Ford Applies for Patent to Let Cars Repossess Themselves

(Credit: Dan Dennis/Unsplash) Picture this: You’ve fallen on hard times, and you haven’t been able to make your last few car payments. When you step out of your home to head toward your car, you don’t see the fabled “repo man”; instead, you see your car back out of its parking spot and make its way down the street, never to be seen again. That’s the goal of Ford, which has applied for a patent involving an autonomous repossession method that would allow cars to drive themselves off of private property.

Ford filed the patent application with the US Trademark and Patent Office in the summer of 2021, but the document was only published last week as part of the review process. Titled “Systems and Methods to Repossess a Vehicle,” the application summarizes a system that would autonomize the repossession process. First, a computer (likely associated with a financing agency) would send a message to the purchaser or lessee of a vehicle informing them of their delinquency. This message would contain a request to confirm receipt.

If the purchaser or lessee doesn’t acknowledge receipt of the delinquency notice, Ford’s system would kick the vehicle into repo mode. This could entail any number of cutoff methods. Ford’s application says the system could disable individual functions, such as the vehicle’s air conditioner or radio. It could also place the vehicle in a “lockout condition” that could only be bypassed for medical emergencies. Although this exception was surely placed to avoid future legal ramifications, Ford writes that the vehicle’s cameras would need to capture a medical emergency in order to unlock, which surely creates more legal complexity than it solves.

(Credit: Jessy Smith/Unsplash)

Should these methods prove inefficient, Ford writes that its repo system could “autonomously move the vehicle from the premises of the owner to a location such as…the premises of the repossession agency, the premises of the lending institution, or an impound [lot].” In some cases, if the repo system’s computer determines the vehicle’s market value is exceptionally low, it would drive the vehicle to a junkyard instead.

If your head is already spinning with ways to stop Ford’s repo system in its tracks, Ford is one step ahead of you. The automaker’s patent application mentions that attempts to block repossession would be captured by the vehicle’s cameras and transmitted to local law enforcement.

Ford ends its application on what it likely believes to be an optimistic note, saying that resolving payment delinquency would cause the vehicle’s lockout condition to expire. From a consumer perspective, most of us—even those of us who are current on our car payments or don’t have to make payments at all—can only be optimistic that the technology won’t be implemented. When the Detroit Free Press reached out to Ford about whether it plans to use the system (if it’s patented at all), the automaker declined to comment.

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