Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for a non-reputable vehicle change history system that could be used in future Ford vehicles, Ford Authority has learned.
The patent was filed on April 11th, 2022, published on October 12th, 2023, and assigned serial number 0327882.
The Ford Authority Take
Over the past few years, hacking concerns and stricter emissions regulations have partnered up to make it more and more difficult to tune or otherwise modify new vehicles. In fact, the state of California began checking for tunes as part of its smog checks a couple of years ago, and while such modifications remain incredibly popular, vehicles like the all-new 2024 Ford Mustang are proving to be quite difficult to crack in that regard, at least without manufacturer support. It certainly seems as if there may come a time in the future when tuning a car is quite simply impossible, and this newly filed patent is further proof that future Ford vehicles may be far more difficult to tune, at the very least.
As this patent notes, modern vehicles and their complex software systems have made them more vulnerable to hacking, which necessitates strong security measures to prevent that from happening. In that sense, this patent – officially called the non-refutable vehicle change history system – aims to track component configuration using a central gateway, multiple ECUs, and vehicle buses, all of which would communicate with each other as software updates are applied.
The kicker here is that these software updates would be authenticated by the central gateway using a certificate method prior to their installation, and can only be applied if they in fact meet those requirements. The system would also keep track of any updates that are performed on the vehicle, as well as who did them – saving this information in a module that could be authenticated for forensic purposes. With many states adopting California’s emissions standards moving forward, it’s certainly possible that those entities could in fact gain access to this information – making it possibly even more difficult to get away with tuning vehicles in the future.
We’ll have more on this and all Ford patents soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford patent news, Ford business news, and continuous Ford news coverage.
Comments
Yes, centralized control of future vehicles you supposedly “own” is going to be a huge problem as the green fascists will insist on surveilling “your’ vehicle every single second. The loss of your property rights to the collective is steadily growing. November is coming. Remember to always vote freedom first.
You’ll own nothing and be happy.
This is just like the main frame computers, where only the engineer can do hardware updates. IBM began this and others are following. So our future cars are computers with motors, wheels, and cabins.
I see them more like phones, where you own the hardware but you license the software and, therefore, the manufacturer completely controls what you can and can’t do.
I can understand Ford wanting to protect a product under warranty period in order to ward covering cost of repairs that were not an error on its part, but of aftermarket changes and manipulation. However, when the manufacturer warranty is over, I hope Ford would provide an unlock/override for the aftermarket performance parts and tuning industry.
That would make sense, except that I expect that Ford wants to continually use your vehicle to harvest data inside and outside your vehicle, so they will do anything they can to prevent you from interfering with their data harvesting/selling revenue stream.
Time for a pre-electronics used car