Photo: Ford
As we told you on several previous occasions, one of the directions the car world is moving in has a lot to do with autonomous vehicles or as most people know them, self-driving cars.
Mercedes-Benz is one example of a carmaker that started experiencing in this field, but Tesla Motors are also looking to explore the unharvested potential of this area, along with other big-name automakers like BMW and Audi.
But starting today, Ford also joins this select group after the company filed a patent that holds an autonomous vehicle with reconfigurable seats as a main topic.
According to Autonews, the seats can swivel and fold all while the vehicle is in motion, but there's more. The steering wheel can help with enhancing cabin space by simply retracting inside the dashboard.
The patent even mentions a "rolling living room format" in the sense that the front seats can rotate backwards 180 degrees to face the back row, similar to those installed in the Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion prototype.
"The vehicle may further include autonomous driving sensors and an autonomous controller that receives signals generated by the [...] driving sensors [...] and controls at least one vehicle subsystem to operate the vehicle in autonomous mode according to the signal received," says the patent's detailed description.
In FoMoCo's vision, self-driving cars will eventually require no passenger interaction beyond, like selecting a destination, leaving passengers to focus on non-driving related tasks like reading, answering emails or enjoying their coffee.
However, speaking to the same source, Ford spokesman Said Deep said "patent submissions help protect our new ideas but do not necessarily indicate future business or product plans."
But if Ford indeed plans of building a self-driving car in the future, they should hurry up and ride the wave as soon as possible, otherwise they could fall behind competitors like the ones we mentioned at the beginning of the article.
But starting today, Ford also joins this select group after the company filed a patent that holds an autonomous vehicle with reconfigurable seats as a main topic.
According to Autonews, the seats can swivel and fold all while the vehicle is in motion, but there's more. The steering wheel can help with enhancing cabin space by simply retracting inside the dashboard.
The patent even mentions a "rolling living room format" in the sense that the front seats can rotate backwards 180 degrees to face the back row, similar to those installed in the Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion prototype.
"The vehicle may further include autonomous driving sensors and an autonomous controller that receives signals generated by the [...] driving sensors [...] and controls at least one vehicle subsystem to operate the vehicle in autonomous mode according to the signal received," says the patent's detailed description.
In FoMoCo's vision, self-driving cars will eventually require no passenger interaction beyond, like selecting a destination, leaving passengers to focus on non-driving related tasks like reading, answering emails or enjoying their coffee.
However, speaking to the same source, Ford spokesman Said Deep said "patent submissions help protect our new ideas but do not necessarily indicate future business or product plans."
But if Ford indeed plans of building a self-driving car in the future, they should hurry up and ride the wave as soon as possible, otherwise they could fall behind competitors like the ones we mentioned at the beginning of the article.
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