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A first step. Won’t be long before the car goes to the repossession lot itself. Tesla is evolving country music: not only will your girl leave you, so will you

A first step. Won’t be long before the car goes to the repossession lot itself. Tesla is evolving country music: not only will your girl leave you, so will your truck.

jchw 5y ago
I don’t usually vote up comments that are mostly humorous on HN, but there’s always an exception. To me the problem isn’t that they might, but that they can. I guess the fault is technically on the person who rented something under terrible terms, but the problem to me is that over time terrible terms seem to win out over reasonable ones. Not to mention, if Tesla is capable of doing this for rentals, I have to assume they are capable of doing it for any Tesla. Which is not great.
- Moru 5y ago
  Or that any hacker that gets into Teslas system will have a field day.
  - errcorrectcode 5y ago
    Mass theft, bricking, or actual crashing potential. It's a Futurama episode/ Sword of Damocles waiting to happen.
    - dsr_ 5y ago
      Right. Compromise the right credentials, and you can order a high percentage of parked Teslas to start backing up. That probably won't make them cause damage immediately -- I assume there's a set of sensors that will apply brakes rather than hit a wall or a detected car -- but there's a lot of chaos to apply that way. I wonder if Tesla's EULA immunizes them against such breaches.
- usefulcat 5y ago
  > over time terrible terms seem to win out over reasonable ones Tyranny of the marketplace, I guess. If most people are not bothered by the terrible terms, then the selection of items with non-terrible terms will be correspondingly small. Case in point: I'd like to buy a TV (even at a higher price) that does not have ads all over the interface. From what I can tell, as of right now there are approximately a handful of such TVs, not counting older models that probably aren't produced any more. And of course out of that handful, most are not very good in other respects.. I don't know how to solve that apart from regulation, which is often a very poor solution.
  - HideousKojima 5y ago
    Buy industrial signage displays. You'll be paying a significant premium but it's basically the only way to get a high quality non-smart tv these days.
  - stalfosknight 5y ago
    My solution is to never setup wifi or provide ethernet to my TVs. They can't vomit ads all over the screen or track what you're watching if they can't get online.
- voakbasda 5y ago
  The house always wins. Contract terms almost always give favor the issuer.
- tssva 5y ago
  If you don't pay us as agreed, we will take it back are terrible terms?
  - jchw 5y ago
    You omitted the parts that are actually problematic. I don’t give my mortgage company a copy of the keys to my house.
oconnor663 5y ago
Ha. Though my guess is, once self-driving is reliable enough to do that, the economics of car ownership are going to flip completely. It won't make sense anymore to have a car that spends most of its time sitting unused in your garage.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  It depends how easily they can be cleaned of others’ odors and messes, and how often they need to get cleaned. Presumably if the rate of mess is low enough and there are extra cars, you would just request a new one. Then they punish the person who left the mess or odor, disincentivizing them from doing it again. Probably need cameras monitoring the inside of the car.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    It's not so much messes. Rentals, including short-term ones, are a thing today. But rather there's a lot of value to many people to have the car that they want when they want it, leaving certain belongings in the car, having the car equipped for their purposes whether child seats or roof racks, etc. While I honestly don't expect door to door self driving in most places for decades, a lot of people who don't use cars much probably underestimate the degree to which many people customize their vehicles. And even if they sit a lot of the time, most of the cost is often in miles, not time.
  - db65edfc7996 5y ago
    In a world where car ownership is limited, I can imagine that the car interiors would be changed drastically. Something like a subway car with hard plastic seats and easily sanitized surfaces.
- romwell 5y ago
  Imagine, now, that self-driving combined with Uber pool, so that people who need to get from and to the same destinations at the same time (as is typical for commutes) would be able to share the ride. Imagine then making those vehicles larger to enable not only a decrease in traffic, but an increase in housing density, local infrastructure in walking distance, and economic growth. Imagine if we then realized we could charge that elongated car as it's driving if we put electric lines above streets. Oh, and why not increase rolling efficiency while we're at that, and make the task of self-driving simpler by embedding signaling infrastructure into the road itself. You just imagined buses, trolley buses, and streetcars respectively. Which is what makes the most sense, and will continue making the most sense for vehicles that don't sit in your