A new Ford patent imagines a future in which self-driving cars repossess themselves

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."