32 ms·

Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

• viggity 4y ago
  Ford (or any finance company) will presumably offer cheaper financing if they know that their repo costs are lowered by this functionality.
• mikece 4y ago
  Leave it to Ford to find even more and novel ways to make their customers walk.
• h2odragon 4y ago
  I've known a couple of possessed Fords. I think antique car restoration and modernization is going to be a great business to be in for the next 20yr or so. At least the demons in older cars can be propitiated with minor rituals like a fetish hung on the mirror or the occasional blood sacrifice. This shit is going to lead to hilarious scenes of cars flocking places because of a node.js bug. edit: i forsee "car leashes"; probably something in the nature of a parking boot so make sure the car stays immobile or becomes nonviable. And there's always the trick of jackstands and hiding the wheels at night.
• yardie 4y ago
  I was just joking about this with a friend, an engineer at Cruise. You don't pay and GM can tell the car to drive off. He laughed like it wasn't that far from the truth.
• newaccount2021 4y ago
  [dead]
• gwbas1c 4y ago
  Uhm, it seems like the auto industry is still letting its imagination run away with self driving cars. I don't see how a patent like this can be granted if we still generally don't have working self-driving cars. Even Tesla is getting forced to admit that "Full Self Driving" isn't really full self driving.
  • macinjosh 4y ago
    I am pretty sure that no one at the patent office cares if your invention works or not.
    • elil17 4y ago
      Not quite true. They will stop you from patenting a perpetual motion machine (typically by saying that you have not provided enough detail for someone to replicate your work).
      • mrguyorama 4y ago
        Except they can only do that if a patent clerk (who is usually not a physicist or engineer) can TELL it's a perpetual motion machine. After millions and millions of patents, there are bound to be a bunch that should not have been granted, even if those patent clerks are 99.9% good at their job
        • elil17 4y ago
          Patent examiners (the modern term for patent clerks) have at least a bachelors degree in a technical field relevant to the subject they review. That might be physics, engineer, chemistry, or something else. Examiners are assigned to specific art unit (e.g. an examiner with a degree in chemistry might be assigned to art unit 1710 and spend their entire career examining patents for chemicals involved in "Coating, Etching, Cleaning, and Single Crystal Growth"). I'm sure some things do get through on occasion, but examiners are most certainly subject matter experts.
          • mrguyorama 4y ago
            This is news to me! I'm very glad to hear this. Renews a bit of faith in the patent process.
          • manchmalscott 4y ago
            Patent examiners are being moved to a system where they are "automatically" assigned applications to review that may or may not have anything more than superficial in common. I've got a parent that's a patent examiner and they have been complaining loudly about the move because they often don't know much about what they're reviewing anymore.
• rglover 4y ago
  This is why buying as low-mileage a used car you can get from ~2010 or older is wise. Especially one with a keyed ignition vs. push start.
  • MSFT_Edging 4y ago
    It might be my conspiracy brain acting up but "multi-ton machine without manual override" sends all the red flashing lights and klaxons off in my head. Political assassination via cyber attack/backdoor? ezpz, find a tree, accelerate into it, claim it was the car acting up. Bug in the software? Sorry you're dying today because they wanted to repossess cars easier, your life is less important than protecting capital. We're in a world where deregulation has planes either falling out of the sky or attempting to. I don't trust any soft handed regulation on cars without manual overrides. My car has a push start, but also a manual transmission. I know if something goes wrong and my engine stops responding to the electric throttle I can just pop out of gear and coast.
    • KingLancelot 4y ago
      [dead]
    • A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
      Your thoughts are likely not very far fetched, but in this case, to the best of my knowledge, IC and LEOs seem to be more worried about stopping individual 'bad guys'( quotations, because I hate this term ) from causing damage with ICE machines hence solutions like mandated remote off switch and so on. On the political assassination front, wasn't there a story out about one such attempt or did I dream it?
      • MSFT_Edging 4y ago
        There was a suspicious "political staffer dies from freak single car accident" events shortly after the first Jeep Cherokee was remotely taken control of. That's what stuck with me. LEOs are also notoriously corrupt and difficult to keep tabs on. Imagine police harassment when they have the ability to remotely shut off your car.
• geocrasher 4y ago
  This isn't surprising at all. It's basically DRM for a physical object.
• RobotToaster 4y ago
  Great, now we're going to get country music about how some guy's truck left him.
  • jhoelzel 4y ago
    Take my angry upvote. "My truck done left me and my cellphone said I'm broke"
    • rootusrootus 4y ago
      FWIW, this was the number one comment yesterday on the Reddit thread about this.
      • knodi123 4y ago
        We can't keep reddit influence out entirely. But with heavy moderation, we can keep out the worst of it, and that will have to be good enough. If you liked my comment, please upvote and subscribe, and consider donating to my Patreon to have access to my future comments one day earlier.
        • the_only_law 4y ago
          I think you’ve confused Reddit and youtube
          • jiggawatts 4y ago
            I thought Reddit is the “Internet”? And YouTube is the television…
      • jader201 4y ago
        When I read the parent comment, I thought “Am I on Reddit?”. HN used to bury Reddit-like comments a while back, but it seems the Reddit influence is becoming more and more accepted on HN these days, as I’m starting to see them more at the top vs. the bottom of threads.
• bediger4000 4y ago
  This illustrates a problem with current penalties - they're too harsh if you have 100% exact enforcement. Violating auto speed limits is a good example. Society can't enforce speed limits 100% of the time if it relies on the occasional state trooper with a radar gun. Therefore society sets the penalty very high so that the small risk of a citation isn't worth the benefit of speeding. 100% enforcement should have much lower penalties. There are other problems with 100% strict enforcement, in that we don't even know what laws we have.
