Scenario: Undocumented immigrant family in Minneapolis get in their Tesla car to go to work, school or shopping. The doors lock and are disabled via software OTA. Because they are not mechanical, the family can’t open the doors. They try to roll down a window, but that too is software controlled. The buttons do nothing. They are trapped.
The car then disables the steering colums via OTA software so the wheel goes limp. It is a drive by wire steering with no mechanical, rack and pinion physical link for the driver to control.
The cars autodrive engages and sends the trapped family to an ICE detention facility.
Is there any design feature stopping this from from hapening today?
All true. But the car does seem to be designed for weaponization. You talk about the hit to reputation, but what hit would they take? An OTA assasination is just an everyday car accident. Plausible deniability. A kidnapped family won’t tell the press anything. Undesirables were disappeared by ICE. There is no one to tell the story, thus no story to tell.