicly disclose the info as well but idk
| how that would affect R&D
| onion2k wrote:
| _An implementation of this clearly requires at least level 4
| autonomy_
|
| Not if you want to have a quiet chat with the person who's been
| missing their payments..
| danbruc wrote:
| Isn't this perfect then? Once someone can actually implement
| it, the patent will have expired.
| Gorbzel wrote:
| > I feel like in order to patent a thing, you should need have
| to have a credible implementation of the thing being patented.
|
| Reduction to practice is absolutely a requirement of patent law
| in the US.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| That seems at odds with TFA itself, which claims "Ford itself
| recently announced that it was giving up on its goal of
| developing full self-driving technology, at a cost of $2.7
| billion."
|
| Perhaps the standard for "reduction to practice [0]" is a
| little looser than I'm imagining. I can't even see how this
| would be covered by sufficiency of disclosure[1] since the
| apparent non-existence of level 4 or 5 autonomy suggests that
| no person skilled in the art[2] yet exists.
|
| If it isn't obvious at this juncture: IANAL.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_to_practice
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufficiency_of_disclosure
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_having_ordinary_skil
| l_i...
| lolinder wrote:
| Yes, but it doesn't mean you have to actually have built
| anything or even _be able_ to build anything. The filing of
| the patent application is considered a constructive reduction
| to practice:
|
| > Reduction to practice may be an actual reduction or a
| constructive reduction to practice which occurs when a patent
| application on the claimed invention is filed. The filing of
| a patent application serves as conception and constructive
| reduction to practice of the subject matter described in the
| application. Thus the inventor need not provide evidence of
| either conception or actual reduction to practice when
| relying on the content of the patent application.
|
| https://mpep.uspto.gov/RDMS/MPEP/e8r9#/e8r9/d0e207753.html
| luckylion wrote:
| Isn't a large problem with FSD to do it at speed? If you never
| go above 5mph, a lot of things suddenly get much simpler
| because the amount of time you need to stop the car is very
| close to zero, and you probably don't care how long it takes
| for your possessed car to make it back to your show room.
| georgemcbay wrote:
| > and you probably don't care how long it takes for your
| possessed car to make it back to your show room.
|
| But you probably do care that your self-repossessed car is
| now impounded for driving dangerously slowly on public roads.
| luckylion wrote:
| Might be cheaper to pay the fine and get your cars by the
| truck load while the local law enforcement takes care of
| transport and security.
|
| But then again, I'm sure you can increase the speed to the
| average careful elderly driver.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I feel like a car driving at 5mph on public roads will
| absolutely be a problem.
| ronsor wrote:
| Not just a problem, but actually illegal in most places.
| saghm wrote:
| "Why is there so much traffic today?" "A few cars got
| repossessed and everyone got stuck behind them"
| ramraj07 wrote:
| For the sake of parenting I think the level of autonomy
| displayed today is sufficient; as a matter of fact it is likely
| quite possible even today, in a controlled model city for
| example.
| wepple wrote:
| Time for jail breaking cars to become a real and popular thing!
| bediger4000 wrote:
| This illustrates a problem with current penalties - they're too
| harsh if you have 100% exact enforcement.
|
| Violating auto speed limits is a good example. Society can't
| enforce speed limits 100% of the time if it relies on the
| occasional state trooper with a radar gun. Therefore society sets
| the penalty very high so that the small risk of a citation isn't
| worth the benefit of speeding.
|
| 100% enforcement should have much lower penalties.
|
| There are other problems with 100% strict enforcement, in that we
| don't even know what laws we have.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| My uncle got a job as a repo man and quit on the second day
| because somebody pointed a gun at him.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Its awful that your uncle had to experience that.
|
| It's a dangerous job and I don't think they give the repo
| folks enough information. I recently had to run one of them
| off as the former property owners had renters that stopped
| making payments on their vehicle. The repo guy was highly
| aggressive and was yelling at my family members. I assumed he
| was just some nutjob and had no idea he was a repo guy aside
| from the fact he was driving a tow truck without any company
| logo. I assumed he was trying to steal my tractor since it's
| is an antique.
| notch898a wrote:
| Virtually every serious speeder I know runs laser jammers,
| radar detectors, and cell phone based monitoring and
| religiously is alert to the warnings. Short of aircraft
| enforcement (oh they monitor that too) it's about impossible to
| nab the most dedicated speeders, so most the tickets are going
| people like the soccer mom who went 10 over, etc. I feel like
| speeding enforcement is one of the biggest example of how these
| enforcement are designed as tax and not designed as population
| level risk mitigation.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| Speeding was just a convenient example. Shoplifting would
| work just as well. So would jaywalking, or loitering or
| disturbing the peace.
|
| Penalties are set high because in the US they're enforced
| only irregularly. If the US moves to some kind of near
| universal enforcement, problems will occur because of that.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Whether or not 100% enforcement is ever possible, I think
| speeding is penalized only because it's an easy thing to
| objectively measure, even if you can't get 100% of it. This is
| sort of the McNamara Fallacy in action.
|
| But the really dangerous people on the highway aren't typical
| speeders who might go say 85-90mph when the speed limit is
| 55-65 mph. In traffic that isn't dense and clustered, high
| speeds in and of themselves are not a big problem.
