Ford wants to allow your car to lock you out — and even drive itself to an impound lot or scrapyard — if you miss payments

• Ford wants to patent a system that would let cars repossess themselves if drivers miss payments.

• At first, the cars would lose the use of features like GPS, air conditioning, and the radio.

• If the owner still skips payments, the car could lock them out and drive itself to a repo agency or even a scrapyard.

Ford's latest patent application shows a bizarre new way that cars could be repossessed in the future if their owners don't make payments on time.

The patent application, first reported by The Drive, was filed in August 2021 but wasn't published until last week. It shows that Ford is interested in building a system that would allow a car to lock out its driver and even repossess itself, if its driver doesn't keep up with payments.

Ford says it's imagining the system as a solution to the issue of owners behind on payments being "uncooperative" and attempting to "impede the repossession operation."