garage most of the time. There's more to car ownership than being able to get from A to B in principle. Once you add immediate availability, individual vehicle preferences, having your stuff in the car already, the ability to keep your stuff there once you arrive at your destination, never having to think about small, but normal usage damage (especially if you have kids), or, conversely, having the vehicle just as clean as you want it... ...you will see that garages aren't going anywhere any time soon, self-driving cars or not. And that we'd be wise to develop actual public transport infrastructure for the people who really do only care about getting from A to B, with some acceptable wait time. It's a win-win for everyone. My pessimistic prognosis is that the development of the self-driving car will make the taxis slightly cheaper, but instead of paying your Uber driver, you're going to be paying engineers, maintenance, and cleaning staff.
dylan604 5y ago
What if your dog is in the truck? Can you then go after them for kidnapping?
- dentemple 5y ago
  Dogs aren't considered people (in the US), so it would be considered stolen property _at best_ if this were an actual thing. Likely, they'll pass the animal on to a shelter and give you the info as to where to pick them up. It wouldn't be considered "stealing".
  - dylan604 5y ago
    To this point, after crossing the state line from Nevada into California, there are highway signs that state the fines for littering and abadoning an animal on the side of the highway. The fine for littering is significantly higher than animal abandonment.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    This depends entirely on how quickly they get to the vehicle, but given the money involved, I'm sure they will just lobby to have the death of the dog pinned on the owner.
notreallyserio 5y ago
I'm hopeful that by the time cars can be automatically repossessed without a human operator they'll have set up a network of on-demand rentals and I won't have to worry about car ownership and all the nonsense it entails.
- josefx 5y ago
  Usually rental anything is a lot more costly in the long run than outright ownership. So someone getting his Tesla repossessed probably wont be any better of trying to rent one. Thought my biggest problem with large scale car rentals are times like rush hour where nearly everyone needs a car at the same time, so there either has to be a giant capacity or you have to rely on most people still having their own car.
- Larrikin 5y ago
  Do you actually prefer the subscription hell we are in now with companies like Adobe deciding we can no longer actually own any software and have to continuously rent it? Google actually seems like they will be first to full self driving. My biggest fear is that they continue to have zero interest in being an actual car company and keep all their Waymo tech locked behind their taxis and Lyfts are replaced by Waymos with no reduction in price, just a loss job for the person who would normally drive the Lyft. Other companies follow suit and the self driving car dream is ruined to make C suite executives richer.
  - notreallyserio 5y ago
    > Do you actually prefer the subscription hell we are in now with companies like Adobe deciding we can no longer actually own any software and have to continuously rent it? No, I don't prefer software subscriptions with monthly fees. I don't find the "maintenance" required for software annoying or onerous. However, I really don't like car maintenance. Waiting for an oil change, tire replacement or rotation, or really any repair is the worst part of car ownership and I could die happy never having to do any of that again. I don't place a lot of value on ownership in general because of maintenance or storage burdens. I do like pay-as-you-go for most of the stuff I use, for whatever it's worth. Food, electricity, gas, that sort of thing. I use cabs when I go on vacation and look for opportunities to travel by bus, train, or plane instead of driving. A self-serve on-demand auto rental service would be ideal, for me.
dylan604 5y ago
To further this, what are the parameters before requesting the RTB option? If the car is currently driving (assuming the "owner" is currently using the car), will it reroute with them in as an involuntary passenger? Before attempting to RTB, will it determine the route and distance necessary and determine the amount of charge required and then verify there's enough? Will the car need to be in park for a minimum amount of time first? What if it's parked and I'm loading my small child into a car seat when the RTB order is issued? Will it start driving away with my kid? What if the car is currently plugged in when the RTB is ordered? Will it rip out the charging cable and cause further damage to the car or my house? Who will be responsible for that damage? Soooo many questions.
- angry-sw-dev 5y ago
  It's reasonable to assume an open door will prevent movement... ...being plugged in to a charger (that doesn't have some sort of automated disconnect) would also be disable. The question is valid though after you've put the kid in and you're on 30 second excursion to push the shopping carriage back... what if the car is recalled? Seems like a potential disaster and tragedy.