|
| The really dangerous people on the highway are those who
| aggressively change lanes in dense traffic, weaving in and out
| of traffic trying to find the narrowest possible gap to slip
| through where no safe passing gap exists. This is much harder
| to objectively track and measure unless a cop happens to sneak
| up on the dangerous driver and sees them firsthand.
|
| Counterintuitively, I believe that the highways are made _far
| less safe_ from speed limits because this tends to cluster up
| all traffic together so impatient people (who are going to
| exist no matter what) are compelled to dangerously weave in and
| out of dense clusters of cars which is the most likely thing to
| cause an accident.
|
| If you made one or two lanes available with no speed limit so
| the aggressive drivers could be free to have their way and
| don't have to interact through slow drivers, I'd bet that most
| problems on the road would be solved. You want to create a
| situation where impatient people don't have to interact with
| the slower drivers.
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| andrewfromx wrote:
| There was an episode of Knight Rider where Kitt turned evil and
| did this to Michael!
| 7speter wrote:
| Theres the episode of Star Trek TNG where data takes control of
| the enterprise because his father/maker activated a program to
| return to him.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| How is this new, novel and non-obvious? Do we just give a sticky
| gold star to the Ford lawyer who pushed through an obviously
| defective application, and move on?
| jzymbaluk wrote:
| How to guarantee I never buy a Ford again in one easy step
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Just read up on the "Robo-signing Scandal"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_foreclosure...)
| and you quickly see why this is a really bad idea.
|
| TLDR: bank has systems issues, thinks you are in default due to
| bugs, systems "robosign" legal documents saying you are in
| default, repo home, kick you out, swear to courts it is true, and
| basically get away with a slap on the wrist
| throwaheyy wrote:
| Also similar, "Robodebt"
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme
| shahbaby wrote:
| I think this is a sign of the times we live in.
|
| Innovation today seems to have shifted towards serving the owning
| class.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Shifted?
|
| When was it different?
| hezralig wrote:
| It is always amusing talking to Americans about the Luddite
| movement. So ,any seem to think they were anti-technology
| when in fact they were mostly artisans who embraced
| technology save for when the ownership class started to
| exploit their labor.
| user3939382 wrote:
| And by replacing ownership with either de facto or de jure
| rental of any and all private property.
|
| I have a big enough philosophical objection to the concept
| where we don't actually own property and may only rent it from
| the government due to property taxes. Now we "own" phones we
| can't control, "own" cars that have features dis/en-abled over
| the air if you pay for them.
|
| Product managers are brimming with innovative features and
| benefits enabled by stripping ownership away from the
| public/consumers. It reminds me of the Black Mirror episode
| where you pay for your toothpaste $0.05 at a time from a
| dispenser in your home when you want some on your toothbrush.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| I can easily see the argument for owning personal property
| like a phone, but how can someone have a true ownership claim
| over land?
|
| For personal property there is a production chain with labor
| that went into the item, but for land it's just out there and
| at some point someone decided they should be able to restrict
| what other people do in some area. If you see that it's not
| legitimate for a government to do, then by the same logic
| it's not legitimate for an individual - a government is just
| a collection of individuals acting together
| user3939382 wrote:
| > If you see that it's not legitimate for a government to
| do, then by the same logic it's not legitimate for an
| individual
|
| I see the rights of government as secondary by default with
| exceptions meted out strictly as necessary. There exists a
| very limited number of jurisdictions where property taxes
| don't exist and land ownership is therefore real, so
| there's no philosophical/legal impediment to foregoing
| property taxes.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| My argument is that even without property taxes the land
| ownership isn't real - someone can have a piece of paper
| and a government to back them up and say they "own" the
| land, but ultimately it's not the same as personal
| property and doesn't make sense to treat the same way. As
| far as I've seen it's impossible to establish a chain of
| custody for land ownership that doesn't involve theft and
| invalidate the current ownership claim
|
| Further, the government is the only thing that grants the
| land ownership claim, if there is no government than
| anyone can come along and kick you off your land,
| revealing that you didn't really own it to start with -
| you're just living there right now
| user3939382 wrote:
| > it's not the same as personal property
|
| Do you mean because it's immobile?
|
| > it's impossible to establish a chain of custody for
| land ownership that doesn't involve theft
|
| This is a big issue in some places, e.g. I've heard in
| South Africa, because of legal issues arising out of
| confiscation when apartheid ended. Not so much in the US.
| There are some disputes going back to deeds with native
| Americans but they're very rare.
|
| > the government is the only thing that grants the land
| ownership claim, if there is no government than anyone
| can come along and kick you off your land
|
| The government's authority is the only reason a theory of
| any private property can exist in the real world anyway.
| Unless we're talking about super abstract theories of
| private enforcement in anarchist philosophy or something.
| In the world we live in, no government means people take
| your stuff, whether it's land or not.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| > Do you mean because it's immobile?
