Cars are different in that their value is based on something that can be easily repo'd and sold off.
Houses and their ridiculous climbs in value isn't quite the same as cars which are depreciating assets.
(the linked article is paywalled, so haven't read it)
The car thing though, at least here, is about leasing, and precisely the fact that they depreciate. Which means they won't be worth anything like as much when the lease ends as the leasing company was counting on. Especially if a lot of them are surrendered at the same time, say in the event of a big economic downturn, which would cause values to fall.
Traditionally here people bought cars outright. Of late it's become fashionable to lease ridiculously flash cars that you can't really afford. The maths of the whole leasing business is looking a bit shaky. In that regard I don't see it's very different from people surrendering houses that were worth less than the mortgaging company was expecting.
