With so many financial promos lowering the initial downpayment and interest percentages of brand-new vehicles, it can’t be helped that everyone in the Philippines is availing of these. There are quite a lot of merits to owning your own car, after all. However, not everyone can comfortably afford to keep these cars after a rainy day or economic hardship. The repo process can be quite arduous both for the owner and the brand who has to be the bearer of bad news, but it appears Ford is patenting new repossessed technologies for its cars. Here’s what they’ve come up with and a glimpse of the future of automobile ownership.
Firstly, future Ford vehicles will have consistent data connections with the network, mostly for improvements or upgrades to the vehicle. If you can update your car over the cloud the same way you could do with your smartphone, it could save you a lot of time and effort. Sadly, this can also be used against the owner if they fail to make payments on the vehicle.
According to the filed patent, the first sign of trouble comes through simple warnings on your in-vehicle displays. It’ll just remind you to submit your dues, just in case you forgot. It’s not severe at all and should be more than enough to remind our more forgetful drivers out there. Next up, certain vehicle features will cease to work one by one. Whether that’s in the form of “cruise control, automated window controls, automated seat controls, and some components of the infotainment system (radio, global positioning system (GPS), MP3 player, etc.),” these are what the brand considers to be “minor inconveniences.”
The following level is definitely more noticeable. It halts operation of “the air conditioning system, remote key fob, and (the) automated door lock/unlock system.” Also, an “incessant and unpleasant sound” may be turned on “every time the owner is present in the vehicle.” It will definitely appear that your vehicle is downgrading every time you see it, the longer you let these things pass by. It’s not the best thing to show your friends who ride along with you, essentially blurting out “my Ford one of those soon-to-be repossessed cars!”
Also, that would make you unbearably sweaty in the Philippine climate.
And finally, the car will self-lock to prevent the owner from ever getting in (except by breaking through). It’ll be parked for awhile, then it’ll self-drive to either a place where tow trucks can access it more easily, the lending facility it was purchased from, a Ford dealership, or the scrapyard if deemed appropriate.
There are definitely some questions that need to be answered like: “what if the car’s in a garage next to other vehicles,” “what if it doesn’t have gas,” or “is this even legal?” but we see this conceptual Ford repossessed cars method only to be possible once self-driving technology has matured by a lot more than it is now. Considering that they pulled the plug on their latest attempt, this may still be far into the future.
