Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for load loss detection capability that may be used in future Ford pickups, Ford Authority has learned.
The patent was filed on September 19th, 2022, published on March 21st, 2024, and assigned serial number 0094046.
The Ford Authority Take
Ford continues to work to innovate in a number of areas related to pickup beds, filing patents for ideas such as magnetic beds and ways to prevent theft via onboard scales. In a hyper-competitive segment, such ideas always seem to have a solid chance of making it to production vehicles, and that may also be the case with the feature outlined in this new patent – load loss detection capability that may be used in future Ford pickups, too.
One of the biggest benefits of owning a pickup is its bed and the vast amount of things that one can use it to haul, but oftentimes, users may lose those things while driving down the road. Even worse, many times, the user doesn’t even notice that such a thing has happened until they reach their destination. Thus, the system outlined in this patent aims to provide a detection system capable of identifying when loads have been lost, after which it could notify the driver.
The concept here is quite simple – this system would be able to detect when a load has been placed in the bed of a pickup, as well as when that load may have been removed. If the load does indeed come out of the bed, the system would not only notify the driver, but also, it could log the exact GPS location where that incident occurred, making retrieval much easier. The system could even warn nearby vehicles of such an incident, or slow the vehicle down and activate the hazard lights. It’s an interesting and potentially very useful feature, and as such, may very well one day be offered in future Ford pickups.
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