|
| Yeah I'm talking about personal vs private property,
| generally defined by movability, so like a house itself
| is private but the land isn't
|
| > Not so much in the US. There are some disputes going
| back to deeds with native Americans but they're very rare
|
| I think you're only talking about disputes recognized in
| the courts, not the actual disputes over the whole land
| claim which have consistently been there historically
|
| > In the world we live in, no government means people
| take your stuff, whether it's land or not
|
| Seems like we agree on this point - land ownership comes
| from the govt who ultimately "owns" all the land (but
| still through theft or some random claim)
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| I think a good analogy is other planets - can I say I own
| Mars and anyone who goes there has to rent the land from
| me? Without a government that's not going to happen, and
| with a government it only happens through force which
| invalidates the whole "exchange"
| ladyattis wrote:
| >And by replacing ownership with either de facto or de jure
| rental of any and all private property.
|
| My theory is that as profits decline due to the tendency of
| markets to reach equilibrium with respect to
| products/services supplied that capital owners will begin to
| reintroduce pre-capitalist norms and practices such as
| landlordism as these can sustain revenues to their liking as
| you renter won't have any ownership rights to contest their
| actions. It means they can raise rental rates anytime in the
| majority of cases and then just evict you from or repossess
| what was rented. Kind of like feudalism but without the fancy
| hats and titles.
| CarlosLeclerc wrote:
| [dead]
| vlucas wrote:
| Another reason to own a manual :)
| blueflow wrote:
| In 10 years there will be love songs about your car leaving you.
| adoxyz wrote:
| Why wait 10 years, when you've got ChatGPT.
|
| Verse 1: I bought a brand new truck, shiny and so smart It had
| all the latest gadgets, it was a work of art But I got behind
| on payments, my bills just piled high And one day I woke up, to
| a big surprise
|
| Chorus: My smart truck repossessed itself, it had a mind of its
| own It drove away into the sunset, left me all alone I should
| have paid my bills on time, kept up with the loan But now my
| smart truck's gone, and I'm all alone
|
| Verse 2: I searched high and low, for my smart truck so true
| But it was nowhere to be found, no matter what I do It had GPS
| and sensors, it knew just where to go Back to the dealership,
| where it could be sold
|
| Chorus: My smart truck repossessed itself, it had a mind of its
| own It drove away into the sunset, left me all alone I should
| have paid my bills on time, kept up with the loan But now my
| smart truck's gone, and I'm all alone
|
| Bridge: I guess I learned my lesson, to pay my debts on time
| But it still hurts so bad, to see my truck's tail lights shine
| I'll never forget the day, my smart truck drove away And I'll
| always regret, the price I had to pay
|
| Chorus: My smart truck repossessed itself, it had a mind of its
| own It drove away into the sunset, left me all alone I should
| have paid my bills on time, kept up with the loan But now my
| smart truck's gone, and I'm all alone
|
| Outro: So if you're thinking of buying, a smart truck of your
| own Make sure you pay your bills on time, and keep up with the
| loan Or you might end up like me, with a broken heart and soul
| Watching your smart truck drive away, leaving you alone.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| In 10 years you won't be able to buy a car anymore.
| intrasight wrote:
| Repo man is always inside
| ok123456 wrote:
| If you're behind on payments, just disconnect the negative
| battery terminal. Or, take out the fuel pump relay.
| NickBusey wrote:
| I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave.
| brk wrote:
| I wish I had a pic of it, but in a building I once worked in,
| there was a Ford Model T with a brass plaque mounted in a visible
| location on the firewall that essentially said if you violate the
| patents or sell the car in an unauthorized way, the title reverts
| to being owned by FoMoCo.
|
| Doing an image search for "ford model t plaque" yields some
| examples.
| eddieroger wrote:
| It didn't immediately yield any for me, so here is one directly
| for the interested: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364109744022
| darod wrote:
| Didn't Tesla have one of their cars drive out of a garage so it
| could get repo'd. I don't see how you can patent "a car driving
| itself to get repossessed". After you patent autonomous driving
| why does the location it drives to matter whether showroom or
| scrap yard?
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| Except for the subtle fact that autonomous driving doesn't work
| with current ml/dl technology, so really not an issue at all at
| the moment.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| People don't seem to fully grasp what not driving your car means.
| If you're not driving, you're not in control of where it goes.
| That sounds redundant yet people dont seem cognizant of the 2nd
| phrasing. You dont control the car, you make requests of it. It
| can say no.
|
| Looking very far into the future, it's not hard to imagine that
| all cars are self driving by default with some highly-regulated
| exception, for purposes of safety, anti-terrorism, lobbying, etc.
| If that's the case central management seems like the next logical
| step. Citing reasons such as traffic flow, anti-terrorism,
| environmental management, disaster relief, anti-terrorism, etc.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| Aren't you already not in control of where you go on foot? We
| have plenty of restricted areas for everything from anti-
| terrorism, govt buildings, and private property. There's even
| private roads for driving - this doesn't really change the laws
| it just makes enforcement easier. My hope is that we can
| automate enforcement of stuff like speeding tickets, and then
| people would get upset and we'd either raise the speed limit,
| lower the ticket price, or agree that it's not safe to drive
| that fast (or in that area)
| at_a_remove wrote:
| More rent-seeking, more of the "you will own nothing and like
| it."