  • PaulHoule 4y ago
    My uncle got a job as a repo man and quit on the second day because somebody pointed a gun at him.
    • LinuxBender 4y ago
      Its awful that your uncle had to experience that. It's a dangerous job and I don't think they give the repo folks enough information. I recently had to run one of them off as the former property owners had renters that stopped making payments on their vehicle. The repo guy was highly aggressive and was yelling at my family members. I assumed he was just some nutjob and had no idea he was a repo guy aside from the fact he was driving a tow truck without any company logo. I assumed he was trying to steal my tractor since it's is an antique.
  • notch898a 4y ago
    Virtually every serious speeder I know runs laser jammers, radar detectors, and cell phone based monitoring and religiously is alert to the warnings. Short of aircraft enforcement (oh they monitor that too) it's about impossible to nab the most dedicated speeders, so most the tickets are going people like the soccer mom who went 10 over, etc. I feel like speeding enforcement is one of the biggest example of how these enforcement are designed as tax and not designed as population level risk mitigation.
    • bediger4000 4y ago
      Speeding was just a convenient example. Shoplifting would work just as well. So would jaywalking, or loitering or disturbing the peace. Penalties are set high because in the US they're enforced only irregularly. If the US moves to some kind of near universal enforcement, problems will occur because of that.
• KingLancelot 4y ago
  [dead]
• shahbaby 4y ago
  I think this is a sign of the times we live in. Innovation today seems to have shifted towards serving the owning class.
  • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    Shifted? When was it different?
    • hezralig 4y ago
      It is always amusing talking to Americans about the Luddite movement. So ,any seem to think they were anti-technology when in fact they were mostly artisans who embraced technology save for when the ownership class started to exploit their labor.
  • user3939382 4y ago
    And by replacing ownership with either de facto or de jure rental of any and all private property. I have a big enough philosophical objection to the concept where we don't actually own property and may only rent it from the government due to property taxes. Now we "own" phones we can't control, "own" cars that have features dis/en-abled over the air if you pay for them. Product managers are brimming with innovative features and benefits enabled by stripping ownership away from the public/consumers. It reminds me of the Black Mirror episode where you pay for your toothpaste $0.05 at a time from a dispenser in your home when you want some on your toothbrush.
    • e_i_pi_2 4y ago
      I can easily see the argument for owning personal property like a phone, but how can someone have a true ownership claim over land? For personal property there is a production chain with labor that went into the item, but for land it's just out there and at some point someone decided they should be able to restrict what other people do in some area. If you see that it's not legitimate for a government to do, then by the same logic it's not legitimate for an individual - a government is just a collection of individuals acting together
• ok123456 4y ago
  If you're behind on payments, just disconnect the negative battery terminal. Or, take out the fuel pump relay.
  • NickBusey 4y ago
    I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave.
• brk 4y ago
  I wish I had a pic of it, but in a building I once worked in, there was a Ford Model T with a brass plaque mounted in a visible location on the firewall that essentially said if you violate the patents or sell the car in an unauthorized way, the title reverts to being owned by FoMoCo. Doing an image search for "ford model t plaque" yields some examples.
  • eddieroger 4y ago
    It didn't immediately yield any for me, so here is one directly for the interested: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364109744022 https://www.ebay.com/itm/364109744022
• _fat_santa 4y ago
  Inset joke about loving my 12 year old 4runner that's the most basic car I've ever owned. But this isn't anything new. Buy here pay here places have been throwing ignition locks on cars for ages and shut off the ignition if you don't make payments. This would take it a step further, integrate it into the car, and add autonomous features to it.
• rootusrootus 4y ago
  The real story here is that Ford incentivizes employees to write patents (though I doubt very much this makes them particularly unique). Beyond that, the technology required to support this functionality is so far ahead of what's available today (or likely to be available anytime soon) that it's not worth a serious debate.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • sircastor 4y ago
    I used to work for an automotive OEM. I can confirm this. We got regular (yearly) reminders to submit patient ideas for concepts we’d come up with. There was a bonus incentive once the patent was awarded (maybe just submitted) It was something on the order of $500-1000 IIRC. Our lawyers were pragmatic about it. They were very clear that the concept should be novel and plausible, and were willing to offer guidance and help with the text of the parent. It was neat, and I wish I’d taken advantage of it.
    • toast0 4y ago
      Tech company patent programs I've worked with tend to offer that kind of money for a submitted patent application, and another amount if it's issued while you're there, plus a patent trinket (was patent cubes at one place, and patent idea lamps at another). The inventor would submit ideas to the patent staff, if selected, spend an hour or so describing it to staff who write the patent application; the inventor reviews and clarifies, etc a couple rounds, and then it's submitted.
• lasermike026 4y ago
  Yet another reason to ditch cars. The car is an engineering disaster and it's time has past. I know this will be a shock to some people.
  • nradov 4y ago
    The car is an engineering miracle. It's one of my most useful possessions and I'll never voluntarily give up the personal mobility that it enables.
    • lasermike026 4y ago
      Consider alternatives.
      • nradov 4y ago
        Ok, I've considered them. Now what?
        • lasermike026 4y ago
          Try one.
          • nradov 4y ago
            I have tried them, and still use them when practical.
