Ford Patent Would Track Vehicles With Disabled Location Tech

Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for a disabled vehicle location tracking technology feature that may be used in future Ford vehicles, Ford Authority has learned.

The patent was filed on May 15^th, 2023, published on November 21^st, 2024, and assigned serial number 0385013.

The Ford Authority Take

With vehicle theft exploding in recent years, Ford has published a number of patents recently that explore various technology that may one day be used to prevent our vehicles from being stolen. That list includes ideas for a neighboring vehicle security system, a biometric authorization system, a random vehicle movement system, and a system that would limit various functions if it detects a theft attempt is occurring. Now, this newly published patent expands that list again, this time, with an idea for a disabled vehicle location tracking technology feature that may be used in future Ford vehicles.

As Ford notes in this patent filing, many modern vehicles come with some sort of tracking built-in, which can be used to help locate them if they’re stolen. However, thieves are also well aware of this fact and have begun figuring out ways to disable tracking and do things like clone key fobs and even duplicate other authentication methods. Thus, this proposed system would be able to continue to track a vehicle even when such things are disabled, which would be automatically triggered in the event that the long-range tracking system fails.

This particular system would lean on crowdsourcing to accomplish that task, incorporating a tag transceiver that is designed to communicate using wireless data transfer methods, with a range of less than 100 meters. That way, even if a thief manages to disable a vehicle’s long-term tracking system, the backup system could activate itself and continue to provide tracking information for the stolen vehicle – which could be a great way to help recover it.