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Inset joke about loving my 12 year old 4runner that's the most
| basic car I've ever owned.
|
| But this isn't anything new. Buy here pay here places have been
| throwing ignition locks on cars for ages and shut off the
| ignition if you don't make payments. This would take it a step
| further, integrate it into the car, and add autonomous features
| to it.
| VLM wrote:
| 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.
| tabtab wrote:
| It's partially here already: my Ford breaks down when I skip a
| payment. Then again, it breaks down when I pay also.
| pulse7 wrote:
| <sarcasm>I would really like to buy such car!</sarcasm>
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| As if you'd "buy" such a car. I imagine Ford would love getting
| rid of the idea of car ownership in exchange for years-long
| rentals, as long as you keep paying them for the privilege.
| h2odragon wrote:
| I've known a couple of possessed Fords.
|
| I think antique car restoration and modernization is going to be
| a _great_ business to be in for the next 20yr or so. At least the
| demons in older cars can be propitiated with minor rituals like a
| fetish hung on the mirror or the occasional blood sacrifice.
|
| This shit is going to lead to hilarious scenes of cars flocking
| places because of a node.js bug.
|
| edit: i forsee "car leashes"; probably something in the nature of
| a parking boot so make sure the car stays immobile or becomes
| nonviable. And there's always the trick of jackstands and hiding
| the wheels at night.
| boh wrote:
| 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.
| Bostonian wrote:
| Well-off people can buy or rent cars without difficulty.
| Increasing the security of cars as collateral will reduce the
| credit risk of car loans and therefore the car loan interest
| rates charged to borrowers with low credit scores.
| barney54 wrote:
| Great! The average new car in the US costs $50k, but Ford decides
| to patent a way to help repo these overly expensive cars instead
| of making cars less expensive.
| viggity wrote:
| Ford (or any finance company) will presumably offer cheaper
| financing if they know that their repo costs are lowered by this
| functionality.
| yardie wrote:
| I was just joking about this with a friend, an engineer at
| Cruise. You don't pay and GM can tell the car to drive off. He
| laughed like it wasn't that far from the truth.
| wkjagt wrote:
| I just had an idea: how about a car that makes you stop by the
| side of the road to watch 2 minutes of ads before being able to
| continue. And for a certain amount you can unlock adless travel.
| VLM wrote:
| Park in front of the billboard until you read the ad text out
| loud, or pay the toll.
| grugagag wrote:
| From the dystopic universe of adTech...
| is_true wrote:
| How ironic considering how much Ford avoids doing recalls
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [dead]
| rmason wrote:
| Any system that can be built or imagined will be hacked.
| Something as simple as pulling a fuse that would take down the
| vehicles Internet might be all that is needed to prevent this
| from happening. I don't think the repo men will be out of a job
| anytime soon.
| teeray wrote:
| Would be interesting case if the repairs to the garage would be
| more than the value of the car (which may also be totaled).
| jaywalk wrote:
| The car I have today has the sensors to manage not driving
| through a closed garage door. That's the easiest part of this.
| GulpGulp wrote:
| Car boots are going to have a whole new market
| bobleeswagger wrote:
| Violently capitalist car.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The real story here is that Ford incentivizes employees to write
| patents (though I doubt very much this makes them particularly
| unique). Beyond that, the technology required to support this
| functionality is so far ahead of what's available today (or
| likely to be available anytime soon) that it's not worth a
| serious debate.
| [deleted]
| sircastor wrote:
| I used to work for an automotive OEM. I can confirm this. We
| got regular (yearly) reminders to submit patient ideas for
| concepts we'd come up with. There was a bonus incentive once
| the patent was awarded (maybe just submitted) It was something
| on the order of $500-1000 IIRC.
|
| Our lawyers were pragmatic about it. They were very clear that
| the concept should be novel and plausible, and were willing to
| offer guidance and help with the text of the parent. It was
| neat, and I wish I'd taken advantage of it.
| toast0 wrote:
| Tech company patent programs I've worked with tend to offer
| that kind of money for a submitted patent application, and
| another amount if it's issued while you're there, plus a
| patent trinket (was patent cubes at one place, and patent
| idea lamps at another).
|
| The inventor would submit ideas to the patent staff, if
| selected, spend an hour or so describing it to staff who
| write the patent application; the inventor reviews and
| clarifies, etc a couple rounds, and then it's submitted.
| Finnucane wrote:
| Will it follow the repo code?
| zamalek wrote:
| I can just imagine the chaos caused by 100s of thousands of cars
| simultaneously re-possessing themselves due to a bug. And the
| inevitable victims, that are up to date on their payments,
| without access to their car in an emergency due to a bug.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| True story: my neighbor's lease payment was under, by a dollar or
| two, no more. An error in his banking practices, I guess.
|
| They came and repossessed it in the middle of the night. He
| offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card, PayPal,
| Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form of payment.
| No, he had to go to Western Union. Someone who's more up on this
| sort of stuff can explain that.
|
| A week later I drove him to the parking lot where they take
| repossessed cars. I waited until he signaled that all was OK.
| jpk2f2 wrote:
| Neighbor got scammed.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I don't think so. Aside from the shadiness of it: he called
| the car loan company and they owned up to repo'ing it. He did
| in fact pay too little on his monthly payment. So how would a
| scam work?
|
| (I don't know if he called the police or not, or what they
| would do in a case like this. Probably say, "Yep, sounds
| legit" and that would be the end of it.)