  • bearmode 4y ago
    Lol, absolutely not. I just came back from a trip to a national park that simply would not have been doable without my car. My commute into work each day would be significantly harder without my car. I wouldn't be able to visit much of my family without my car. I can get into the nearest city and town just fine on public transport, and that's what I do. But public transport here is spoke-hub. If you want to go somewhere that is moderately far away from a hub, it becomes incredibly difficult (and expensive). If you live in a city, and you never leave that city other than to go to other cities, then you absolutely do not need a car. Most other people do.
• touisteur 4y ago
  Thus making payment even less likely... I used to be a big proponent of alcohol/drug test to prevent car starting, ideally I imagined the system would be with an absolute guarantee (mandated) the information stays local (just a hardware switch preventing ignition or startup). But I'm sad to say I don't believe in any more, so much abuse to mark people as 'tries to drive while under the influence' or making you pay higher insurance because you're often 0.5g instead of 0.3g. I really want people to be prevented to drive killing vehicles under the influence (yes even my e-cargo). I know it would bring so many other problems, such as cost, tampering, bad sensitivity, etc. It doesn't make sense to me that we don't crack down more on this specific act.
  • rootusrootus 4y ago
    The biggest problem with an ignition interlock device today is that they're extremely unreliable. As implemented they are also very intrusive. Granted, they are currently implemented only as part of a punitive measure, so that behavior is partly intentional, but it would be unacceptable for universal adoption. Probably be better to just make cars do realtime verification of license status before letting someone drive ... but that's only better by comparison; people who never drive drunk will bristle at the heavy regulation.
    • dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      >The biggest problem with an ignition interlock device today is that they're extremely unreliable. As implemented they are also very intrusive Money spent making the device not suck reduces profit. Nobody will care when you abuse your customers because your customers are convicted criminals. Pretty much every company selling stuff that people need to use to not violate the terms of their sentence is like this.
      • rootusrootus 4y ago
        > Money spent making the device not suck reduces profit. That may be true. But it's also possible that measuring blood alcohol with breath tests is never going to work consistently for all people. Breathalyzers are well known for widely variable results between people who have identical BAC.
• lmkg 4y ago
  Well if this is how the new cars are gonna be, I guess I'll just go ahead and teach myself to be a Car Guy so that the one I have now will run forever. It's not that I'm afraid of missing a payment. At this point I would probably buy the car outright. But after the robo-signing debacle with BoA repossesssing houses that they were never party to, the mere capability renders the machine fundamentally untrustworthy.
  • lapetitejort 4y ago
    Go one step further and become a Bicycle Guy. Consider what will still be operational 100 years from now once fossil fuels have dried up and we have fully transitioned into Life As A Service.
    • mywittyname 4y ago
      The problem with being a "Bicycle Guy" is that people like to run them over...
      • SoftTalker 4y ago
        Also not practical for many people.
      • ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
        Here on Long Island, we shmush cyclists for sport. https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a41119529/the-most-dangerous-road-for-cyclists-in-america/ https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a41119529/the-most-dangero...
      • lmm 4y ago
        The only way to stop a bad guy with an SUV is a good guy with an SUV. Or maybe enforcing laws against homicide, but I guess that's too hard.
        • giantrobot 4y ago
          > Or maybe enforcing laws against homicide, but I guess that's too hard. If only homicide was illegal, then no one would kill anyone else.
• bearmode 4y ago
  What if it's behind a locked gate?
  • anaganisk 4y ago
    Initiating VTOL sequence...
  • grugagag 4y ago
    If the car won’t start it’d be like a giant paperweight
  • mnd999 4y ago
    It’ll still do all the annoying things like disable the air con or make an annoying noise. The full self repossession thing is just another use case for full self drive, which is complete fantasy land on the part of automakers.
    • silisili 4y ago
      > It’ll still do all the annoying things like disable the air con or make an annoying noise. So, it will do what every Ford I've owned since the 80s will do...
    • mnd999 4y ago
      Actually it’s worse, it’s full self drive with an actively hostile adversary (the person that wants to keep their car). This is about as tough as it gets for AI.
• ilovetux 4y ago
  > The patent also outlines a potential to lock the vehicle out on weekends only so that the driver can still access a job and might be able to come through on those delinquent payments What if you usually work weekends which is common for a lot of the jobs people who are missing payments might be working? In that case you would be out of luck. You would also be out of luck if you are trying to get a side-gig or pick up a part time job on weekends to make ends meet. This is what happens when people who have no money troubles make decisions in a board room. Completely out of touch.
  • spacephysics 4y ago
    I think this misses the forest for the trees. This technology in any car should be a violation of our rights. A corporation dictates when to access the vehicle remotely? It’ll start with justifiable use cases. In a not too distant future, imagine something like: * can’t access car during peak CO2 emission times because you got the cheaper monthly rate that uses a green subsidy to pay for the cheaper rate * your incorrectly a suspect of a petty crime, your car is now inaccessible because Ford doesn’t want liability if you do something bad with their car (despite you cooperating with law enforcement) * you’ve been categorized as spreading hate speech/misinformation/disinformation and that breaks our terms of service I could go on, but you get the point.
    • ilovetux 4y ago
      I do get your point, and I agree. My thought process was that the inherent evils were already being discussed, so I figured I would point out something that I saw in the article which I thought was interesting but not already being discussed.
