Ford applied for a patent on a system that could help banks recover their investment in case drivers stop paying for their vehicles. Since car payments are constantly rising, banks are worried that more and more car buyers are going to default on their loans or stop paying for their vehicles in the coming years. Traditionally, these situations were dealt with by the bank paying a towing company who would then pick the car up at the owner’s house or place of work, which often created confrontations and resulted in damage. In order to simplify the process, the patent applied for by Ford intends to have semi-autonomous vehicles drive themselves away from the owner’s premises and to a public location such as a parking lot or the side of a road before a tow truck can reach it. In the case of fully autonomous vehicles, the plan is to have them drive themselves directly to the repossession agency or the impound lot. Read original article here.
