A Ford patent would start disabling car functions if an owner misses payments and could eventually even drive it away to be repossessed.

… a Ford patent application titled “Systems and Methods to Repossess a Vehicle” was published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Feb. 23, although it was submitted to the agency Aug. 20, 2021.

The document describes using vehicles’ built-in data connections to remotely disable “a functionality of one or more components of the vehicle,” which would serve as warnings if the owner has missed car payments.

    • queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      6 hours ago

      Working on it. Part of the process is talking about it, refining ideas and building a coalition. It’s going to take the combined efforts of software nerds, hardware nerds, econ nerds, and policy / regulatory nerds to get something like this to succeed, and it’s going to take a sustained effort over years.

      It also requires the destruction or at least a severe diminishment of the current global technofascist oligopolarchy so it doesn’t get co-opted as a tool for the ruling class, so… yeah, it’ll take a while. But I think it’s worth doing.