[Ajedi32]

The "main issue" is that Tesla is even able to assist the bailiffs in this manner.

If a remote party can, by design, lock you out of your car and take control of it without your consent, do you even really own the vehicle in the first place?

Others have argued "well, you don't own the car, the bank does", but unless Tesla is somehow unable to do this with cars not owned by a lienholder, that's kinda beside the point as far as I'm concerned.

[mikeryan]

In the US a financed car is “owned” by the bank until fully paid off - which most of the time is a subsidiary of the manufacturer.

A lot of Teslas are also just leased.

[dangerbird2]

It's not owned by the bank until you foreclose, after which it's most certainly owned by the bank.

As an aside, how often is it for the manufacturer/dealer to own the bank that issues auto loans. I got mine from Capital One, and I assumed most auto loans outside of the sketchy loanshark used car dealers were issued by the big national banks

[mikeryan]

In most states the financing bank owns the title to the car and is the "Legal Owner" as opposed to the "Registered Owner" who is the one who is buying the car.

The used market is likely different but for new cars from Dealerships, GM Financial, Toyota Financial, Ford Credit etc are Billion Dollar subsidiaries.

[throwawayboise]

Is that true? In my state the financing bank has a lien recorded on on the title, but they are not the owner. Maybe that is the exception?

Edit: reading some other comments ... I'm talking about the traditional financed purchase of a car, not a lease. Agree that for a leased car (which is quite common now though I've never done it), the ownership stays with the leasing entity.

[mikeryan]

No this is for financed cars.

When you live in a title-holding state, the title will be issued to the registered owner/operator of the car, regardless of lien holder. Though your lien holder will receive a separate document verifying their connection to the loan, you will be in possession of the title itself.

There are only nine title-holding states: Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oklahoma, Wisconsin. In the other 41 states, titles are issued to the lien holder of your vehicle until the loan is fully paid off.

From: https://www.rategenius.com/resources/titles/#:~:text=There%2....

[giobox]

It used to be quite common; at various times in its history you can make the argument Ford sold cars at a loss to help Ford Credit sell profitable car loans. Even today, Ford Credit (loans/leases etc) is responsible for about 50% of Ford's annual profits:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Motor_Credit_Company

There have been quite a few years Ford made more profit as a "bank" than they did from making and selling the cars. If you get a new Ford from a dealer and request finance/lease options, its pretty typical for Ford Credit to provide the backing.

[nomel]

Why is this comment being downvoted? It appears to be correct.

[mdoms]

Did you really not read the last sentence of the comment you responded to?

[zionic]

I agree with you, but he same is true for physical keys. A car dealership can create a working key to steal/repossess your car in much the same way.

We really need to move to strong crypto.

[Ajedi32]

In my mind there's a significant difference between a dealership using their knowledge of the car to assist with repossession, and a manufacturer demonstrating that you never really had control of your own car in the first place.

It just feels like a betrayal. Your car is loyal to the manufacturer, not to you. It will act in a manner directly opposed to your best interests as the owner if company that sold it to you orders it. I understand that's true for most software these days, but that doesn't make me any happier about it, and it really feels worse when the software in question is inextricably tied to and in control of an expensive piece of physical hardware that you purchased.

[AtlasBarfed]

As stated in other places here, if you have leased or financed your car, YOU DON'T OWN IT. You pay for the right to use it on a monthly basis.

That is why there are legal contracts. This is just automated repossession.

[sangnoir]

> That is why there are legal contracts. This is just automated repossession.

There is value in adding friction to enforcing law/contracts: I don't know if FSD-repo crosses the line for me, but I know automating enforcement is bad for society.

What if everytime Tesla cameras detect the car speeding, or has crossed double-lines, it helpfully charges the fine to the linked credit card? After all, its just automated ticketing, right?

[filoleg]

I agree with your point about automated enforcement being bad, but there is nothing automated about the situation .

