Cars with electronics are nothing new, but as advanced technologies like AI and "always-on" systems begin to be integrated into cars, the automotive industry is beginning to take notice of how far it can push this stuff. The most recent and most pernicious example of this was BMW's attempt to use microtransactions (opens in new tab) to make pennies for customers of expensive cars (opens in new tab) (which rather successfully led to car owners pirating the features (opens in new tab) of their cars) The list goes on and on, but now Ford Motor Company is telling us to wait for beer.

Ford filed a U.S. patent for August 2021, which was published last week on February 23 (TheDrive (opens in new tab), thanks). The patent is called "Systems and Methods to Repossess a Vehicle" (opens in new tab) and allows Ford to gradually degrade the functionality of a vehicle in situations where a customer is behind on payments, making the owner's life unpleasant, and then in extreme scenarios, the vehicle...

That's right: in the future, you might see your car take off if Ford says so.

According to the patent, the system would perform a series of escalating steps. When an owner begins to fall behind on car payments, Ford's system begins to shut down "the functionality of one or more components of the vehicle."

The car will alert the owner in stages and stop functioning before driving away. Initially, the system will target minor features such as "cruise control, automatic window controls, automatic seat controls, and some components of the infotainment system (radio, global positioning system (GPS), MP3 player, etc.). Yet, if the owner does not pile up the money, the car will begin to shut off the air conditioning, remote key function, and automatic locking.

This is worth a paragraph. If this stage is reached, the system can begin to play "incessantly obnoxious noises" "every time the owner gets into the car." Of all the absurd ideas currently in the auto industry, doing such a thing to a person about to drive a car is perhaps the most ridiculous, and if ever implemented, would undoubtedly cause an accident.

What, the noise didn't get your attention? Looks like it's time to lock them out of their cars. The patent reads, "The computer in the seizure system can disable the door lock mechanism." Apparently this will only be done on weekends at first, and according to Ford, will include a feature that could be used in emergency situations such as a heart attack. The car's cameras and software will apparently detect this. In other words, if you get locked out, you can have a heart attack. What are you going to do, take my pulse?" (Mr. Ford, please don't think this is odd).

In other words, by this stage, your car has been stripped of most of its features by the manufacturer, you have to endure the noise, get locked out, play dead to get back in, and if you still don't pay, here comes our good friend AI for the actual seizure. Ford's autonomous vehicles can "move the vehicle from one primary location to a secondary location where it is convenient for a tow truck to tow the vehicle, or move the vehicle from the owner's property to the foreclosure agency's property, etc."

And if the repossession agency says that the vehicle is not worth the cost of the repossession, the vehicle will be taken straight to the junkyard on its own (like something out of a Pixar movie).

Even though this is truly the devil's work, there are a few necessary caveats here. This system may be hellish, but it also applies only to those who have fallen behind on their payments. People's circumstances change, and sometimes, like car payments, they need to be renegotiated. This feels like something that should be done by a human agent, not by a car turning off the A/C.

The other thing is that this is patent. While well intentioned, there are no Ford vehicles currently equipped with this system (unless it is in a Ford lab, come to think of it: ......) . The patent is detailed enough to show that Ford has clearly done a lot of work, but these companies do not pour R&D money into such a system without the intention of eventually using it.

The nightmare scenario is that dealers built into future cars will upsell you with built-in features and seize themselves if you fail to pay up. Ford is currently the only car company to have proposed such a system without even trying to patent it. Welcome to the future of car ownership: first your car drives you to distraction, then one night the car drives away on its own.