… a Ford patent application titled “Systems and Methods to Repossess a Vehicle” was published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Feb. 23, although it was submitted to the agency Aug. 20, 2021.
The document describes using vehicles’ built-in data connections to remotely disable “a functionality of one or more components of the vehicle,” which would serve as warnings if the owner has missed car payments.
This kind of crazy shit is why my car is manual and has no connectivity except for an FM radio and an OBD port. Also, my other car is bikes.
Anyone remember Stelantis making cars that play you God damned ads when you stop? Yeah…
It’s the beeping for me. The goddamned infernal, unstoppable beeping.
Come to a stop sign? Beep. Pulling into an intersection? Beep. Backing up? Lots of beeps. A car is next to you in the other lane? Beep. You turned on your blinker? Beep beep beep beep. You changed lanes? Beep. Going above the speed limit? Beep. The car saw a speed limit sign? Beep. You adjusted some setting? Beep.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. All goddamn day long.
Maybe you can disable some of it, but only temporarily, only for one drive. The next time you start the car again, it will go back to beeping, and it’s not easy to disable, either – it requires digging deep into arcane, non-user-friendly menus. I will never own a ‘modern’ car until there’s a way to permanently disable all this fucking beeping.