(DailyDig.com) – The electric automobile industry and digital revolution offer a brighter future. Electric vehicles will drastically cut transportation industry carbon emissions, linked cars will provide new services and capabilities, WIFI software upgrades might remove expensive maintenance costs, and autonomous vehicles could make driving safer.
Yet, vehicle firms want to generate money, not improve the planet.
Ford is exploring a technology that would let a vehicle leave you if you stopped paying auto installments, according to a US Patent filing.
Last year, Ford received 1,342 patents. Ford’s 14-page application, full of ways to entice consumers to pay, may be patentable.
The application for the patent states that the method would be employed if drivers disregard car-related payment delinquency alerts delivered to their phones or automobile computers. Delinquent customers would get notifications on their cellphones and vehicle displays before the automobile drove itself away. These communications need acknowledgement or immediate payment.
The vehicle will then execute a number of processes if the owner ignores these notifications, according to Ford’s patent application. Cruise control, temperature control, and the radio may cease to work. If that fails, the car may become aggressively annoying. While the owner is in the car, the audio may play a constant, annoying sound. Only contacting the lender to resolve the payment default would silence the noise.
If not successful, the automobile would refuse to release its doors, making them inoperable. It gets difficult here. Work-related issues, grocery shopping, or medical emergencies are situations that would cause problems for Ford.
Only in severe cases of failure to make payments will the automobile get a WIFI instruction to leave its owner. If the automobile can’t completely drive itself in traffic, it may relocate to a position where a truck can easily tow it, such as the street’s edge.
But although Ford’s proposal for an automated repossessing vehicle may never be patented, other of the patent’s ideas, such as making horrific sounds if you don’t settle or allowing you to drive just one or two locations, may be.
If you don’t pay, it may be the automobile of the future.
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