Don’t Be A Victim See The Trend Ahead of Time

How many dealerships will need to pay a vehicle repossession specialist (i.e., a repo man) when the sale of a self-driving car goes bad?  None!  Self-driving cars will make the repo man obsolete.

Imagine:  Your neighbor falls behind on his auto loan payments.  What will happen to him and his new ‘traffic efficient’ vehicle?  It goes without saying that the dealership/lender will increase the interest rate applied to your neighbor’s loan.  Then, it will contact the car and place the car in loan default mode; the car will drive itself back to the dealership.

What happens after the car is returned will likely leave a bad taste in your neighbor’s mouth.  Here are a couple of scenarios to consider:

Best Case

• The dealership will refurbish the vehicle and put it up for sale.
• Upon selling the vehicle, the dealer will pay the balance of the loan minus refurbish, storage, and auction fees.

Worst Case

• The dealership will refurbish the vehicle and place it in a driverless taxi rotation. That way, the car can earn money for the dealership until it is sold.
• Upon selling the vehicle, the dealer will pay the balance of the loan minus a post-repossession refurbishment fee, a pre-sale refurbishment fee, a vehicle depreciation charge, and an auction fee.

Depending on your neighbor’s perspective, there is a lot of leeway for the dealer to fleece the “owner”.  On the other hand, the owner could put the vehicle out for hire prior to defaulting on the auto loan.  In so doing, your neighbor would (potentially) avoid the entire scenario.

In either case, it’s one more career placed on the chopping block by Artificial Intelligence (AI).  Is this innovation opportunity we were hoping for?