      • spacephysics 4y ago
        Ah I see your point, I agree
    • TheCondor 4y ago
      >> * can’t access car during peak CO2 emission times because you got the cheaper monthly rate that uses a green subsidy to pay for the cheaper rate This sounds like a feature that opens up a new avenue of potential financial engineering. If your car could enforce that it was in 'green mode' or didn't drive at certain times and you could get a subsidy or tax break for it, that might potentially be a good incentive to encourage more environmental friendly lifestyles and practices. That doesn't seem like a bad thing to me, I might not want to buy that feature but it allows for some interesting possibilities. The buyer would have to agree to some stuff at the time of purchase (or lease as it sounds like it would be) to enable this. We should be mindful of potential unintended consequences of these things. There are some good frameworks in place though, despite what you're second point suggests, Ford has relatively limited liability in the case that their car is driven by a bad actor (cooperating the the police or not) the second that car starts driving on its own, for whatever reason, Ford has some liability. I remember my grandfather being relatively upset at the idea of GM knowing his GPS coordinates when his Cadillac had onstar. Now there have been hundreds or even thousands of cases when OnStar has had a positive outcome on peoples lives after a crash or something, including times they've reported it before anyone else. His tune changed dramatically one time they remotely unlocked his car and remotely started it so he could get home when his fishing boat turned over and his car keys were at the bottom of a lake though.
• motohagiography 4y ago
  I work in security and anti-fraud is the use case of last resort for terrible ideas. When you finance a car, the vehicle becomes collateral for a loan, but it belongs to you. A technology like this means that the vehicle still belongs to Ford, which means if something goes wrong with it, or if you get sciatica from their shitty seats, you can class action sue them into oblivion. The reason we have laws is so that people have recourse to principle, whereas when you implement something like this in hardware (a car), it's dystopian vigilantism. I realize the largest future growth market for cars is in countries without reliable legal systems, and whose evolving governments will not hamper themselves the way the US did by guaranteeing individual freedoms, but this is why discourse about tech is important, as for every innovation, there's 100 scumbags like this inventor looking to leverage it to exploit people.
  • lukevp 4y ago
    Surely they would do this for leases instead of sales? Why would Ford want to do this for sales anyway, in the case of a sale, the financing company pays ford in full. The only exception would be if ford financed the car with its own financing arm. Incentives could be aligned to make leasing the preferred option for most people who are likely to miss payments then. Also I’m not sure you’re correct about the ownership and the lawsuits. Sure you can sue anyone for anything but why would this be any different from me leasing a car from ford and the same thing happening? That doesn’t seem to have been an issue for automakers so far… For the record, this sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me. I’m not in favor of the concept.
    • toast0 4y ago
      > Why would Ford want to do this for sales anyway, in the case of a sale, the financing company pays ford in full. The only exception would be if ford financed the car with its own financing arm. Ford has a huge financing arm. And it will probably get bigger as interest rates rise, because they have more room to offer lower than market interest rates as a hidden discount without dropping the purchase price.
      • 4y ago
• at_a_remove 4y ago
  More rent-seeking, more of the "you will own nothing and like it."
• Bostonian 4y ago
  Well-off people can buy or rent cars without difficulty. Increasing the security of cars as collateral will reduce the credit risk of car loans and therefore the car loan interest rates charged to borrowers with low credit scores.
• hd95489 4y ago
  I hope they defend it with a vengeance so nobody can copy it
  • rkangel 4y ago
    Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see this as particularly evil. It's just a more efficient of what already happens in terms of care repossession. What needs to happen is better consumer protection to prevent americans buying cars on finance that they are never going to be able to afford.
    • sokoloff 4y ago
      Exactly (on both sides). We should help people to find and choose cars they can afford. And, when someone does not pay as agreed to a significant degree, the more efficient that a repossession can happen, the better a deal can be offered to borrowers who do pay as agreed.
      • trelane 4y ago
        > Exactly (on both sides). We should help people to find and choose cars they can afford. I'd personally much prefer to make public transit that is so good that everyone uses it.
        • macinjosh 4y ago
          No such thing exists.
        • sokoloff 4y ago
          Sure. Make better public transit and many people will choose the null car.
      • PaulHoule 4y ago
        In the 1970s my dad found that American car dealerships had no interest in selling small and economical cars at all. Japanese car dealerships have been this way recently, before the pandemic hit we tried to buy a new Honda Fit and had to buy a used one because they had none in inventory because, allegedly, the factory had washed away in a flood but they had a row of 50 CR-Vs made in the same factory. The dealer tried to push us into one of those. The automotive press uncritically reports that American consumers are crazy about huge vehicles but what I've observed is that dealers are crazy about selling huge vehicles. Before the pandemic you would frequently see small cars were selling out as fast they arrived on the lot but dealers would have a sea of huge and expensive vehicles and be offering $8000 or so in incentives to sell them. If small vehicles were really unpopular it would be the other way around. There are rumors that Toyota and Honda would love to kill the Corolla and Civic but the quality of those vehicles is so legendary and the attachment of owners is so fanatical that they know people aren't going to "trade up" but will be paying new car prices for high mileage vehicles.
• andrewfromx 4y ago
  There was an episode of Knight Rider where Kitt turned evil and did this to Michael!
  • 7speter 4y ago
    Theres the episode of Star Trek TNG where data takes control of the enterprise because his father/maker activated a program to return to him.
• CarlosLeclerc 4y ago
  [dead]
• wkjagt 4y ago
  I just had an idea: how about a car that makes you stop by the side of the road to watch 2 minutes of ads before being able to continue. And for a certain amount you can unlock adless travel.
  • grugagag 4y ago
    From the dystopic universe of adTech…
  • VLM 4y ago
    Park in front of the billboard until you read the ad text out loud, or pay the toll.