A first step. Won’t be long before the car goes to the repossession lot itself. Tesla is evolving country music: not only will your girl leave you, so will your truck.

jchw 5y ago

I don’t usually vote up comments that are mostly humorous on HN, but there’s always an exception. To me the problem isn’t that they might, but that they can. I guess the fault is technically on the person who rented something under terrible terms, but the problem to me is that over time terrible terms seem to win out over reasonable ones. Not to mention, if Tesla is capable of doing this for rentals, I have to assume they are capable of doing it for any Tesla. Which is not great.

Moru 5y ago
Or that any hacker that gets into Teslas system will have a field day.
- errcorrectcode 5y ago
  Mass theft, bricking, or actual crashing potential. It's a Futurama episode/ Sword of Damocles waiting to happen.
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    Right. Compromise the right credentials, and you can order a high percentage of parked Teslas to start backing up. That probably won't make them cause damage immediately -- I assume there's a set of sensors that will apply brakes rather than hit a wall or a detected car -- but there's a lot of chaos to apply that way. I wonder if Tesla's EULA immunizes them against such breaches.
usefulcat 5y ago
> over time terrible terms seem to win out over reasonable ones Tyranny of the marketplace, I guess. If most people are not bothered by the terrible terms, then the selection of items with non-terrible terms will be correspondingly small. Case in point: I'd like to buy a TV (even at a higher price) that does not have ads all over the interface. From what I can tell, as of right now there are approximately a handful of such TVs, not counting older models that probably aren't produced any more. And of course out of that handful, most are not very good in other respects.. I don't know how to solve that apart from regulation, which is often a very poor solution.
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  Buy industrial signage displays. You'll be paying a significant premium but it's basically the only way to get a high quality non-smart tv these days.
- stalfosknight 5y ago
  My solution is to never setup wifi or provide ethernet to my TVs. They can't vomit ads all over the screen or track what you're watching if they can't get online.
voakbasda 5y ago
The house always wins. Contract terms almost always give favor the issuer.
tssva 5y ago
If you don't pay us as agreed, we will take it back are terrible terms?
- jchw 5y ago
  You omitted the parts that are actually problematic. I don’t give my mortgage company a copy of the keys to my house.

oconnor663 5y ago

Ha. Though my guess is, once self-driving is reliable enough to do that, the economics of car ownership are going to flip completely. It won't make sense anymore to have a car that spends most of its time sitting unused in your garage.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
It depends how easily they can be cleaned of others’ odors and messes, and how often they need to get cleaned. Presumably if the rate of mess is low enough and there are extra cars, you would just request a new one. Then they punish the person who left the mess or odor, disincentivizing them from doing it again. Probably need cameras monitoring the inside of the car.
- ghaff 5y ago
  It's not so much messes. Rentals, including short-term ones, are a thing today. But rather there's a lot of value to many people to have the car that they want when they want it, leaving certain belongings in the car, having the car equipped for their purposes whether child seats or roof racks, etc. While I honestly don't expect door to door self driving in most places for decades, a lot of people who don't use cars much probably underestimate the degree to which many people customize their vehicles. And even if they sit a lot of the time, most of the cost is often in miles, not time.
- db65edfc7996 5y ago
  In a world where car ownership is limited, I can imagine that the car interiors would be changed drastically. Something like a subway car with hard plastic seats and easily sanitized surfaces.
romwell 5y ago
Imagine, now, that self-driving combined with Uber pool, so that people who need to get from and to the same destinations at the same time (as is typical for commutes) would be able to share the ride. Imagine then making those vehicles larger to enable not only a decrease in traffic, but an increase in housing density, local infrastructure in walking distance, and economic growth. Imagine if we then realized we could charge that elongated car as it's driving if we put electric lines above streets. Oh, and why not increase rolling efficiency while we're at that, and make the task of self-driving simpler by embedding signaling infrastructure into the road itself. You just imagined buses, trolley buses, and streetcars respectively. Which is what makes the most sense, and will continue making the most sense for vehicles that don't sit in your garage most of the time. There's more to car ownership than being able to get from A to B in principle. Once you add immediate availability, individual vehicle preferences, having your stuff in the car already, the ability to keep your stuff there once you arrive at your destination, never having to think about small, but normal usage damage (especially if you have kids), or, conversely, having the vehicle just as clean as you want it... ...you will see that garages aren't going anywhere any time soon, self-driving cars or not. And that we'd be wise to develop actual public transport infrastructure for the people who really do only care about getting from A to B, with some acceptable wait time. It's a win-win for everyone. My pessimistic prognosis is that the development of the self-driving car will make the taxis slightly cheaper, but instead of paying your Uber driver, you're going to be paying engineers, maintenance, and cleaning staff.

