Driving Dystopia: Ford Pro Introducing Remote Vehicle Controls For Commercial Models

During Work Truck Week 2025, Ford Pro announced a 40 percent increase in connected commercial vehicles over the last two years. The division has been focused on modernizing its fleet operations by leveraging connected features in a way it believes could benefit commercial businesses, with the manufacturer likewise profiting from the resulting telemetry data. It has been a successful endeavor for the brand. But Ford is introducing new features — some of which are inarguably invasive and completely strip away control from the driver.

Connected vehicles have become the norm in recent years and have been marketed to fleet operators as a way to improve efficiency by amassing vehicle data. The introduction of integrated cloud services has helped those companies further track the status and location of their vehicles. But Ford Pro is now interested in giving fleet management more ability to control vehicles remotely.

“Fleets today are more intelligent than ever. While customers have been able to receive information from vehicles, with our new capabilities they can also now send commands to their vehicles to improve fleet operations,” stated Dave Prusinski, Chief Revenue Officer for Ford Pro’s Integrated Services. “We’re pushing the envelope of connectivity and building capabilities at the vehicle's code level that seamlessly integrates with our software solutions, something only Ford can do with our commercial vehicles. Our customers need to understand and control all aspects of their fleet vehicles. These new solutions will help them be ready for anything.”

Previously, all a company could do was set the speed limit of its commercial vehicles in the hopes of reducing traffic fines. Everything else would come down to the fleet manager checking in on a given driver (using Ford Pro’s cloud services) and then having to contact them to tell them to alter their route, stop braking so hard, use their seatbelt, or adjust whatever else they found to be lacking.

Ford has claimed the above has been effective and cited a 25-percent reduction in speeding, 75-percent improvement in seat-belt use, and less vehicle idling with a 52-percent lower average of excessive idle minutes per trip. Instances of “hard braking” and acceleration were likewise said to have declined slightly.

Now, Ford wants to introduce new features on both upcoming and preexisting models — all of which can be viewed as increasingly invasive or undoubtedly helpful in minimizing fleet overhead, depending on your perspective.

From Ford:

Top Speed Limiter: This will allow fleet managers to remotely set a maximum speed limit on their fleet vehicles to help avoid speeding violations. The feature will be available in Ford Pro Telematics4 software later this year on model year 2022 and newer F-150 Lightning, and model year 2023 and newer Super Duty trucks. This new feature can help improve driver behavior by controlling speed limit adherence for millions of fleet vehicles on the road.

Acceleration Limiter: Also coming later this year in Ford Pro Telematics software for F-150 Lightning. The new feature gives fleet managers remote access to control vehicle acceleration which not only reduces wear and tear but can enhance safety measures.

Fleet Start Inhibit: This allows fleet managers to help combat theft and unauthorized vehicle use. It can disable the vehicle remotely prohibiting any attempt to start the vehicle’s engine. This feature will be available later this year in Ford Pro Telematics8 software on 2023 and newer F-Series Super Duty, 2023 E-Transit in Europe, 2024 F-150 gas and hybrid trucks, 2024 Transit and E-Transit vans, 2025 Explorer, 2025 Expedition, and 2025 Mustang Mach-E.

Remote Lock/Unlock: Available now, fleet managers can remotely lock or unlock any Ford vehicle in their fleet through Ford Pro Telematics8 software, equipping them with virtual command and control of their fleet vehicles.

A lot of the above will indeed be helpful for fleet management. But, when combined with interior and exterior camera arrays that can be monitored remotely, modern working vehicles basically keep drivers under a permanent microscope while stripping them of the ability to control their own rig. This probably does help avoid some amount of slacking off. However, there is no way it’s good for employee morale. It also brings into question how much we value privacy and personal agency as a society.

We’re not just talking about keeping tabs on drivers anymore, something that could already be argued as crossing a line. Now, we’re seeing companies implement the ability to have someone else remotely limit vehicle functionality. This, all while automakers keep bemoaning cybersecurity as the core reason not to allow anyone but the manufacturer to service a vehicle. However, cybersecurity wouldn’t even be an issue if the vehicles weren’t drive-by-wire and permanently connected to the internet.

A couple of years ago, I actually attended a press event for Ford’s Super Duty pickups that coincided with the launch of the updated Ford Pro and managed to briefly derail the entire presentation by asking a few questions about how the automaker planned to profit from the telemetry data. Car manufacturers don’t like to admit this, but one of the main reasons they pushed so hard to make automotive connectivity ubiquitous is to profit off the resulting data in a manner similar to tech companies.

My asking about exactly what Blue Oval stood to gain via Ford Pro, whether there were sufficient data-privacy protections in place, and what type of future restrictions might be implemented on commercial fleets (beyond speed controls) required the PR team to pause the event so they could make a phone call in order to give me a straight answer. On the one hand, it’s nice to see an automaker going out of their way to answer complicated questions on contentious issues. But it’s not exactly comforting to know questions about data harvesting and remote vehicle controls require businesses to be quite so careful with their words.

I’ll tell you what I told the team once they got back to me, because it feels more relevant than ever: Ford builds great work vehicles and this type of technology seems like it offers some genuine benefits for fleet operators while simultaneously making Blue Oval scads of money. But I’m worried that it’s broadly unethical and will be widely abused as the industry gradually tries to sneak more of it into privately owned automobiles.

Ford obviously views things a little differently and wants businesses to see things its way because that’s what will make it money.

“The demand for data about commercial vehicles is rapidly growing,” said Prusinski. “Acknowledging that our fleet customers operate a variety of powertrains, makes and models, we are committed to ensuring our software solutions are compatible across all types. We’re maximizing the value of connectivity across every layer of fleet management to boost uptime.”

[Images: Ford Motor Co.]

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