• blueflow 4y ago
  In 10 years there will be love songs about your car leaving you.
  • adoxyz 4y ago
    Why wait 10 years, when you've got ChatGPT. Verse 1: I bought a brand new truck, shiny and so smart It had all the latest gadgets, it was a work of art But I got behind on payments, my bills just piled high And one day I woke up, to a big surprise Chorus: My smart truck repossessed itself, it had a mind of its own It drove away into the sunset, left me all alone I should have paid my bills on time, kept up with the loan But now my smart truck's gone, and I'm all alone Verse 2: I searched high and low, for my smart truck so true But it was nowhere to be found, no matter what I do It had GPS and sensors, it knew just where to go Back to the dealership, where it could be sold Chorus: My smart truck repossessed itself, it had a mind of its own It drove away into the sunset, left me all alone I should have paid my bills on time, kept up with the loan But now my smart truck's gone, and I'm all alone Bridge: I guess I learned my lesson, to pay my debts on time But it still hurts so bad, to see my truck's tail lights shine I'll never forget the day, my smart truck drove away And I'll always regret, the price I had to pay Chorus: My smart truck repossessed itself, it had a mind of its own It drove away into the sunset, left me all alone I should have paid my bills on time, kept up with the loan But now my smart truck's gone, and I'm all alone Outro: So if you're thinking of buying, a smart truck of your own Make sure you pay your bills on time, and keep up with the loan Or you might end up like me, with a broken heart and soul Watching your smart truck drive away, leaving you alone.
    • oynqr 4y ago
      Damn, makes me want to break out the ol' acoustic guitar and I don't even play any instrument.
  • iLoveOncall 4y ago
    In 10 years you won't be able to buy a car anymore.
    • 4y ago
• Finnucane 4y ago
  Will it follow the repo code?
• is_true 4y ago
  How ironic considering how much Ford avoids doing recalls
• igetspam 4y ago
  Engineer Patents Vehicle Anti-Theft Device That Spikes Tires if Code Not Entered Before Moving
• hexo 4y ago
  Thanks and this needs to be immediately banned by regulators.
• mauvehaus 4y ago
  I feel like in order to patent a thing, you should need have to have a credible implementation of the thing being patented. An implementation of this clearly requires at least level 4 autonomy[0], which AFAIK, nobody has demonstrated. This is only slightly closer to a real-world implementation than a patent for asteroid mining, never mind commercial viability. Mind you, I don't consider that a bad thing; this is pretty dystopian, but still. [0] https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update
  • Gorbzel 4y ago
    > I feel like in order to patent a thing, you should need have to have a credible implementation of the thing being patented. Reduction to practice is absolutely a requirement of patent law in the US.
    • mauvehaus 4y ago
      That seems at odds with TFA itself, which claims "Ford itself recently announced that it was giving up on its goal of developing full self-driving technology, at a cost of $2.7 billion." Perhaps the standard for "reduction to practice [0]" is a little looser than I'm imagining. I can't even see how this would be covered by sufficiency of disclosure[1] since the apparent non-existence of level 4 or 5 autonomy suggests that no person skilled in the art[2] yet exists. If it isn't obvious at this juncture: IANAL. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_to_practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_to_practice [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufficiency_of_disclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufficiency_of_disclosure [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_having_ordinary_skill_in_the_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_having_ordinary_skill_i...
    • lolinder 4y ago
      Yes, but it doesn't mean you have to actually have built anything or even be able to build anything. The filing of the patent application is considered a constructive reduction to practice: > Reduction to practice may be an actual reduction or a constructive reduction to practice which occurs when a patent application on the claimed invention is filed. The filing of a patent application serves as conception and constructive reduction to practice of the subject matter described in the application. Thus the inventor need not provide evidence of either conception or actual reduction to practice when relying on the content of the patent application. https://mpep.uspto.gov/RDMS/MPEP/e8r9#/e8r9/d0e207753.html https://mpep.uspto.gov/RDMS/MPEP/e8r9#/e8r9/d0e207753.html
• darod 4y ago
  Didn't Tesla have one of their cars drive out of a garage so it could get repo'd. I don't see how you can patent "a car driving itself to get repossessed". After you patent autonomous driving why does the location it drives to matter whether showroom or scrap yard?
• tabtab 4y ago
  It's partially here already: my Ford breaks down when I skip a payment. Then again, it breaks down when I pay also.
• teeray 4y ago
  Would be interesting case if the repairs to the garage would be more than the value of the car (which may also be totaled).
  • jaywalk 4y ago
    The car I have today has the sensors to manage not driving through a closed garage door. That's the easiest part of this.
• bobleeswagger 4y ago
  Violently capitalist car.
• m0llusk 4y ago
  This seems like nothing but a bunch of existing technologies. Checking account status is not new, updating product software or behavior settings based on account status is not new, automatic driving is not new. Is there really anything new here?
• amrb 4y ago
  I could see this getting hacked with everyone waking up to all the cars driving to the beach!
• unyttigfjelltol 4y ago
  How is this new, novel and non-obvious? Do we just give a sticky gold star to the Ford lawyer who pushed through an obviously defective application, and move on?
• jzymbaluk 4y ago
  How to guarantee I never buy a Ford again in one easy step
• barney54 4y ago
  Great! The average new car in the US costs $50k, but Ford decides to patent a way to help repo these overly expensive cars instead of making cars less expensive.
