Ford’s self-repossessing automobile patent is a nightmare of the connected-car future

The electrical and digital transformation of the automobile trade comes with lots of guarantees for a greater tomorrow. Electrical autos might dramatically reduce carbon emissions within the transportation sector; linked automobiles will give us entry to services and features we don’t currently enjoy; over-the-air software program updates might remove excessive restore prices; and automated vehicles could make driving considerably safer.

But it surely’s value remembering that, on the finish of the day, automobile corporations are simply out to make a buck, not make the world a greater place.

This week, it was revealed that Ford applied for a patent on a system that may use linked automobile expertise to raised support in car repossession. Information of the patent’s publication was first reported by The Drive this week (which, within the curiosity of full disclosure, is a publication the place I beforehand served as editorial director), and it describes a wide range of procedures round repo-ing automobiles when funds are delinquent. 

These embody sending messages to the proprietor’s smartphone or the car itself, locking drivers out totally, disabling capabilities like air-con, geofencing drivers to solely function inside a sure time or set space to allow them to nonetheless get to work, and in a single particularly harrowing instance, enabling an autonomous automobile to simply drive itself to an impound lot — or a junkyard if the automobile’s market worth is decided to be beneath a sure threshold. 

Somebody at Ford put lots of thought into all of this. 

The patent doc describes dozens of how to remotely and electronically revolutionize all the repossession course of, together with liaising immediately with lending establishments and police. 

Presently, that course of is much more low-tech, but it surely’s nonetheless infamously predatory and missing in oversight. In states like California and New York, repossession can happen if an proprietor is even a number of weeks behind on funds, and collectors aren’t even required to inform drivers earlier than it occurs. 

An proprietor’s rights on this scenario depend upon what state they dwell in and what’s of their mortgage settlement. 

Whether or not automobile homeowners may even reinstate their loans by getting the stability present will depend on what’s of their mortgage settlement, and their proper to take action varies from state to state. If they can’t get their automobile again, it could possibly be swiftly bought at public sale. 

In recent times, there’s been a rise in the use of electronic transponders on cars financed via subprime loans. These gadgets put lower-income or bad-credit consumers liable to having their autos remotely disabled in the event that they’re behind on funds. 

Ford’s patent, nevertheless, takes this concept to a galaxy-brain degree, concocting a number of eventualities the place connected vehicle data and autonomy can be utilized to right away retrieve autos if homeowners slip up.

The knee-jerk response to all of that is “Make your automobile funds on time.” And that’s actually true, however no deep introspection is required to appreciate individuals fall behind on funds and different payments the entire time and for all types of causes. These embody sudden job loss, sudden medical prices, private emergencies, or dropping a associate or member of the family who was contributing to funds. No one desires to get their automobile repossessed, in spite of everything. 

However this Ford patent represents a type of nightmare state of affairs for the connected-car future, one the place the car — lengthy a logo of non-public freedom and still advertised as such — comes with much more exterior software-driven management over the place we go, what we do, and the way we do it. Simply as automakers need you to subscribe to options you once got upfront, like heated seats, or search restrictions on whether you have the right to repair your vehicle or not, the brand new period of automobiles will undoubtedly include an important deal extra strings hooked up. 

The repossession patent is very galling when you think about the state of the automobile market lately. 

Automobiles are dearer than ever, and persons are having a tougher time paying for them than ever, a development that was occurring even earlier than the pandemic put a provide chain crunch available on the market. By the tip of final yr, the common new automobile in America value a record-high $49,507, in keeping with Kelley Blue Book. This new crop of EVs — which might undoubtedly be the primary to characteristic such applied sciences — are much more costly at round $61,448 per car. 

Automakers have spent years pushing consumers into dearer vans, SUVs, and crossovers and eliminating smaller cars from their lineups in an effort to reap the benefits of these autos’ increased revenue margins. The consequence has been longer loan terms, an increase in adverse fairness “rolled over” from previous automobile loans, and extra complete automobile debt than ever. Simply this week, Fortune reported America is now seeing its highest “extreme delinquency” fee since 2006 as excessive rates of interest and skyrocketing costs put a squeeze on individuals’s budgets. Used car prices are even more out of whack. 

Lastly, automobile corporations could have taken the worst classes from the automobile shortages of the pandemic. The consequence has been circumstances like General Motors hitting pause on the manufacturing of its hottest vans to “keep optimum stock ranges,” leading to fears that offer could possibly be stored artificially low in an effort to keep sky-high costs. 

In different phrases, automakers and their sellers have spent years ramping up automobile costs or making the most of market situations. Now they’re arising with high-tech methods to hit homeowners again if they’ll’t pay up. 

Naturally, this isn’t the type of technology-related headline Ford desires. The automaker demurred in a press release printed in varied shops, saying it has no plan to deploy this technique. “We submit patents on new innovations as a traditional course of enterprise, however they aren’t essentially a sign of recent enterprise or product plans,” Ford mentioned in a press release. 

Even should you take Ford at face worth there, this type of factor completely might be accomplished. In a world the place automakers are actively preventing your means to repair your personal automobile, there’s no cause to imagine they’ve shoppers’ finest pursuits in thoughts the entire time. And whereas linked automobile expertise remains to be in its relative infancy, it’s only a matter of time earlier than these automobiles enter the used market or the tech spreads to cheaper autos. 

So once we take a look at how automobile expertise is advancing within the years to come back, it’s value drivers in all places asking this: Who’s all of this for, anyway? And is that this subsequent era of automobiles going to save lots of the planet and its individuals, or is it simply going to save lots of the auto trade?