Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for a power cutting rental mode that may be used in future Ford EVs, Ford Authority has learned.
The patent was filed on March 27th, 2023, published on October 3rd, 2024, and assigned serial number 0326644.
The Ford Authority Take
With rideshare services growing increasingly popular – and giving private vehicle owners the chance to make some extra money by renting those vehicles out to others – Ford has been keen to explore various ways to make this process smoother. In fact, the automaker published a patent for a peer-to-peer vehicle rental system nearly one year ago, which would enable vehicle owners to rent out those models to others for a designated amount of time for a select price, albeit one that aims to do so without requiring the user to turn over sensitive information or provide data to the owner. Additionally, this system would also allow the owner to remotely control some functionality of the vehicle, too. Now, this newly published patent presents us with another similar idea for a power cutting rental mode that may be used in future Ford EVs as well.
If this patent was to come to fruition, it would add a rental mode to future Ford EVs, which could be used to control a vehicle in the event that intervention is necessary. When activated, the rental mode could detect if certain limits are reached – such as the number of miles or the distance one could drive based on the contract they signed with the owner – and if that’s the case, it would send a request to the owner asking if this is OK, and if it isn’t, the system could disable features, cut power, and perhaps even automatically return itself to the owner.
It’s an interesting concept for certain, but one that makes sense given a few high-profile vehicle thefts that have occurred for select users of the Turo service, which enables owners to rent their vehicles out to others. There have also been instances where those vehicles were used to race other vehicles, or have wound up heavily damaged – making this sort of system quite relevant.
Comment
Yeah, Big Brother will love this. Remote control of vehicles will be great. You want to have a trucker protest like they did in Canada? Forget it. You will literally get shut down. Or your vehicle can be used as a mobile jail. Lock you in and drive you to the (thought) police station. Great stuff.