|
| see above comment. Not a scam.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| How much was the underpayment (I know you said a dollar or
| two, but I presume this had gone on for a while?). It's odd
| to me that they repo'ed rather than contacting him to say
| 'hey, there's a problem with your account.'
|
| I find the story wholly believable, a lot of people who
| work in payments seem to be stupid and/or stubborn, and it
| might be the industry selects for those traits.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Unfortunately, I'm not the person who was repo'ed and I
| already texted him once today.
|
| "Stay away from GM Finance" is the lesson here.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| That's generally good advice. Buy cars you can afford,
| and pay cash. If you must, finance with a local credit
| union.
| CommitSyn wrote:
| > It's odd to me that they repo'ed rather than contacting
| him to say 'hey, there's a problem with your account.'
|
| I imagine there's a lot more money to be made making
| someone pay for the fees and costs of a repo, than a
| phone call asking them to pay a few dollars. Although his
| friend could also be lying about the few dollars part.
| tkahnoski wrote:
| That would be an insane practice. The internal overhead
| is a pain. Repo is a last effort to protect the asset
| rather than a way to cure an account. Even with repo fees
| there's no guarantees you're getting that money back and
| the asset won't be worth as much if the customer doesn't
| true up.
|
| General industry practice people are put in delinquency
| buckets, and generally not by amount but in the 'are they
| past due or not?' I'm speculating but there could be
| other behavioral scoring as well and if they just
| automated the process of dispatching well... that's on
| them and good luck with that overhead.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Do you know how he was paying? By check perhaps? I've been late
| on payments of various types a few times over the years but I
| don't think I've underpaid even once, because with how most
| things are set up that's not easily possible.
| gs17 wrote:
| Who was he offering to pay to? The repo guys? Western Union
| just makes it sound like a scam.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I guess the company that held his car loan.
|
| It was not a scam, I know that.
| Merad wrote:
| > He offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card,
| PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form
| of payment. No, he had to go to Western Union.
|
| I'm guessing they told him to get a Western Union money order,
| as those can't be reversed after they're cashed (AFAIK). Most
| modern forms of payment offer some level of consumer
| protection, as in they can be canceled or reversed. TBH a repo
| business might not even be able to get a merchant account for
| CC processing due to being a high risk business. Merchants that
| have high chargeback rates have to pay higher processing fees
| and can even lose their merchant account if their chargeback
| rate is too high for too long.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > I'm guessing they told him to get a Western Union money
| order, as those can't be reversed
|
| Ha, out of nowhere a use case for Bitcoin appears.
| chadlavi wrote:
| Isn't a cashier's check from your bank also not cancelable?
| zie wrote:
| If the named payee has physical possession of the check,
| they can cash it and it can't be undone(without a valid
| court order, i.e. fraud, etc). All other situations, it can
| be undone, with work.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Update, after hearing back from him:
|
| "Yes, Western Union was legit and used by GM Finance to
| collect."
|
| So, not a scam. Just ultra-conservative business practices.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| I saw someone's RV getting repossessed over $50 in 2019. They
| were clearly living in it. I walked over and handed the repo
| guy $60. He wouldn't take it. This was in a cul de sac. I
| parked my truck across the way so that it would not be possible
| to enter or leave the cul de sac. Someone called the cops. The
| cops showed up after a few minutes, good response time. The
| lady living in the RV was told that she could not park there
| anymore. The repo guy said he was taking the RV. I repeated my
| offer to pay in front of the cop. The repo guy took the $60. I
| was told to move my truck afterwards. The lady living in the RV
| never paid me back. I am overall OK with that. These things
| happen. This was in northern California. Random acts of angry
| kindness should not be relied upon.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Aren't repo guys usually just contracted out to do the job
| and pull the vehicle by the lender? They don't usually have
| the authority or facilities to take a payment on site.
| rascul wrote:
| Possibly pocketed the money and reported that the RV wasn't
| found or something.
| mr_00ff00 wrote:
| Yes, I'll take stuff that didn't happen for $500
| theRealMe wrote:
| Lmao. It's possible it did happen, but now it makes me
| realize that the comment is 1 "lesson learned about
| empathy" away from a cringey linkedin post.
| [deleted]
| ck2 wrote:
| Cars is one thing, the real problem is going to be when
| corporations own all the houses and rentals and they get
| politicians to automate and streamline the eviction process to
| just a month and it auto-locks you out so they can get a new
| waiting-list tenant.
|
| Go on, tell me that's not going to happen by the end of the
| decade at this rate.
| lasermike026 wrote:
| Yet another reason to ditch cars. The car is an engineering
| disaster and it's time has past. I know this will be a shock to
| some people.
| nradov wrote:
| The car is an engineering _miracle_. It 's one of my most
| useful possessions and I'll never voluntarily give up the
| personal mobility that it enables.
| lasermike026 wrote:
| Consider alternatives.
| nradov wrote:
| Ok, I've considered them. Now what?
| lasermike026 wrote:
| Try one.
| nradov wrote:
| I have tried them, and still use them when practical.
| toast0 wrote:
| The car may be an environmental disaster, but I don't see how
| it's an engineering disaster?
