Ford is not taking any chances on owners missing their car payments as the company is working on a system that allows the vehicle to repossess itself.
Ford has been successful in obtaining a patent that permits their car to drive back to their showroom and essentially repossess itself if the owner fails to keep up with car payments. However, security experts have said that this could lead to cars being stolen remotely.
The patent was filed in 2021 and had only just been approved during February 2023. It has been described that the system would follow a series of measures as soon as the owner starts falling behind on their car payments which starts with making the car unpleasant to drive which can include disabling features such as the GPS navigation, air conditioning, or the music system to cause a certain level of discomfort. If this isn’t successful, the patent implies that car will start to make an unpleasant sound every time the owner gets inside.
The next step in the measures would be to disable the car on certain days or certain time such as on the weekend for leisure. However, the car would not restrict access to work as to not hamper the owner’s ability to meet the car payments. The patent further suggests that the car’s GPS will prevent certain locations from being accessible.
The last resort would be making the car return to the showroom by itself or drive to a location where a tow-truck could pick up the vehicle. The patent shows that if the car mileage is high and the condition of the car is poor then it can be programmed to drive itself to a scrapyard for recycling.
The car would need to be completely self-driving for the system to work. Ford has recently announced that they intend to develop fully self-driving technology at the cost of $2.7 billion which aligns with this patent that they have obtained.
Ford are looking towards a future of fully autonomous cars with this patent; however this comes with some risks as car thief’s can find an unauthorised way to into the system and engineers will have authorised access to the vehicle and the system.
If you have any queries regarding this article or an alternative matter, you can contact us at Lawdit today.
Tel: 023 8023 5979
E-mail: info@lawdit.co.uk
By Abhiraj Aujla
