A new patent released yesterday by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) suggests that Ford may soon add a new feature to its vehicle lineup — pet mode.
According to U.S. Patent No. 11,247,693 published on February 15, 2022, the feature operates in a very similar way to Tesla's dog mode, but will be activated by a dedicated button on the keychain. And the symbol of the button is specially marked as a dog paw print, and the patent describes how the encoded wireless signal is sent to the car computer after pressing the button, which will activate certain functions to "create a comfortable environment for pets in the car."
Ford's pet mode appears to be customizable, as some examples of functions that can be performed include "one or more windows that can be lowered, a sunroof that can open a trunk lift door to open with a pivot, and one or more seat backrest rows of seats that can be tilted or folded down." ”
Although the patent was only released yesterday, it was originally filed on October 25, 2018, just a week after Musk affirmed a user's request to add a dog mode feature to Tesla, and a few months later, in February 2019, Tesla officially launched the feature.
It may be that these two things are likely just coincidences, such as Ford has been testing and running on "pet mode" for several months, but just happened to file an application with the USPTO on October 25, of course, it is also very likely that Ford came up with it after seeing Musk's tweet, of course, the situation between the two needs to be explored continuously.