|
| It fulfils the desire to go from point A to point B in relative
| comfort at relative speed, at reasonable cost that scales to
| the local economy. US market cars tend to have lots of
| extraneous features and not be suitable for rugged roads; less
| developed economies get models with fewer comfort features, but
| a more robust suspension for use where roads are more
| aspirational. Autorickshaws are common in some places and
| unknown elsewhere, etc.
| lasermike026 wrote:
| There is no way for a human to operate a car safely over a
| mid to long period of time. The human brain does not have
| bandwidth to process all the information taken in while
| driving a car. Eventual the driver will get into an accident
| with a high probability of injury and possibly death. Cars
| are designed to filter information from the environment. A
| driver can't sense what is around them. Cars are too big and
| too heavy. Infrastructure demands are too great. The fuel
| costs are too high no matter what fuel you use. A cars fails
| on practically every meaningful metric.
|
| Walking, biking, and public transit in a livable community is
| the only rational way forward.
| nradov wrote:
| Just because you're not a competent driver doesn't mean the
| rest of us are getting into accidents. Walking, biking, and
| public transit are great options for short trips with
| limited cargo. But none of those options are going to be
| viable in my lifetime for getting my daughter to a
| volleyball tournament 40 miles away at 7:00 AM on Saturday.
| Including hauling backpacks, folding chairs, boxes of
| snacks for the team, etc.
|
| I've noticed that the arrogant and condescending people who
| are most opposed to cars tend to be childless young
| urbanites with very limited life experience. The rest of
| the country operates in a completely different way, and
| votes accordingly.
| lasermike026 wrote:
| You over estimate you competence. Married, kids, and
| suburban.
| toast0 wrote:
| > There is no way for a human to operate a car safely over
| a mid to long period of time.
|
| My observed injury rate per vehicle mile, per trip, or per
| time spent, in a car is much lower than the same rates on a
| bicycle. Incidentally, my largest injury on a bike was due
| to street car rails, so thanks public transit for making
| the roads less safe for bicycling. I can't count the number
| of times I've tripped while walking, resulting in mostly
| minor injuries, but nevertheless more injuries than I've
| sustained in automobiles (not counting violence from
| siblings). Lack of safety restraints on public transit mean
| more minor injuries from sudden stops as well.
|
| > Cars are too big and too heavy
|
| Autorickshaws are much smaller, lighter, and more fuel
| efficient. Plus they're cute!
|
| > Infrastructure demands are too great
|
| Infrastructure demands for cars scale. You can use cars if
| you can get fuel to enough fueling stations and have
| cleared trees and other obstacles from paths. Pavement is
| optional but encouraged. Parking lots are nice to have, but
| any cleared space works. You don't get a lot of speed, and
| probably not much fuel efficiency, but it works. Paved
| roads are nicer, and they get built because they're useful.
| Of course, busses and bicycles like paved roads too (paving
| for bikes requires a lot lower standard too).
|
| If you can't get fuel to fueling stations, there's things
| like wood gasifiers[1], although gasoline and diesel are
| much more scalable if the infrastructure is present.
|
| > Walking, biking, and public transit in a livable
| community is the only rational way forward.
|
| This would severely limit the scope of livable communities.
| Or at least significantly increase transit time for many to
| most activities. Those are all great options, when
| available and appropriate, but a lot of times it's not the
| best mode of transportation and often it's not even
| appropriate. The diversity of origin/destination pairs in
| most metropolitan areas of a certain size makes it very
| hard for most users to be served by direct public transit
| routes, and hub and spoke routing makes a lot of trips turn
| into first go 30 minutes in the wrong direction, then 30
| minutes in the right direction, when a point to point
| automobile trip would be much less time.
|
| I can't imagine some of my recent trips working well with
| public transit. Especially those trips where I'm carrying
| sports equipment for multiple people not traveling with me.
| How do you take three or four sets of hockey gear on a
| bicycle, or walking the half mile uphill from the bus stop
| to my home?
|
| [1] https://www.amusingplanet.com/2022/02/wood-gas-
| vehicles-cars...
| lasermike026 wrote:
| In the future you will not have a choice. Cars are
| already gone you just don't know it yet.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Wait'll you hear my plans for _your_ future.
| toast0 wrote:
| In the future, my transportation may be more limited. In
| the mean time, I'm going to use the best option I have
| for my needs. If cars are gone, most of the places I've
| lived are uninhabitable, and I'll have to live somewhere
| I'd rather not live, so there's that.
| bearmode wrote:
| Lol, absolutely not. I just came back from a trip to a national
| park that simply would not have been doable without my car. My
| commute into work each day would be significantly harder
| without my car. I wouldn't be able to visit much of my family
| without my car.
|
| I can get into the nearest city and town just fine on public
| transport, and that's what I do. But public transport here is
| spoke-hub. If you want to go somewhere that is moderately far
| away from a hub, it becomes incredibly difficult (and
| expensive).
|
| If you live in a city, and you never leave that city other than
| to go to other cities, then you absolutely do not need a car.
| Most other people do.
| lasermike026 wrote:
| Take public trans to the park. Hike and camp overnight. Your
| experience in the park will be heightened. Those memories
| will warm you into old age.
| [deleted]
| ffgh wrote:
| Having worked in the repossession industry I can tell you it's a
| messy one. It's become such a sh*t show between vendors and the
| actual agents/companies, it's a fight to who can bid the lowest
| for each car. Also I'm not sure how this will work, there is so
| much regulation in the repossession industry.