A lien-holder determined that the lender wasn’t paying the bills, so they manually made a decision to repossess the car. Just like with any other brand of a car, they reached out to the dealership (in this specific case, manufacturer is the same as the dealership, because Tesla sells directly with no franchises) and requested a way to access the vehicle. Normally it is done via a key copy. In this case, they used a digital version of it. Not that it matters meaningfully at all, but the car didn’t drive across town to the repo parking lot, current summoning feature cannot do that (the distance limit for the feature is a few hundred feet iirc).

And why does it matter if it was made easier to actually repossess the vehicle? It isn’t related to the automated ticketing analogy at all. There was no automatic detection, only automated enforcement. Just like with speeding tickets, i am totally ok with the cop not wasting his and my time writing me the ticket manually or making me wait for it by email, if it instead can be automated with a digital ticket/infraction in the system that i can check out when i get home.

To be more clear on why i think it is a bad analogy. Automated ticketing is automating human decision-making, which is an ambiguous blackbox process open to interpretation. As you said, doing so leads to a lot of unintended consequences. Actually physically repoing a car (after a manual decision to repo the car was made by a human) isn’t automating decision-making. The decision has already been consciously made, and there is not much room for interpretation when it comes to the physical process of repoing a car. The only variable is if the lender decides to hide the car or do something equally dumb, so it is not a good variable to have. And remotely disabling the car based on a manual human evaluation just seems to make the process of repoing it less prone to unintended bad variables.

[josephcsible]

We want things to be "loyal" to their owners. But the key point in this story is that if you don't pay for your car, then you're not the owner of it.

[Ajedi32]

I'd have no issue with the lienholder having ultimate control of car until the loan is paid off. As I said in my initial comment, that's completely beside the point.

The problem here is that Model 3s are apparently "loyal" to their manufacturer rather than the owner, regardless of who that owner is (whether that be a lienholder, the car's "user", or anyone else that's not Tesla).

That Tesla used that misplaced loyalty to give the car back to the lienholder in this case is irrelevant to my point.

[josephcsible]

Are you okay with manufacturers helping with repossessions by cutting new physical keys for non-connected cars? If so, how is this any different?

[Ajedi32]

See my comment 4 levels up from this one.

"I know what this person's key was when I sold him the car. Here, have a copy."

VS.

"I have full control of this person's car, even though I'm not the owner. Here, let me remotely disable it for you."

[donio]

    Directive 4: [Classified]

[Thrymr]

If you don't own the car outright, why would an entity with a lien on the vehicle not also have access to such "strong crypto" legally? This is an issued with a secured loan, presumably in a crypto world the repossession would be allowed by "smart contract" if the borrower defaulted.

[giobox]

This is by no means limited to Tesla, and is true of almost every new car sold now.

As an example, almost every new Ford sold in the USA since 2019 has standard 5G/GPS remote connectivity; even the cheapest entry level cars at Ford like the new Maverick can remotely over 5G unlock doors and remote start the engine (just like the 'owner' can in the Ford pass app, now standard spec on virtually all Fords.). The manufacturers of course love the extra usage metrics and can also over the air sell upgrades like 5G hotspot access and so forth. Many cars now have 5G/GPS receiver for metrics even if no connectivity or nav features whatsoever exposed to user.

My point is; aside from the use of "summon", this kind of locate, remote unlock and start by manufacturer is available on almost all new cars sold today, no matter how cheap - the 5G remote access tech has become increasingly ubiquitous. This is not something unique to the way Tesla creates it cars at all, especially in 2021.

> https://www.ford.com/support/how-tos/fordpass/fordpass-remot...

[mytailorisrich]

In the UK that would be interference with goods (a tort) or taking a vehicle without the owner's consent (a criminal offense).

Still in the UK, although I suspect that holds more generally, when you buy something using a loan you own it. What you bought may be a security for the loan but that's different. Leasing a car or using a lease/purchase scheme is also different since leasing means you rent but don't own.

[oh_sigh]

Yes, you really own the vehicle, and that is why if Tesla intentionally just bricks/locks you out of your car because they feel like it, you would sue them and almost certainly win in court.