• intrasight 4y ago
  Repo man is always inside
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• vlucas 4y ago
  Another reason to own a manual :)
• zamalek 4y ago
  I can just imagine the chaos caused by 100s of thousands of cars simultaneously re-possessing themselves due to a bug. And the inevitable victims, that are up to date on their payments, without access to their car in an emergency due to a bug.
• ffgh 4y ago
  Having worked in the repossession industry I can tell you it's a messy one. It's become such a sh*t show between vendors and the actual agents/companies, it's a fight to who can bid the lowest for each car. Also I'm not sure how this will work, there is so much regulation in the repossession industry.
• thesimp 4y ago
  As a current Ford Mustang Mach E owner I laugh about stories like this. The Mach E had so many TSBs, recalls, software updates, attempted software updates, updates that _bricked_ the update ECU (the APIM module) that I have no worry what so ever that this will ever work reliably in this decade.
• pulse7 4y ago
  <sarcasm>I would really like to buy such car!</sarcasm>
  • CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    As if you'd "buy" such a car. I imagine Ford would love getting rid of the idea of car ownership in exchange for years-long rentals, as long as you keep paying them for the privilege.
• VLM 4y ago
  It'll be a net profit loss because its expensive to implement, the lawsuits when it kidnaps children in car seats and whatever will be expensive. But we will be stuck with it anyway, because of risk aversion. Any car that could have been repo'd at the click of a mouse but doesn't have the functionality will result in explaining to the boss why shareholder value was wasted in that individual situation. It doesn't matter that the project overall will be a net financial loss, just need to avoid that awkward convo with the boss for that one incident. So we'll all eventually be stuck with this, and we'll all be poorer because of it. But at least risk will be lower and no one will have their feelings hurt at work.
• boh 4y ago
  This article is over-dramatizing what is essentially just a patent document. Companies often write patents for ideas they will likely never execute. It's easy/cheap for them to write, and on the off chance a competitor ever implements it, they can sue. It would be very unlikely any car company would have this "feature". It's just a litigation nightmare waiting to happen.
• AlbertCory 4y ago
  True story: my neighbor's lease payment was under, by a dollar or two, no more. An error in his banking practices, I guess. They came and repossessed it in the middle of the night. He offered to pay, and they wouldn't take a credit card, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, wire transfer, or any other modern form of payment. No, he had to go to Western Union. Someone who's more up on this sort of stuff can explain that. A week later I drove him to the parking lot where they take repossessed cars. I waited until he signaled that all was OK.
  • gs17 4y ago
    Who was he offering to pay to? The repo guys? Western Union just makes it sound like a scam.
    • AlbertCory 4y ago
      I guess the company that held his car loan. It was not a scam, I know that.
  • jpk2f2 4y ago
    Neighbor got scammed.
    • AlbertCory 4y ago
      I don't think so. Aside from the shadiness of it: he called the car loan company and they owned up to repo'ing it. He did in fact pay too little on his monthly payment. So how would a scam work? (I don't know if he called the police or not, or what they would do in a case like this. Probably say, "Yep, sounds legit" and that would be the end of it.) see above comment. Not a scam.
      • anigbrowl 4y ago
        How much was the underpayment (I know you said a dollar or two, but I presume this had gone on for a while?). It's odd to me that they repo'ed rather than contacting him to say 'hey, there's a problem with your account.' I find the story wholly believable, a lot of people who work in payments seem to be stupid and/or stubborn, and it might be the industry selects for those traits.
• GulpGulp 4y ago
  Car boots are going to have a whole new market
• IncRnd 4y ago
  At first I thought that this is a really odd business differentiator. Then I realized this is meant for lenders. Ford has a credit and leasing company, which might be the actual target of this. The rest is superfluous.
• mysterydip 4y ago
  I'm sure they'll put a very robust algorithm in place to ensure no wrongful repossessions will happen. I'm also sure that, if they ever somehow did, there will be a very accessible customer service system that will be able to resolve the issue.
• elashri 4y ago
  And who will be liable in case if the car makes an accident while in the reprocess process?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • klyrs 4y ago
    And who owns the brick of <s><s>weed</s>heroin</s> fentanyl in the wheel well?
• SN76477 4y ago
  This isn't the future anyone wanted.
• nonethewiser 4y ago
  People don't seem to fully grasp what not driving your car means. If you're not driving, you're not in control of where it goes. That sounds redundant yet people dont seem cognizant of the 2nd phrasing. You dont control the car, you make requests of it. It can say no. Looking very far into the future, it's not hard to imagine that all cars are self driving by default with some highly-regulated exception, for purposes of safety, anti-terrorism, lobbying, etc. If that's the case central management seems like the next logical step. Citing reasons such as traffic flow, anti-terrorism, environmental management, disaster relief, anti-terrorism, etc.
  • e_i_pi_2 4y ago
    Aren't you already not in control of where you go on foot? We have plenty of restricted areas for everything from anti-terrorism, govt buildings, and private property. There's even private roads for driving - this doesn't really change the laws it just makes enforcement easier. My hope is that we can automate enforcement of stuff like speeding tickets, and then people would get upset and we'd either raise the speed limit, lower the ticket price, or agree that it's not safe to drive that fast (or in that area)
    • nonethewiser 4y ago
      If that’s “not in control of where you go” then it is an entirely different sense. By that reasoning our movement is out of our control because we are physically incapable of walking away into the sky. And because it’s neither physically possible nor allowed to drive everywhere. The analog to what I’m saying would be something like disabling your legs and asking for permission to walk on a public sidewalk.