| mysterydip wrote:
| I'm sure they'll put a very robust algorithm in place to ensure
| no wrongful repossessions will happen. I'm also sure that, if
| they ever somehow did, there will be a very accessible customer
| service system that will be able to resolve the issue.
| igetspam wrote:
| Engineer Patents Vehicle Anti-Theft Device That Spikes Tires if
| Code Not Entered Before Moving
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Uhm, it seems like the auto industry is still letting its
| imagination run away with self driving cars.
|
| I don't see how a patent like this can be granted if we still
| generally don't have working self-driving cars. Even Tesla is
| getting forced to admit that "Full Self Driving" isn't really
| full self driving.
| macinjosh wrote:
| I am pretty sure that no one at the patent office cares if your
| invention works or not.
| elil17 wrote:
| Not quite true. They will stop you from patenting a perpetual
| motion machine (typically by saying that you have not
| provided enough detail for someone to replicate your work).
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Except they can only do that if a patent clerk (who is
| usually not a physicist or engineer) can TELL it's a
| perpetual motion machine. After millions and millions of
| patents, there are bound to be a bunch that should not have
| been granted, even if those patent clerks are 99.9% good at
| their job
| elil17 wrote:
| Patent examiners (the modern term for patent clerks) have
| at least a bachelors degree in a technical field relevant
| to the subject they review. That might be physics,
| engineer, chemistry, or something else. Examiners are
| assigned to specific art unit (e.g. an examiner with a
| degree in chemistry might be assigned to art unit 1710
| and spend their entire career examining patents for
| chemicals involved in "Coating, Etching, Cleaning, and
| Single Crystal Growth").
|
| I'm sure some things do get through on occasion, but
| examiners are most certainly subject matter experts.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| This is news to me! I'm very glad to hear this. Renews a
| bit of faith in the patent process.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| That's not really true. It has to at least be plausible.
| Usually.
|
| One exception that comes to mind is a couple of patents some
| physicist working for the US Navy created that probably
| aren't real technology. Anti-gravity devices and the like.
| Why they admitted those? No idea, but possibly this was done
| as part of some sort of hearkening back to the cold-war-era
| strategy of 'waste the enemies resources on a goose chase'
| kind of thing.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Very interesting, TIL!
| jessriedel wrote:
| I rode halfway across San Francisco in a self-driving car last
| week. Seemed to work pretty well.
| lostapathy wrote:
| Maybe this is a good thing. A lot of stupid patents will all
| expire by the time they could actually be used.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| The videos of self driving Tesla are available on Youtube.
| Those can be quite convincing.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Quite convincing after they edited out all the dangerous
| mistakes.
| mecsred wrote:
| Nikola also had videos of their electric trucks "driving" on
| YouTube. These were convincing enough for people to invest
| millions. Not a high standard.
| elil17 wrote:
| Patents don't need to be safe. You can patent a transportation
| device that works by firing a human out of a cannon, or a self
| driving car that simply runs over pedestrians, or even just a
| method of killing someone.
| kube-system wrote:
| "Systems and methods for autonomous motor vehicle operation":
|
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzmEZ9oXEAQOiY1?format=jpg&name=.
| ..
| touisteur wrote:
| Thus making payment even less likely...
|
| I used to be a big proponent of alcohol/drug test to prevent car
| starting, ideally I imagined the system would be with an absolute
| guarantee (mandated) the information stays local (just a hardware
| switch preventing ignition or startup). But I'm sad to say I
| don't believe in any more, so much abuse to mark people as 'tries
| to drive while under the influence' or making you pay higher
| insurance because you're often 0.5g instead of 0.3g.
|
| I really want people to be prevented to drive killing vehicles
| under the influence (yes even my e-cargo). I know it would bring
| so many other problems, such as cost, tampering, bad sensitivity,
| etc. It doesn't make sense to me that we don't crack down more on
| this specific act.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The biggest problem with an ignition interlock device today is
| that they're extremely unreliable. As implemented they are also
| very intrusive. Granted, they are currently implemented only as
| part of a punitive measure, so that behavior is partly
| intentional, but it would be unacceptable for universal
| adoption.
|
| Probably be better to just make cars do realtime verification
| of license status before letting someone drive ... but that's
| only better by comparison; people who never drive drunk will
| bristle at the heavy regulation.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| > Probably be better to just make cars do realtime
| verification of license status before letting someone drive
|
| A couple in Florida was killed yesterday in the hurricane,
| though they tried to evacuate, the storm meant that license
| verification servers were down and their Ford would not
| start.
| wepple wrote:
| Have you got a source on that?
|
| Edit: Just occurred to me this is probably a theoretic
| future state
| touisteur wrote:
| I was thinking breathalyser ignition interlock but yes,
| probably high rate of false alarm, although we could probably
| make it far better if used so much, even wireless,
| wearable... I know higher standards (such as emissions) tend
| to encourage cheating but dammit I'm tired of people killing
| each other like this.
|
| I'm also extremely tired of people veering into the fucking
| bikelane while phoning, texting, hands off talking on the
| phone, and sometimes (to often) just 'checking' the damn
| cargo with my two kids inside. So they can get to work 'on
| time' and spend 15 minutes at the coffee machine. Dammit.
|
| Make it impossible to interact with in a moving object, cut
| the data and phone, I don't have the answer or a patent but
| this is killing so many people for very, extremely selfish
| and stupid reasons...
|
| But since we're OK for the road being some kind of far west,
| Dashcam it is...
