GM has filed a patent application for a vehicle automatic ignition block that will activate when the vehicle is parked in a high crime zone. The application was assigned patent number US 2024/0336223 A1 with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and was published on October 10th, 2024. The GM patent application was originally filed on April 6th, 2023, and lists several Michigan-based engineers as the inventors, including Ali H. Fawaz, Robert Myers, and Ryan J. Baik.
The patent application describes a system designed to reduce vehicle-related crime in high-crime areas by remotely disabling the vehicle’s engine. This system works by detecting when a vehicle is parked in a high-risk zone, preventing the engine from starting.
The system works by first identifying where the vehicle is parked using sensors like GPS or cellular signals. Once the vehicle is parked, the system sends its location to a remote data center. The data center then checks whether the vehicle is in a zone flagged as a high-crime area. If the vehicle is parked in a high-crime zone, the system receives an indication from the data center to activate the Remote Ignition Block (RIB). This disables the engine ignition, preventing the vehicle from being started.
The system will also notify the vehicle owner is via a mobile device or another connected system that the ignition has been blocked, giving the owner the option to approve or override the block. If the owner approves the action, the RIB remains active and the vehicle’s engine remains disabled. If the owner provides permission to disengage the RIB, the system re-enables the ignition, allowing the vehicle to start again.
The system can also use multiple data points, such as crime statistics, to dynamically assign “high-risk” flags to certain geographic zones. The vehicle will only activate the ignition block in these flagged zones.
Comments
If a neighborhood is that bad, the last thing you want is to be standing outside your car with your phone out, trying to convince your car to unlock and start!
Not to mention the hackers who’ll readily bypass this. And the inevitable lawsuits over neighborhoods being “unfairly” identified as high crime (even if everyone knows they are).
Nailed it!
Kia, I see you raising your hand back there. Do you have any input on this matter?
Just put the 2.7L in the vehicle…they won’t get stolen.
You know cars get stolen for parts too not only to just send them to South America, Eastern Europe, and Africa?
Wdhen I was a child, the best deterrent to prevent starting the engine was to open the distributor cap and remove the rotor.
It was easier to pull the coil wire!
A million years ago I had a “friend” try the remove the coil wire trick. It was a V8, so I took one of the spark plug wires and put it in place of the missing coil wire. That Ford V8 ran on seven cylinders just fine and got me to where I needed to go. (I later retrieved the missing wire from my “friend”.)
That’s real old school.I used a kill switch to ground out the coil and hid it the drivers fwd door jam😊
Basically a fancy engine immobilizer system that uses GPS and crime data to determine to turn on or off. This to me sounds like another example of “technology for the sake of technology.” I would rather have this as a manual option to activate than it be automatic and, like others have said here, have to fumble through the phone to get the hell out of dodge.
Right on. Make it manual. Cars are stolen from home driveways!
The “DEI” crowd will have a field day with this idea!
That’s funny because no matter where you live or crime is everywhere so this should be a button on the key fob and left up to the owners if they want to lock out the engine🤷♂️
With GM’s quality in mind, what could possibly go wrong with this device?… I live in a dense inner-subruban neighborhood adajcent to one of America’s largest cities. I guarantee my neighborhood will be labled “high crime” due to the proximity, and shear number of petty crimes committed by kids on bikes chcking idot’s unlocked parked cars… I will look forard to have to face “user interrogation” everytime I try to go to work in the morning…