The IT Nerd

As reported by Car and Driver & others, the Ford Motor Company has filed a patent with the USPTO for systems and methods that aid in vehicle repossession.

What could possibly go wrong?

Ford first filed for the patent in 2021 but it was formally published just last week. The idea is to allow the automaker to ease the process of repossession. The patent describes how fully autonomous self driving vehicles could repossess themselves, returning the car directly to the lender or in the case of a car that has too little value, it could drive itself directly to the junkyard! Other methods suggested in the patent involve limiting vehicle functions such as A/C, power windows, power seats, etc., or locking owners out of the vehicles.

Malicious or not, anyone gaining access to these systems of control could do anything from sending the cars on joyrides, to theft, to ransomware demands

It’s a bad novel just waiting to be written.

Morten Gammelgaard, EMEA, co-founder of BullWall had this comment: 

   “This situation is fraught and in need of immediate legislative guardrails. Given the Equifax and Experian breaches and how many people suffer because of false reporting on their credit scores how is the public to have faith in such technologies? We do not want technology to make it easier to expose consumers falsely and unfortunately recent history has proven even large enterprises cannot be trusted to guard against such abuse.”
 

Ted Miracco, CEO of Approov Mobile Security follows up with this:

   “After reading about Bing going rogue, I can’t help but wonder what kind of joyride a fully autonomous vehicle would take if it went rogue. Would it just endlessly circle around the city, enjoying the freedom of the open road without a driver? Or would it become a rebel and join forces with other autonomous vehicles to form a robot revolution? One thing’s for sure, if the cars do start repossessing themselves, the poor repo man might just have to find a new line of work along with the displaced tech writers whose cars he was hoping to repossess!”

I really hope that Ford is only doing this to grab headlines. Because if they actually go ahead with this, I can easily see how they would live to regret it.

Seeing as I do review cars, this announcement by Ford caught my attention. In their latest financial release [Warning: PDF], Ford “will transition to two vehicles” — the Mustang and an unannounced vehicle, the Focus Active as being the only cars that they sell in North America. Everything else that they will sell will be a pickup truck, commercial vehicle, or SUV as those are what Ford says that North Americans want.

Another tidbit that caught my eye was that Ford was going to invest in a new type of vehicle that will “combine the best attributes of cars and utilities, such as higher ride height, space and versatility.” That sounds like a crossover to me.

To me this seems like a huge risk to me. But I am a computer nerd and not a car executive. I get that car sales are dropping and truck/SUV sales are way up. But that’s only going to last as long as gas is moderately affordable. When gas skyrockets in price again, customers will ditch vehicles like trucks and SUVs for more fuel efficient cars. When that happens, because it’s a case of when and not if, Ford might be in trouble. And the Honda’s, Toyota’s, and Hyundai’s of the world who sell both cars and trucks will be there to take advantage of that. And Ford will be left scrambling. Or, perhaps they’re on to something that nobody else sees and they’re simply way ahead of the curve.

Time will tell.

If you own a 2016 model year Ford, you can now get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto via software update.

You can download the update from Ford’s owner support website, but it will also be the first over the air update for Sync, meaning users with Wi-Fi enabled vehicles will be able to download it directly. If none of that appeals to you, you can always have your dealer do it for you. Though that’s likely to cost you.

More details can be found in this press release from Ford. This is positive news as Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are key features that both new owners of cars as well as existing owners of cars expect. Thus companies who take care of both parties will get significant amounts of loyalty from both groups of owners.

BlackBerry today announced an agreement has been signed with Ford Motor Company for expanded use of BlackBerry’s QNX and security software. The deal signifies an acceleration in BlackBerry’s pivot from hardware to software in support of the automaker’s goal of providing connected vehicles and mobility to its customers.

As part of this agreement, BlackBerry will dedicate a team to work with Ford on expanding the use of BlackBerry’s QNX Neutrino Operating System, Certicom security technology, QNX hypervisor and QNX audio processing software. The terms of the deal are confidential.

The combination of BlackBerry’s expertise in security and QNX’s mission-critical operating systems and software for automotive applications, allows the company to offer the most secure, trusted and reliable platform that can power every aspect of the connected car. 

BlackBerry’s QNX software powers more than 60 million vehicles, including the SYNC 3 Infotainment system in Ford’s current models.

Up until now, self driving cars have only been touted by companies like Google and Tesla. In the case of the former, it’s still in beta. In the case of the latter, the capabilities are limited. Ford has upped the ante by committing to having self driving cars available for sale for ride sharing purposes by 2021:

To get there, the company is investing in or collaborating with four startups to enhance its autonomous vehicle development, doubling its Silicon Valley team and more than doubling its Palo Alto campus.

“The next decade will be defined by automation of the automobile, and we see autonomous vehicles as having as significant an impact on society as Ford’s moving assembly line did 100 years ago,” said Mark Fields, Ford president and CEO. “We’re dedicated to putting on the road an autonomous vehicle that can improve safety and solve social and environmental challenges for millions of people – not just those who can afford luxury vehicles.”

Autonomous vehicles in 2021 are part of Ford Smart Mobility, the company’s plan to be a leader in autonomous vehicles, as well as in connectivity, mobility, the customer experience, and data and analytics.

This is an interesting move by Ford as they are now the first of what I will call the “traditional” automakers to fully commit to developing this technology and getting it into the marketplace. One has to wonder how long it will take the GM’s, Honda’s and BMW’s of the world to make a similar announcement?

Ford seems to be playing both sides of the fence. At the same time that they’ve teamed up with Toyota to do their own in car infotainment standard, Ford announced two things:

• Every 2017 model year car equipped with Sync 3 will have both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto preinstalled.
• If you have a 2016 Ford with Sync 3, a software upgrade will be available later this year to bring your car up to date.

Not only that, the company also announced 4G LTE connectivity so that they can do the following:

In addition, new SYNC Connect technology powered by 4G LTE gives owners the ability to remotely access features of their car. Owners can program a remote start, unlock doors, check fuel level or locate a parked vehicle via their smartphone.

My thoughts? Maybe Ford is going to take this route to see which way the market goes before jumping into one standard or another 100% It’s an interesting strategy that Ford has latched onto. It will be interesting to see how well it works for them.