Think about being a few weeks late in your automobile cost and beginning your Mustang or F-150 on a sizzling day solely to find the air-con would not work. If Ford secures a patent it utilized for in August 2021 for “car repossession” expertise, house owners who miss funds might discover themselves unable to make use of necessary options and even locked out of their automobiles altogether. The expertise, awaiting approval, shall be activated remotely if drivers ignore cost delinquency notifications.

As The Drive reported earlier this week, the patent submitting, “Programs and Strategies to Repossess a Automobile,” reveals that the system might even direct a car with autonomous or semi-autonomous functionality to drive to a tow truck or a repossession lot if the proprietor doesn’t reply to a number of notices. The patent describes a course of that begins with lack of performance. If the proprietor nonetheless would not pay, they may very well be locked out of their car, although emergency unlocking by way of the automobile’s onboard digicam may nonetheless be potential.

The patent additionally outlines how autonomous or semi-autonomous automobiles might repossess themselves if not in a storage by driving to a close-by location to keep away from confrontations between the repossessors and house owners.

The Drive notes that whereas Ford is probably not planning to develop its patent quickly, the concept of your automobile driving itself away since you missed cost(s) is unsettling. Ford is the one automaker to aim to patent one thing like this, however it’s unlikely to be the final.

For now, although, Ford’s patent is only a proposal to simplify repossession. A Ford spokesman instructed the New York Put up the corporate has no plans to deploy the expertise and that submitting patents on new innovations is normal enterprise process.