Posted on Mar 3, 2023
A new Ford patent imagines a future in which self-driving cars repossess themselves
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https://www.npr.org/2023/03/03/ [login to see] /ford-patent-repossession-self-driving-cars
Imagine it's the near future, and you've bought a new car with a self-driving mode. But hard times hit and you fall behind on loan payments – then, one day you find your car has driven itself away to the repossession lot.
That's the vision of a new Ford patent published last month that describes a variety of futuristic ways that Ford vehicle systems could be controlled by a financial institution in order to aid in the repossession of a car.
The company told NPR that the company has no intention of implementing the ideas in the patent, which is one among hundreds of pending Ford patents published this year by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
"We don't have any plans to deploy this," said Wes Sherwood, a Ford spokesperson. "We submit patents on new inventions as a normal course of business but they aren't necessarily an indication of new business or product plans."
Imagine it's the near future, and you've bought a new car with a self-driving mode. But hard times hit and you fall behind on loan payments – then, one day you find your car has driven itself away to the repossession lot.
That's the vision of a new Ford patent published last month that describes a variety of futuristic ways that Ford vehicle systems could be controlled by a financial institution in order to aid in the repossession of a car.
The company told NPR that the company has no intention of implementing the ideas in the patent, which is one among hundreds of pending Ford patents published this year by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
"We don't have any plans to deploy this," said Wes Sherwood, a Ford spokesperson. "We submit patents on new inventions as a normal course of business but they aren't necessarily an indication of new business or product plans."
A new Ford patent imagines a future in which self-driving cars repossess themselves
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Posted 1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."As a last resort, a lender could disable "the engine, the brake, the accelerator, the steering wheel, the doors, and the lights of the vehicle," the patent suggests, or simply lock the doors.
Other suggested features include limiting the geographic area in which a car can be operated and flashing messages from a lender on a car's media screen.
Like many large corporations, Ford proactively applies for patents in large volumes. The repossession patent was one of 13 Ford patents published on Feb. 23 alone, and one of more than 350 published this year to date, according to a review of U.S. patent records.
Last year, the company was granted 1,342 patents "spanning a wide range of ideas," Sherwood said.
The company's other recent patents cover a wide range of applications: powertrain operations, speech recognition, autonomous parking, redesigns of tailgate attachments and fuel inlets."
..."As a last resort, a lender could disable "the engine, the brake, the accelerator, the steering wheel, the doors, and the lights of the vehicle," the patent suggests, or simply lock the doors.
Other suggested features include limiting the geographic area in which a car can be operated and flashing messages from a lender on a car's media screen.
Like many large corporations, Ford proactively applies for patents in large volumes. The repossession patent was one of 13 Ford patents published on Feb. 23 alone, and one of more than 350 published this year to date, according to a review of U.S. patent records.
Last year, the company was granted 1,342 patents "spanning a wide range of ideas," Sherwood said.
The company's other recent patents cover a wide range of applications: powertrain operations, speech recognition, autonomous parking, redesigns of tailgate attachments and fuel inlets."
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