The Expert Podcast

Hey, did any of you see this? Ford has filed for a patent, and I think they received the patent so they can have their cars repossess themselves. So if you do anything wrong—don't make your payments, don't pay your taxes, or maybe breach some other contract—the car can lock you out and just drive itself to the repo yard. You don't have to wait for a tow truck; you don't have to wait for a repo man. It's just going to drive it there.

It gets worse than that. The patent talks about a multi-step process. It starts out by disabling certain systems, like the heater, air conditioning, or radio, so you are inconvenienced. It may cause a certain level of discomfort to a driver or occupants, the patent says in the writing. In addition, it might make a continuous and annoying noise, a beep, a chime, or a radio station you can't turn off. Maybe you’re a little bit late on your payment. Maybe you forgot to put insurance on the car. Maybe you didn’t pay your taxes. This is going to be something that they could do remotely.

If you ignore that, the vehicle might disable its key fob, lock the door, and you can’t get into it. Then, it's going to drive itself to the repo yard. This is an example of artificial intelligence going crazy. It could take your vehicle away from you. What if somebody made a mistake? What if it's 95°F out, and it turns off your air conditioning, and you're stuck in your car? There are a lot of bad things that can happen from this.

I'm sure that you have some type of an opinion about this technology. It may not be here this year or next year, but they filed the patent. So maybe in five or six years, how is that going to change how we buy and own vehicles?