It Repossesses Itself?

For those who are still wondering whether Big Brother is watching us, and has been for eons, I'm here to tell you that "Biggie" has moved into your house, taken off his loafers, laid down on your couch and demanded a cold beer.  

The expensive imported kind...

I just read today about a new patent just granted to Ford Motor Co.  Are you ready for this?  If you don't pay your payments, it'll crank itself up and drive right on back to the dealer.

Wha...?

Oh, not all at once.  In the weeks after you've decided to eat rather than send off your car payment, Ford will begin by turning off some of your car's features.  Maybe the heater in Michigan's winter.  Or the air conditioning in Arizona's summer.  Or maybe the wipers so you can't see to drive.  Or put an ungodly screech on your stereo instead of your fave music.  Or put it into "limp" mode so it'll only go a max of 45 mph.  

Or worse yet, simply "repossess itself."  It'll drive itself back to the dealer, or the junkyard, whichever is appropriate.  And maybe wash itself, powder its hood and put out a for sale sign.

Are you happy about the computer age?  Tesla will charge a fat $15,000 for their little solo drive option.  So you can take a nap on your way to work.  Illegal for you to do so, but hey, who's watching?  Since the cops have been defunded, who's gonna' object?

Excepppppt, sometimes that bunch of software doesn't work.  One of Elon's babies just confused an Amish horse and buggy rig as being something else (who knows what?), and proceeded to crash into the back of it at more than 80 mph!  Killed the driver and the horse and made a big, freeway-halting mess.  There have been more than 70 such "incidents" since the Tesla began selling this option.  And there are more than 30 lawsuits so far filed by those whose autopilot option killed or nearly killed them.

But hey, he's the richest guy in America, and you gotta' break a few eggs to make an omelet, right?  What's a little collateral damage among friends, right?

I recall fondly the days when a new car came with an engine, a transmission, an AM radio and roll-up windows.  You didn't need the computers that run all that stuff (an average of 23 per new car now!), you didn't need their extra weight to haul around, you didn't need to pay for all the options you don't really need, and you won't have to worry about them breaking one mile after your warranty runs out.

I can see it all now; your car decides to fire itself up and drive back to the dealer at 4:00 a.m.  And the owner runs out of the house with a 12 gage shotgun and proceeds to unload on the "driver."  Except, no driver to blast away upon.  And then, I'm guessing, no car left to resell.  

And you can't just sidestep this situation by purchasing other than a Ford.  Don't you think ALL the manufacturers will be licensing Ford's invention so that THEIR cars can drive themselves home?

Don't  you think the repo guys are going to have a conniption fit over this?  There are tens of thousands of them and some of them aren't nice guys!  

I've got an idea!  Why not just buy an old car with low mileage in good shape without all this gimcrackery.  Without all the bells and whistles.  You can roll you own windows up, can't you?  And then drive the wheels off that sucker.  And show Ford and all the other makers that you don't intent to play.  

A car is your second largest purchase.  Why not make fewer of them?  

And tell all your friends to do the same.  Simply stop buying.  With the average car payment now at $732.00 over 70 months, maybe they'll miss a few of you if you simply say, "No!"  

And then let's see who gives up first...