Interesting that the Honda Accord and Honda Civic are (or rather, were) the two most stolen cars. Is that because Hondas are more reliable (so there's more old Hondas on the road) or because they're easier to steal?
I'm an Australian who moved to the US and bought a cheap 1996 honda accord because I knew they were a solid reliable "beater" car.
It was stolen twice in a week. It was dumped and towed the first time. We'd just got through dealing with it all and I'd added a chain and padlock which would require bolt cutters to allow the shifter to be moved into R...... and it was stolen again, this time written off when the driver tried to evade the police.
The police officer who came and took our statement informed us that this model was the most stolen vehicle in the US for a number of reasons, the crucial one being that you can use a "jiggle key" (take any key for a 95 - 98 honda accord and file it down a little) to both unluck the doors and start the ignition.
My insurance rep told me it's because there is significant share part sharing across generations. Coupled with their longevity and popularity this results in a huge parts market.
My Mini Cooper was ~50% cheaper to insure than my previous though slightly newer Civic.
I remember reading a long while ago that the accords were stolen for their engines. Supposedly, they would be swapped into a civic of a similar vintage and this caused a huge demand and skyrocketed the value. However I can't seem to find the source to verify that.
Hondas are known for their reliability. If you don't crash it or trade it in, a Honda can easily go 200-300,000 miles and last for 20+ years. #3 and #4 on the "most stolen cars list" are the Toyota Camry and Corolla, which are the other cars most known for their reliability.
If you're looking to steal a car built before 1997 (17 years ago), there are relatively few other makes that are still on the road. Cars from American automakers rarely make it past 100,000 miles (about 10 years of normal driving) in workable condition; there are simply fewer cars out there to steal.
That sounds awfully low for American automakers. What exactly happens at 100,000 miles?
Generally cars will go through their first big part replacement cycle between 60-100k, these are wearing parts that come to an end at that age. That can cost a couple of thousands but that's just part of normal maintenance and will be 10x cheaper than buying a new car. These Hondas and Corollas sure as hell go through this phase and the next replacement cycle happens maybe another 100k later.
It's my impression that even these cheap little cars in Europe (such as Fiat Punto) can easily go 200,000 miles if only serviced so 100k sounds a bit odd. I've also assumed that the appeal to American cars with their big blocks is because they're built to last and eat hundreds of thousands of miles; this assumption might be outdated, however.
The 100,000 mile cliff is disappearing now. Build quality of American cars rose rapidly in the mid-2000s - for example, Ford repair rate declined nearly 50 percent between 2004 and 2009[1].
I remember reading somewhere that this was driven by accounting improvements that arose from the Enron scandal but I can't find the source now.
I would guess it's not that their parts are better, but because they are a popular car so there is a larger market of people needing spare parts for that model.
Popularity, longevity of service of the vehicle, and reasonably priced genuine replacement parts all helped to create a market for stolen cars and the parts they provided.
Not better as such, but have more value due to higher demand. Both cars have sold well so there are more out there that need repair from time to time and there are other models out there with the same (or compatible) parts, not just other civic/accord variants.
The age of a model can make a difference too when breaking for parts: newer cars will be covered by warranty, those not long past warranty are likely to be more reliable than those a couple of years older. After a few more years the value drops off because people will start to replace more than repair, so demand for parts falls.
The marketability of their parts means that there are a lot of legally-owned Hondas which, of course, need parts replaced at times. And because everyone knows there are a lot of Hondas, the owners know it's easy to find a second-hand part from a junkyard or ebay to save money and thus for Hondas there exists a particularly lively market for old parts.
I always buy second-hand parts whenever it makes sense. It doesn't work that well with less popular cars, obviously. Either there aren't second-hand replacements that are easy to find or they're still too expensive (because of said scarcity...) so it makes sense to buy a new replacement part with warranty.
It's because they're the most stereotypical vehicle to mod in most of Europe and probably the US. They're popular with so called "ricers".
I'm not sure why though. Maybe because they're easy to steal? Maybe they're cheap to buy/insure and are still high performance enough to be fun while also having a cheap enough after market for modifications.
For years Honda offered a deal where you bought a new Honda and got 3 years' insurance free. Obviously this is worth a lot more to younger (and less careful) drivers.
(Which was largely deliberate; Honda had an image problem where they were seen as an "old man car". Now they're a "boy racer car", which I'm not sure was the intention)
Interesting that the site mentions (several times, very prominently) that the assistants are all over the USA but the tasks they can do are only virtual ones. Why does the location matter then?
Also wondering about the set number of requests per month. It seems like by allowing people to buy tasks a-la-carte, you could charge more per task (since the tasks would usually be horrible things like dealing with cable companies or renting cars). Why the decision to only allow three different task packages?
My guess the emphasis on these packages would be because subscription based revenue models are more predictable and stable. Too many choices confuses people, so they keep it simple.
$3.00 per task (for the smallest plan), perhaps they found when the call it out that way - anything higher and folks would rather do it themselves. Anything cheaper and it wouldn't be profitable, but $15/month is something people are willing to spend.
Another benefit is that the Dispatcher handles all the ordering of updates for you. If you have complex relationships between your stores or even if they just must handle updates in a certain order, by sending all updates through the dispatcher you can also force a partial ordering of store updates through dispatcher.waitFor(<other store>)
