More than 1,400 autonomous vehicles from more than 80 companies are being tested on U.S. roads. As they continue to make headlines, their presence raises a few questions about how they might change society.
These hypotheticals range from serious to ridiculous–somewhere in the middle lies this question: If you were leasing a self-driving car and fell behind on payments, could it repossess itself? The repo process would certainly be easier if lenders could simply summon vehicles.
This isn’t the kind of thing that happens today, of course, but that could change. Electric trucks once seemed unlikely, and now multiple manufacturers offer electric pickups, from Ford to Tesla. As self-driving car technology advances and society adapts, autonomous repossession could be possible.
One of the most significant barriers to automatic repo is self-driving cars’ biggest obstacle as a whole: technology. Today’s autonomous vehicles can’t drive themselves, and it could take years before that’s a possibility. Traffic has too many variables, and if a self-driving car crashes on its way back to the lender, automatic repo isn’t worth the convenience.
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