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >The biggest problem with an ignition interlock device today
| is that they're extremely unreliable. As implemented they are
| also very intrusive
|
| Money spent making the device not suck reduces profit. Nobody
| will care when you abuse your customers because your
| customers are convicted criminals.
|
| Pretty much every company selling stuff that people need to
| use to not violate the terms of their sentence is like this.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Money spent making the device not suck reduces profit.
|
| That may be true. But it's also possible that measuring
| blood alcohol with breath tests is never going to work
| consistently for all people. Breathalyzers are well known
| for widely variable results between people who have
| identical BAC.
| touisteur wrote:
| It doesn't have to be the car companies that do the
| research and design, it can be state funded (since it will
| be state mandated) research, design and development and
| open source/patent-free to manufacture.
|
| If it's meant to be used by everyone (I'm not thinking DUI
| recidivists, how many people have you seen rationalize
| driving after a drink or two or six) then make it usable by
| everyone.
| mikece wrote:
| Leave it to Ford to find even more and novel ways to make their
| customers walk.
| CmdrLoskene wrote:
| BUD: "I can't leave her car in this bad area. Look I need some
| helpful soul to drive it for me, okay? She's pregnant. She's with
| twins. She could drop at any time. All right?"
|
| AUTO: "Ok."
| EGreg wrote:
| This is like talking about "de"Platforming... why doesn't anyone
| talk about how these people GOT their platform and why people
| kept giving them a platform? Capitalism.
|
| "re"Possess? How about talking about Possessing in the first
| place?
|
| Why do we have so much "garbage" parked on our streets, namely
| cars that are owned but not used?
|
| Just like the American Dream of _owning_ a home (and working 30
| years to pay the money you _rented_ to do that), or De Beers
| diamonds, or College, or whatever, there is a concerted effort to
| make you crave that thing and make that big-ticket purchase.
| Mainly to give into all the social pressure mechanisms.
|
| The car manufacturer industry relies on this kind of stuff -- to
| sell more cars. And sometimes they dial it to an 11:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8
|
| And the fossil fuel industry had relied for decades on colluding
| with them to make sure cars are locked into one type of fuel
| (fossil fuels). All your other appliances have long ago been able
| to take electricity -- so they can be powered by hydro,
| geothermal, solar, wind, nuclear fission, and even fusion as soon
| as it's enabled. But not cars, no.
|
| And government of course worked hand-in-hand with industry to
| subsidize fossil fuels and delay electric cars and battery tech:
| https://vimeo.com/547118547
|
| The only people that this article would alarm are those who
| believe they want to _own_ a self-driving car. Most people would
| just time-share them, and self-driving cars would be operated by
| Uber (another hyper-capitalist company that currently takes 50%
| of all drivers ' wages, but soon the robots will replace them so
| it won't be an issue).
|
| And we would finally have less parked cars on the streets, open
| more lanes, and the cities can become more beautiful.
| m0llusk wrote:
| This seems like nothing but a bunch of existing technologies.
| Checking account status is not new, updating product software or
| behavior settings based on account status is not new, automatic
| driving is not new. Is there really anything new here?
| rglover wrote:
| 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.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| 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.
|
| We're in a world where deregulation has planes either falling
| out of the sky or attempting to. I don't trust any soft handed
| regulation on cars without manual overrides.
|
| My car has a push start, but also a manual transmission. I know
| if something goes wrong and my engine stops responding to the
| electric throttle I can just pop out of gear and coast.
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| 20after4 wrote:
| 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.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| That's why I jumped to buy a new one as soon as I had the
| money. No interlock on the gearbox, no electric seats to
| break, manual parking brake, but with android auto on an
| OEM infotainment.
|
| Not saying they're super common, but as someone who writes
| software, I don't like the increasing dependency on
| software implementations of certain components that are
| fairly simple in their mechanical form.
| mfkp wrote:
| Which vehicle is this?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Your thoughts are likely not very far fetched, but in this
| case, to the best of my knowledge, IC and LEOs seem to be
| more worried about stopping individual 'bad guys'(
| quotations, because I hate this term ) from causing damage
| with ICE machines hence solutions like mandated remote off
| switch and so on.
|
| On the political assassination front, wasn't there a story
| out about one such attempt or did I dream it?
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| There was a suspicious "political staffer dies from freak
| single car accident" events shortly after the first Jeep
| Cherokee was remotely taken control of. That's what stuck
| with me.
|
| LEOs are also notoriously corrupt and difficult to keep
| tabs on. Imagine police harassment when they have the
| ability to remotely shut off your car.
| monetus wrote:
| You may be thinking of Michael Hastings?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_(journalis
| t...
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| That's the one. Thanks.
| IncRnd wrote:
| At first I thought that this is a really odd business
| differentiator.
|
| Then I realized this is meant for lenders. Ford has a credit and
| leasing company, which might be the actual target of this. The
| rest is superfluous.
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