The patent application also has some interesting ideas to thwart wheel theft.

It’s usually not a good sign when you park your car and then return to that spot to find it’s not where you left it. An idea in a recently published Ford patent application would turn that into a positive, though, as it would mean the vehicle sensed trouble and autonomously re-parked itself somewhere it deemed safer. The patent also describes ways to park and safeguard specific pieces of vehicle equipment—such as the wheels—and what you’re carrying inside or in a pickup’s bed.

A Ford patent application submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) explains that a vehicle would detect “suspicious activity” and relocate itself somewhere less sketchy. Examples of these potential threats include a person who keeps peering into the windows or another vehicle repeatedly circling. The system could also decide a new spot is in order if the car finds itself alone in a previously populated lot—our four-wheeled friends get lonely too.

In a less complicated implementation, the vehicle could recommend a parking location and/or orientation to the driver, who would then park manually to, ideally, reduce the likelihood of theft.

Alone with fleeing danger, the application describes a variety of ways the vehicle could park itself for self-preservation. Most of these methods are intended to prevent wheel theft, a very real threat to new vehicles.

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