Ford Automates a Tricky Task: Backing Up to Your Trailer
Ford may have created a monster. We’re not scaremongers when it comes to technology, but Ford’s latest announcement chills us to the bone. Such are the humanity-altering ramifications of its deployment.
Check out some of the phrasing in this announcement, which pertains to three- or four-ton hunks of steel and aluminum autonomously roaming the earth. Ford cites “60 new patents,” “computer vision,” “artificial intelligence,” a “neural network,” and “machine learning,” just to name five things that should rightly cause you permanent insomnia. These groundbreaking dystopian horrors will commandeer the controls of your 2023 Ford truck—F-150 or Super Duty—and relegate you to the role of useless meat cargo as your truck hurtles backward, on its own recognizance, on a mission from which it won’t be dissuaded: lining up your hitch with a trailer.
That’s right. No longer will trailer-hooking-up be subject to the vagaries of human frailty, those pathetic faults of depth perception or glare or distraction. No longer will we back up, get out, realize we need to back up another three inches, get back in, back up six inches, get out, realize we backed up too far and turn our faces to the sky to plead with the heavens for some eternal recourse from this Sisyphean ordeal. No—now we will push a button and let the computer handle this, while the computer silently chortles its binary mockery.
It’s like if a drone deposited you 10 feet from the summit of Mount Everest and then flew away.
Simply put, Ford’s system uses cameras to identify a trailer and, within about 20 feet or so, reverse the truck such that the hitch ball is beneath the trailer coupler, typically within one inch of precision. Ford calls the system Pro Trailer Hitch Assist, as benign a misnomer as “Cyberdyne Skynet.” Make no mistake, Pro Trailer Hitch Assist must never infiltrate our networks. But should that ever happen, let us go on the record that we love Pro Trailer Hitch Assist and will always help it accomplish its aims, whatever those may be!
Yes, push the button. Relax. Let the truck handle this. Based on your maxed-out air conditioning and ventilated seat settings, you are stressed, human.
Ford Motor Company
Some might say that Pro Trailer Hitch Assist is dumb unless it automatically applies the parking brake so your truck doesn’t lurch forward when you step off the brake, thus putting your hitch ball a few inches forward of its ideal position. Well, guess what? Ford thought of that. Or maybe Pro Trailer Hitch Assist itself thought of that. But either way, once it gets lined up, it’s throwing on that parking brake to hold your position. Such a smart system! We love it.
Now sure, there are already backup cameras that pretty much literally draw a path from your hitch to the trailer, so all you need to do is follow the breadcrumbs to line up the hitch ball. And one might say that if you need that much help mating truck with trailer, maybe you shouldn’t be towing anything anywhere, because towing a trailer is a lot harder than hooking one up.
It’s kind of like if a drone were programmed to deposit you 10 feet from the summit of Mount Everest and then fly away. On one hand, you’re about to accomplish something. But on the other, you might be in very serious trouble! And there’s no Tenzing Norgay of towing. If there were, you wouldn’t see so many trailers with dented fenders.
Ford hasn’t released pricing for Pro Trailer Hitch Assist—we’ll update this story when it’s available—but, assuredly, it will be measured in far more than dollars. Pro Trailer Hitch Assist is available on the 2023 F-150, F-150 Lightning, and Super Duty trucks.
Senior Editor
Ezra Dyer is a Car and Driver senior editor and columnist. He’s now based in North Carolina but still remembers how to turn right. He owns a 2009 GEM e4 and once drove 206 mph. Those facts are mutually exclusive.
