The electrical and digital transformation of the automotive business comes with numerous guarantees for a greater tomorrow. Electrical autos may dramatically scale back carbon emissions within the transportation sector; linked automobiles will give us entry to providers and options we don’t at the moment get pleasure from; over-the-air software program updates may remove excessive restore prices; and automated autos could make driving considerably safer.

But it surely’s value remembering that, on the finish of the day, automotive corporations are simply out to make a buck, not make the world a greater place.

This week, it was revealed that Ford utilized for a patent on a system that may use linked automotive know-how to raised support in car repossession. Information of the patent’s publication was first reported by The Drive this week (which, within the curiosity of full disclosure, is a publication the place I beforehand served as editorial director), and it describes a wide range of procedures round repo-ing automobiles when funds are delinquent. 

These embody sending messages to the proprietor’s smartphone or the car itself, locking drivers out totally, disabling capabilities like air-con, geofencing drivers to solely function inside a sure time or set space to allow them to nonetheless get to work, and in a single particularly harrowing instance, enabling an autonomous automotive to simply drive itself to an impound lot — or a junkyard if the automotive’s market worth is decided to be under a sure threshold. 

Somebody at Ford put numerous thought into all of this. 

The patent doc describes dozens of the way to remotely and electronically revolutionize the whole repossession course of, together with liaising immediately with lending establishments and police. 

Presently, that course of is much more low-tech, however it’s nonetheless infamously predatory and missing in oversight. In states like California and New York, repossession can happen if an proprietor is even a number of weeks behind on funds, and collectors aren’t even required to inform drivers earlier than it occurs. 

An proprietor’s rights on this state of affairs rely on what state they reside in and what’s of their mortgage settlement. 

Whether or not automotive house owners may even reinstate their loans by getting the steadiness present will depend on what’s of their mortgage settlement, and their proper to take action varies from state to state. If they can not get their automotive again, it might be swiftly offered at public sale. 

In recent times, there’s been an increase in using digital transponders on automobiles financed by way of subprime loans. These units put lower-income or bad-credit consumers susceptible to having their autos remotely disabled in the event that they’re behind on funds. 

Ford’s patent, nonetheless, takes this concept to a galaxy-brain degree, concocting a number of eventualities the place linked car knowledge and autonomy can be utilized to instantly retrieve autos if house owners slip up.

The knee-jerk response to all of that is “Make your automotive funds on time.” And that’s actually true, however no deep introspection is required to appreciate folks fall behind on funds and different payments the entire time and for all kinds of causes. These embody sudden job loss, surprising medical prices, private emergencies, or dropping a companion or member of the family who was contributing to funds. No one desires to get their automotive repossessed, in spite of everything. 

However this Ford patent represents a sort of nightmare situation for the connected-car future, one the place the car — lengthy an emblem of non-public freedom and nonetheless marketed as such — comes with much more exterior software-driven management over the place we go, what we do, and the way we do it. Simply as automakers need you to subscribe to options you as soon as received upfront, like heated seats, or search restrictions on whether or not you’ve the suitable to restore your car or not, the brand new period of automobiles will undoubtedly include an ideal deal extra strings connected. 

The repossession patent is particularly galling when you think about the state of the automotive market lately. 

Vehicles are dearer than ever, and individuals are having a more durable time paying for them than ever, a pattern that was occurring even earlier than the pandemic put a provide chain crunch available on the market. By the top of final 12 months, the typical new automotive in America price a record-high $49,507, based on Kelley Blue Ebook. This new crop of EVs — which might undoubtedly be the primary to function such applied sciences — are much more costly at round $61,448 per car. 

Automakers have spent years pushing consumers into dearer vehicles, SUVs, and crossovers and eliminating smaller automobiles from their lineups with a purpose to make the most of these autos’ larger revenue margins. The outcome has been longer mortgage phrases, an increase in destructive fairness “rolled over” from previous automotive loans, and extra whole automotive debt than ever. Simply this week, Fortune reported America is now seeing its highest “extreme delinquency” fee since 2006 as excessive rates of interest and skyrocketing costs put a squeeze on folks’s budgets. Used automotive costs are much more out of whack. 

Lastly, automotive corporations could have taken the worst classes from the automotive shortages of the pandemic. The outcome has been circumstances like Normal Motors hitting pause on the manufacturing of its hottest vehicles to “keep optimum stock ranges,” resulting in fears that provide might be stored artificially low with a purpose to keep sky-high costs. 

In different phrases, automakers and their sellers have spent years ramping up automotive costs or making the most of market situations. Now they’re arising with high-tech methods to hit house owners again if they will’t pay up. 

Naturally, this isn’t the sort of technology-related headline Ford desires. The automaker demurred in an announcement printed in varied shops, saying it has no plan to deploy this method. “We submit patents on new innovations as a standard course of enterprise, however they aren’t essentially a sign of latest enterprise or product plans,” Ford stated in an announcement. 

Even should you take Ford at face worth there, this type of factor completely might be executed. In a world the place automakers are actively preventing your potential to repair your individual automotive, there’s no purpose to imagine they’ve shoppers’ greatest pursuits in thoughts the entire time. And whereas linked automotive know-how remains to be in its relative infancy, it is just a matter of time earlier than these automobiles enter the used market or the tech spreads to cheaper autos. 

So after we have a look at how automotive know-how is advancing within the years to come back, it’s value drivers in all places asking this: Who’s all of this for, anyway? And is that this subsequent technology of automobiles going to save lots of the planet and its folks, or is it simply going to save lots of the auto business?