This issue of being able to remotely disable a vehicle raises some interesting legal questions. To begin with, is it really a "repossession"? The dealer/financer will not physically "possess" anything. The car will sit where it is when the ignition is turned off -- perhaps on the buyer's driveway. So who is liable for physical damage to the car (or whose insurance will cover it) while it is disabled? Simply turning the car off won't result in satisfaction of any debt (the point of repo is that the financer can sell the vehicle to recoup his loan). What if the car is disabled but subsequently needs to be moved (i.e. "No parking after 5 pm") and gets towed. Who pays to get the car back?

If disabling *is* repossession (and it probably is, though I can't recall offhand how things like boots are treated), then there is a legal process for it. A financer should not be able to just 'turn off' your car any more than they are able to (or at least are supposed to) snatch it off the street. There are requirements of notice, contractual interpretations, etc. One problem with making things technologically easy is that then people/companies often bypass the administrative processes that are supposed to be safeguards (but also "slow things down.")

But there is another aspect to this remote monitoring/control : Why would anyone ever "sell" us anything, when they can so easily track and control it and "rent" it to us instead? Perhaps you won't be able to ever "buy" a car, but just so many miles. In effect this could make hardware like cars more like software (or, say, music) where you don't really purchase a physical thing but rather a "license" to use. The very concept of "ownership" that Americans have had for hundreds of years is slowly -- and soon maybe not so slowly --- changing.

Just like airbags.

I was involved in a minor accident, where I was forced to stop on the highway because of a traffic jam and the person behind me stopped and then a pickup behind him failed to stop.

We got off the road pretty quickly and after swapping insurance etc, the police showed up and took the accident report. After all that he warned the two other people involved in the accident that since their airbags did not deploy, it was extremely important that they have their automobiles inspected immediately, since the airbags now had the potential to deploy at any time and you are guaranteed to lose control of a car when the airbag deploys.

All automobile parts are physical components and all components have a potential for failure. I question the wisdom of having a car with parts that if they were to fail, would cause the driver to lose control of the car. If this ignition device would fail while you were going down the highway, would the car turn itself off and strand you in the middle of traffic?

Thanks but no thanks.

But they can snatch your car off the street if you are in default. The Uniform Commercial Code §9-609 <link>, which has been enacted in all 50 states, allows the secured lender to take possession of the collateral without judicial process as long as it proceeds without a breach of the peace. That's what repo men do. The constitutionality of self help reposession was upheld more than 30 years ago.

And UCC § 9-207 makes the lender responsible for safeguarding collateral that is in its possession or control, althought the borrower is responsible for insurance. <link>

And repossession is the lender's last resort, since the market value of the car often does not cover the balance of the loan. The threat of repossession keeps the borrower making those payments, and electronic disabling should do that very effectively.

Trebuchet:

Just like airbags.

... After all that he warned the two other people involved in the accident that since their airbags did not deploy, it was extremely important that they have their automobiles inspected immediately, since the airbags now had the potential to deploy at any time ...

This is categorically false. Air bags are operated by a computer controlled incendiary device. There are several criteria for setting off the bag, and not all bags will be set off by any particular event. If the criteria are not met the bag won't go off. At that point the same criteria will need to be met in a new event in order to fire off the bag. There is no cumulative effect. The primary sensor system is an accelerometer that is usually mounted to the transmission tunnel between the front seats and in front of the shifter.