On-sale vehicle sharing accessory device and system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017282859-A1
Application number	US-201715629137-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 21, 2017
Priority date	Dec 22, 2015
Publication date	Oct 5, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

Systems and methods disclosed herein include providing an on-sale vehicle, receiving an access request for the on-sale vehicle from a buyer, approving the access request, transmitting at least one authentication key, confirming an identity of the buyer, initiating a test drive, monitoring the test drive, and completing a transaction upon conclusion of the test drive including revoking the at least one authentication key in response to the buyer not purchasing the on-sale vehicle or revoking an authentication key of a prior titleholder in response to the buyer purchasing the on-sale vehicle.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method comprising:
receiving, in response to selection by a buyer, an access request for an on-sale vehicle; approving, via a vehicle-administration module, the access request; transmitting, in response to approving the access request, at least one authentication key to at least one of a portable wireless communication device and a plug-in device attached to the vehicle to enable vehicle access and vehicle operations for the on-sale vehicle by the buyer using the portable wireless communication device; confirming, in response to an access notification received by the administrative system, an identity of the buyer using a credential validation module; monitoring, via a driver-monitoring module, a test drive of the on-sale vehicle; and completing, upon conclusion of the test drive, a transaction by:
revoking, in response to the buyer not purchasing the on-sale vehicle, the at least one authentication key, and
revoking, in response to the buyer purchasing the on-sale vehicle, an authentication key of a prior titleholder.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising performing an initial setup of the plug-in device in the vehicle including pairing the plug-in device as an additional keyfob to the vehicle including:
coupling the plug-in device to a service communication port of the vehicle; accessing a vehicle communication platform (VCP) of the vehicle; pairing the plug-in device to a passive entry/passive start system of the vehicle; requesting cryptography keys from a remote entity via the VCP for validation between the plug-in device and the passive entry/passive start system; and successfully pairing the plug-in device to the passive entry/passive start system for ongoing communication between the plug-in device and passive entry/passive start system.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the prior titleholder maintains access to and personal use of the on-sale vehicle prior to the buyer purchasing the on-sale vehicle.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the authentication key of the prior titleholder is contained within a keyfob.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein approving the access request includes automatically approving the access request via an approval module in response to the access request meeting one or more predetermined criteria.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein the predetermined criteria include vehicle availability.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein confirming the identity of the buyer includes use of a driver-facing camera installed within the vehicle.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein confirming the identity of the buyer includes capturing, via the driver-facing camera, an image of an identification card presented to the driver-facing camera.

9 . The method of claim 7 , wherein confirming the identity of the buyer includes:
capturing, via the driver-facing camera, an image of a face of the buyer; and comparing, via the administrative system, the image to a known image of the face of the buyer.

10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
registering, via an administrative system, a buyer; providing, in response to a query initiated by the buyer, indicia of an on-sale vehicle matching search criteria entered by the buyer; and initiating, in response to confirming the identity of the buyer, a test drive of the on-sale vehicle, wherein the plug-in device is configured to enable vehicle access and vehicle operations for the on-sale vehicle.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein initiating the test drive of the on-sale vehicle includes voice communication with the seller.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the voice communication with the seller occurs via a video call using a driver-facing camera installed within the on-sale vehicle.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the video call includes display of the seller via a video display within the on-sale vehicle.

14 . The method of claim 1 , wherein monitoring the test drive of the on-sale vehicle via the driver-monitoring module includes using a telematics module to track information including position of the on-sale vehicle during the test drive.

15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein monitoring the test drive of the on-sale vehicle via the driver-monitoring module includes transmitting images captured by a front-facing vehicle camera to the seller.

16 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising automatically modifying a vehicle setting unrelated to vehicle performance in response to a seller input via the vehicle-administration module.

17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the vehicle setting includes actuation of exterior lights.

18 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the seller is monitoring, via a driver-monitoring module, the test drive of the on-sale vehicle is performed by the seller, and wherein the seller simultaneously monitors, via a second driver-monitoring module, a second test drive of a second on-sale vehicle.

19 . The method of claim 1 , wherein completing, upon conclusion of the test drive, the transaction further includes transmitting, via a communication module, data describing the test drive to the seller.

20 . The method of claim 1 , wherein completing, upon conclusion of the test drive, the transaction further includes transmitting, via a communication module, data describing the test drive to the buyer.

Assignees

• Gm Global Tech Operations Llc

Inventors

• Grimm Donald K
• Pebbles Paul H
• Miles Robert
• Phillips Iii Ramie
• Ryan Travis J
• Ju Xi
• Namineni Pavan K
• Oesterling Christopher L
• Bika Anil
• Irish Nicholas P
• Cafeo John A
• Lemieux James

Classifications

• G06Q10/02

  Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events · CPC title

• H04L9/3213

  using tickets or tokens, e.g. Kerberos (network architectures or network communication protocols for entities authentication using tickets in a packet data network H04L63/0807) · CPC title

• H04L9/0891

  Revocation or update of secret information, e.g. encryption key update or rekeying · CPC title

• H04W12/08

  Access security · CPC title

• H04W12/04

  Key management, e.g. using generic bootstrapping architecture [GBA] · CPC title