Ford aspires to build a robotic cop car. By that, we of course mean autonomous, but still, it’s a police car without any police. Actually, browsing through the pages of Ford’s patent application for such a machine, the company does mention "in lieu of or in addition to human police officers,” so in theory there could be an officer on-board. Then again, Ford’s crafty depiction of this proposed police car appears to be a rear-engined hatchback with five-spoke wheels, possibly drawn by someone really bored during science class. So you’ll understand if we take this all with a grain of salt.
Never the less, automakers see an autonomous future. The crux of this patent isn’t just a car that drives itself, but one that also uses a type of artificial intelligence not yet developed to aim and operate on-board speed detection equipment, cameras, and communicate with other devices in the area such as stationary speed cameras. If that’s not enough, the patent even specifically mentions the car being smart enough to find sneaky places to hide, all in the pursuit of generating revenue catching speeders.