      • e_i_pi_2 4y ago
        A car isn't analogous to legs though, that would be the closest analogy with respect to the rights we have. You're always allowed to lose a license, nobody has any right to drive a car, so the concern is where you're allowed to go _given_ your mode of transportation - and any mode can be restricted based on current laws You can lose your license and not be allowed to drive anywhere, but you can still walk around - that's the whole rights VS privilege thing
• ck2 4y ago
  Cars is one thing, the real problem is going to be when corporations own all the houses and rentals and they get politicians to automate and streamline the eviction process to just a month and it auto-locks you out so they can get a new waiting-list tenant. Go on, tell me that's not going to happen by the end of the decade at this rate.
• pilarphosol 4y ago
  [flagged]
• CmdrLoskene 4y ago
  BUD: "I can't leave her car in this bad area. Look I need some helpful soul to drive it for me, okay? She's pregnant. She's with twins. She could drop at any time. All right?" AUTO: "Ok."
• EGreg 4y ago
  This is like talking about "de"Platforming... why doesn't anyone talk about how these people GOT their platform and why people kept giving them a platform? Capitalism. "re"Possess? How about talking about Possessing in the first place? Why do we have so much "garbage" parked on our streets, namely cars that are owned but not used? Just like the American Dream of owning a home (and working 30 years to pay the money you rented to do that), or De Beers diamonds, or College, or whatever, there is a concerted effort to make you crave that thing and make that big-ticket purchase. Mainly to give into all the social pressure mechanisms. The car manufacturer industry relies on this kind of stuff -- to sell more cars. And sometimes they dial it to an 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 And the fossil fuel industry had relied for decades on colluding with them to make sure cars are locked into one type of fuel (fossil fuels). All your other appliances have long ago been able to take electricity -- so they can be powered by hydro, geothermal, solar, wind, nuclear fission, and even fusion as soon as it's enabled. But not cars, no. And government of course worked hand-in-hand with industry to subsidize fossil fuels and delay electric cars and battery tech: https://vimeo.com/547118547 https://vimeo.com/547118547 The only people that this article would alarm are those who believe they want to own a self-driving car. Most people would just time-share them, and self-driving cars would be operated by Uber (another hyper-capitalist company that currently takes 50% of all drivers' wages, but soon the robots will replace them so it won't be an issue). And we would finally have less parked cars on the streets, open more lanes, and the cities can become more beautiful.
• mirpetri 4y ago
  Time to buy Lada stupid LADA.
• rmason 4y ago
  Any system that can be built or imagined will be hacked. Something as simple as pulling a fuse that would take down the vehicles Internet might be all that is needed to prevent this from happening. I don't think the repo men will be out of a job anytime soon.
• gibsonf1 4y ago
  Except for the subtle fact that autonomous driving doesn't work with current ml/dl technology, so really not an issue at all at the moment.
• anigbrowl 4y ago
  Regardless of the legal mechanics of leases and ownership, as soon as this capability exists it will become the target of ransomware, pranks, and law enforcement (who will 'ask' to activate the car's self-driving capability for just long enough to perform a search. Sure, there was no consent, but you didn't pick up the phone in time.)
• wepple 4y ago
  Time for jail breaking cars to become a real and popular thing!
• realworldperson 4y ago
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• HomeDeLaPot 4y ago
  The problem with this isn't the idea of a car repossessing itself per se, because repossession is already a legitimate thing; it's the idea that your car can be remotely controlled by anyone other than you. There are already so many things that can go wrong. I don't want to buy a car that can be remotely disabled because I drove near a protest, or because there was a "clerical error" at Ford, or because my payment didn't go through, or because of a spotty connection or a software bug or a hacker! I'm also not sure I want to drive a car that collects and uploads analytics to my insurance company. (Although maybe it would be interesting as an opt-in system with a hardware kill switch that saves you boatloads of money if you don't drive like an a-hole...) I'm pretty happy with the old, non-Internet-connected car that I drive. My phone already has all the smarts that my car needs for navigation and playing media and stuff. And from backup cameras to safer lane changing to full self driving, I can't think of a feature that I'd want to be built into the car and Internet-connected except for remote start (not sure I'd use it) or full-on "tell my car to drive somewhere without me."
  • magic_hamster 4y ago
    Brace yourself then, because the future of automotive is highly connected, and in many ways it already is. Every car since the early 2000s has computerized components that control everything from power steering to infotainment systems, and your car probably already communicates with some servers using a built in cellular sim. Hackers have been able to compromise cars for at least a couple of decades, and while car manufacturers are getting better at securing their products, they are all pushing hard for further connectivity. This means apps and subscriptions for your car, new protocols that lets cars exchange information, and a huge reliance on cloud. Source: first hand sources working in well known automotive corporations.
    • giobox 4y ago
      Every new Ford on sale today in the US, from the cheapest Maverick to the most expensive F150 configuration, now has remote monitoring and access via 5G as standard - it's needed if nothing else to offer the apps to remote start and unlock the car that consumers just expect now. Its generally the same industry wide. > https://www.ford.com/support/category/fordpass/ https://www.ford.com/support/category/fordpass/
• cat_plus_plus 4y ago
  So I guess we can look forward to world's first trillion dollar lawsuit when one of those backs up from a driveway to drive itself to junkard and kills a kid.
