Missing a payment on a car loan is never fun. It involves a near-endless run of phone calls and letters while you try to sort out your finances, all the while worrying if the bailiffs will come to take the car away.
Systems and methods
Well, Ford might be about to remove the middle-man from that equation. According to a patent filing - rather unambiguously called "Systems and Methods to Repossess a Vehicle" - Ford is working on autonomous car tech whereby a car could effectively re-possess itself, driving itself back to the dealership if you miss too many payments.
Needless to say, that's kind of a nuclear option, so to speak. Miss one payment, for example, and you'll probably just get an annoying message on the dashboard reminding you of your fiduciary status.
Lock you out
Miss a few more payments, though, and this new tech could start to escalate things. Maybe it'll disable the air-conditioning until you pony-up. Or maybe it'll shut down the heated seats. Or stop you streaming Spotify as you drive. It's the unnerving, unpleasant flip-side to all those promises from car makers that the new 'digital services' era will be a boon for value and easy upgrades. According to Ford's patent submission, the car would be able to create "a certain level of discomfort" in the event of a default. It could even lock you out of your car at weekends and evenings (clearly, Ford still wants you to go to work so that you can afford to pay up. "Allowing the use of the vehicle during weekdays avoids adversely affecting the livelihood of the owner of the vehicle and hampering the owner's ability to make payments," says the filing).
Or the car could just disable the engine entirely. Or it could just drive itself away once it has scanned the area to ensure you've not parked it in a locked garage or installed a driveway post.
Future-proofing
Needless to say, this is all highly speculative. Fully autonomous tech is still a long way off from being on general sale. Ford has responded to media queries about its patent by saying: "We submit patents on new inventions as a normal course of business but they aren't necessarily an indication of new business or product plans. Patent filings protect and future-proof brand names, technology and other areas of commercial advantage - ahead of any production decision."
Still, though - it's a mildly chilling reminder that all this tech worship has a dark side. The machines can be programmed to act against us... *cue The Terminator theme on Spotify*