Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> Miss a car payment, remote shut down( this is already a thing for certain high risk buyers).

This doesn't really bother me. I don't like when people don't have total control over things they own, but if you default on a secured loan, you don't own the collateral anymore.



This assumes the system works 100% of the time.

I'm more than okay with them physically taking the car from you, but imagine a nightmare scenario where your wife has a stroke and instead of being able to drive her to the hospital 5 miles away you watch her die since your Tesla XL couldn't verify payment status.

Mistakes happen, Stripe API down, no driving for you .


I suppose, as with "self driving" technology, you have to balance the "nightmare scenarios" with the positive impact and consider the net result. I don't think it would be defensible to disable a car over missing payments, for the reason you describe, but disabling a car because the driver is clearly inebriated would save far more lives than it costs.


But can't mistakes happen with low-tech repossession too?


Of course, but in this scenario you can clearly see the physical asset is gone.

We have an entire legal framework around how to repossess a car, No one knows what's going to happen once you let Tesla remotely shut off your car since they think you might have missed a payment or something.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: