A clever control mechanism could turn a very specific two-person job into a solo endeavor.

Maybe it's because there are no truly new ideas, but many of the latest automotive patents are very narrowly focused on specific, niche use cases. In the case of a patent recently granted to Ford, it's not the suggested application that most interests us. "Systems and methods for moving a vehicle using externally mounted HMI" describes a way to move a pickup truck a little bit at a time to do things like unload landscaping materials—a thing people definitely do from time to time. It's the control mechanism that caught our eye, though.

Instead of having to hop into the cab, move the truck a foot or so, and jump back out to continue working, U.S. patent #12,728,722 imagines a pickup that's controlled from the rear. To request movement from the stationary truck, the user (driver?) pushes on the pop-up grab handle included with the tailgate step that's an option on F-series trucks. The patent says pushing harder could make the truck move farther or could result in more frequent equal-size nudges.

It also mentions that this same feature could be used in reverse. We imagine parking sensors or something more advanced would be required to keep anything unsafe from happening at either end. Life-sized remote-control cars already exist, with some fancier self-parking systems able to be triggered from a key fob or phone from outside the vehicle. In comparison, safely inching along in the dirt seems like a simple problem to solve.

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