• TuringNYC 4y ago
  Just read up on the "Robo-signing Scandal" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_foreclosure_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_foreclosure...) and you quickly see why this is a really bad idea. TLDR: bank has systems issues, thinks you are in default due to bugs, systems "robosign" legal documents saying you are in default, repo home, kick you out, swear to courts it is true, and basically get away with a slap on the wrist
  • throwaheyy 4y ago
    Also similar, “Robodebt” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robodebt_scheme
• rconti 4y ago
  In college, a roommate of mine was double-parked, or parked in a fire zone, or something, in our 8-house cul-de-sac. He ran upstairs to get something from his room, and a tow truck appeared (this all happened in well under 5 minutes). When he came out, he argued with the tow truck guys a bunch, but they kept hooking up his car and arguing back and couldn't be reasoned with, etc etc. My friend sat on the hood to keep them from towing it. The tow truck operators threatened to call the cops, so my friend called the cops instead. Before the police showed up, an SUV showed up with some tow truck heavies with, no doubt, plenty of illegal weapons on them, just to spectate and make sure things went the way they wanted. Once the police showed up, the story changed a bit, and all of a sudden he could get his car unhooked for a "drop fee" that was 2x the minimum tow cost, I believe (memory hazy here). It was the law in Santa Clara County, but of course, the tow truck operators weren't going to volunteer this information. Lesson learned. If someone's about hooking up your car, get in your car and drive away, unless it's in the air already. Don't even talk to the thugs.
  • eduction 4y ago
    Maybe a better lesson than “confront / physically endanger the tow truck driver who is doing his job” is “don’t block traffic in an 8 house cul de sac because you wanted to get something from your room but didn’t want to actually bother finding parking.” This all reads like entitled driver behavior to me. Or dumb college antics that are best left behind. -former car owner
    • mjfl 4y ago
      > don’t block traffic in an 8 house cul de sac Isn't the whole point of a cul de sac that there isn't much traffic through it? Doesn't the cul de sac itself block traffic?
    • notyourwork 4y ago
      The amount of mental gymnastics I hear from people who illegally park or obstruct society for their own selfish reasons is beyond me. There are places to park, there are places to not park, they don't have an overlap.
• 752963e64 4y ago
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• wolongong942 4y ago
  I'm wondering if this article is aimed at boomers? nobody i know that is slightly tech-literate believes that autonomous self-driving will be a thing anymore, at least they haven't since ~2018.
• coding123 4y ago
  If it kills someone on the way to repossession, is the owner at fault for not paying?
• version_five 4y ago
  This is like automatic speed enforcement: the current laws and limits are set up with the understanding that people break them, and that it's not really a big deal. If you want to change that so that they become unbreakable, all the benefit can't accrue to one side. There needs to be a rational compromise. In the case of speed limits, it means having adult ones like in europe. In this case it would mean making the car cheaper (which is obviously way more nebulous). I don't really see a first order problem, I'd pay more to have a car that doesnt allow third party control. The problem is when industry crowds out alternatives so we're all stuck with this, as we already are with all the over computerized crap that goes into cars
  • Galacta7 4y ago
    I possibly could see a free market compromise existing. Perhaps one where automakers charge a higher base price for vehicles without the ability to repossess themselves. Or where one's insurance premium goes up if you opt-out of this feature, since it's likely you'd also miss an insurance payment as well. I could see people going with the default save money, but for those who are worried about their car driving off, paying extra to have the feature turned off might be worthwhile.
• gerdesj 4y ago
  My company's premises overlook a roundabout that is part of of a virtual crossroads - the A37 and A30, as well as several other routes: It's called Five Ways, there are four obvious ways these days, the other one becomes apparent when you look at a map and history. Also, we are surrounded by residential housing, a cemetary, and a college. I deployed Home Assistant as a building monitor and stuff a few years back. HA gains new super powers with each release. I let it listen to the airwaves and when the funky new Bluetooth stuff came online, it now sees a lot more stuff. We also have a couple of Unifi APs. So HA can listen to 2.4 and 5GHz, we have Zwave and Zigbee dongles in it and Bluetooth. It notices every car that goes past on two major single carriageways, when they advertise themselves. The roads are classified at around 30,000 cars per day each. Also I see several toothbrushes (Oral B+) and a lot of lights ... a lot of lights. I've already started having a chat with my neighbours about IoT. Cars are a bit of a worry ...
• gregshap 4y ago
  It's disheartening that generic concepts like these are considered patentable. Even without the dystopian features this is hardly an invention that merits protecting with a 20 year government enforced monopoly. This particular application is still pending but presumably Ford's patent attorneys considered it attainable.
• nunez 4y ago
  Ha! This trope started with Tesla, though that threat is much more credible given where FSD is at. (By "much more credible," I mean "more theoretically possible, but not very likely to happen"). I guess Ford should feel flattered that they are being compared to Tesla like this!
• 71a54xd 4y ago
  Wow, the future is going to suck.
• windex 4y ago
  Looks like every company wants to extract rent, from software to cars, ownership is going away. Time to claw back.
• cpeterso 4y ago
  I hope the repossession function verifies there is no human or animal is in the car when it drives away! Though people could then keep a fake baby in the backseat to prevent their car from repossessing itself.
• sogen 4y ago
  This brings to mind Philip K. Dick’s book Ubik, the scene where the apartment door (which btw has a personality) won’t open due to lack of payment
• eddhead 4y ago
  If the cars can drive themselves around, does anyone really need to own them?
• Scea91 4y ago
  I would remain calm, this is just a patent. I would not be surprised if it surfaced from some internal patent-storming event with no intention from the company to actually pursue it. Such patents are among few other things useful for the company to convince investors that it innovates: "Look we have 100 patents in this area in the past year".
• plaguepilled 4y ago
  This is a great argument for improved public transport.
• iosono88 4y ago
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