dylan604 5y ago

What if your dog is in the truck? Can you then go after them for kidnapping?

dentemple 5y ago
Dogs aren't considered people (in the US), so it would be considered stolen property _at best_ if this were an actual thing. Likely, they'll pass the animal on to a shelter and give you the info as to where to pick them up. It wouldn't be considered "stealing".
- dylan604 5y ago
  To this point, after crossing the state line from Nevada into California, there are highway signs that state the fines for littering and abadoning an animal on the side of the highway. The fine for littering is significantly higher than animal abandonment.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  This depends entirely on how quickly they get to the vehicle, but given the money involved, I'm sure they will just lobby to have the death of the dog pinned on the owner.

notreallyserio 5y ago

I'm hopeful that by the time cars can be automatically repossessed without a human operator they'll have set up a network of on-demand rentals and I won't have to worry about car ownership and all the nonsense it entails.

josefx 5y ago
Usually rental anything is a lot more costly in the long run than outright ownership. So someone getting his Tesla repossessed probably wont be any better of trying to rent one. Thought my biggest problem with large scale car rentals are times like rush hour where nearly everyone needs a car at the same time, so there either has to be a giant capacity or you have to rely on most people still having their own car.
Larrikin 5y ago
Do you actually prefer the subscription hell we are in now with companies like Adobe deciding we can no longer actually own any software and have to continuously rent it? Google actually seems like they will be first to full self driving. My biggest fear is that they continue to have zero interest in being an actual car company and keep all their Waymo tech locked behind their taxis and Lyfts are replaced by Waymos with no reduction in price, just a loss job for the person who would normally drive the Lyft. Other companies follow suit and the self driving car dream is ruined to make C suite executives richer.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  > Do you actually prefer the subscription hell we are in now with companies like Adobe deciding we can no longer actually own any software and have to continuously rent it? No, I don't prefer software subscriptions with monthly fees. I don't find the "maintenance" required for software annoying or onerous. However, I really don't like car maintenance. Waiting for an oil change, tire replacement or rotation, or really any repair is the worst part of car ownership and I could die happy never having to do any of that again. I don't place a lot of value on ownership in general because of maintenance or storage burdens. I do like pay-as-you-go for most of the stuff I use, for whatever it's worth. Food, electricity, gas, that sort of thing. I use cabs when I go on vacation and look for opportunities to travel by bus, train, or plane instead of driving. A self-serve on-demand auto rental service would be ideal, for me.

dylan604 5y ago

To further this, what are the parameters before requesting the RTB option? If the car is currently driving (assuming the "owner" is currently using the car), will it reroute with them in as an involuntary passenger? Before attempting to RTB, will it determine the route and distance necessary and determine the amount of charge required and then verify there's enough? Will the car need to be in park for a minimum amount of time first? What if it's parked and I'm loading my small child into a car seat when the RTB order is issued? Will it start driving away with my kid? What if the car is currently plugged in when the RTB is ordered? Will it rip out the charging cable and cause further damage to the car or my house? Who will be responsible for that damage? Soooo many questions.

angry-sw-dev 5y ago
It's reasonable to assume an open door will prevent movement... ...being plugged in to a charger (that doesn't have some sort of automated disconnect) would also be disable. The question is valid though after you've put the kid in and you're on 30 second excursion to push the shopping carriage back... what if the car is recalled? Seems like a potential disaster and tragedy.