Ford’s new patent just might be the thing that you didn’t know you’d been missing your entire life. Or at least your life since you started driving and needing to put things in the bed of your truck. Ford has just filed a patent application for a magnetic bed, which will not only keep your things secure in the bed of your pickup truck, it will also look good. It will be doubly attractive, amirite?

Ford’s magnetic bed patent could revolutionize pickup trucks

Ford just filed a patent for a magnetic truck bed, according to Motor Authority, though they point out that Muscle Cars & Trucks first noticed the patent. The patent shows a design that would allow Ford pickup trucks to really hold things together – literally – in the bed.

Using somewhere between four and six embedded magnets, truck owners would be able to secure their belongings more safely in the beds of their trucks. These magnets would be able to be moved, perhaps manually or with servos, and they could be turned on and off individually.

There could be a magnetic tie-down system as well

Another thing that Ford’s new patent shows is a magnetic tie-down system. This would not only be able to be used in pickup truck, but in SUVs and vans as well. Basically, a magnetic tie-down system would allow more magnets to be placed in areas where necessary. If this becomes a real thing, you just might be able to move magnets around the cabin of your vehicle to hold things.

Hopefully, these magnets would be incredibly strong, as loose objects in the cab in a vehicle can be a danger. If the magnets are not strong enough, objects that have been attached to them could come loose in an accident, or any situation where the car moved suddenly or sharply. On the other hand, if the magnets are truly effective, perhaps they could cut down on the number of injuries and deaths that occur each year due to loose objects in cars.

There’s no word yet on whether Ford’s new patent will come to fruition

As cool as this sounds, it’s hard to know whether it will ever become a real thing. Sometimes car manufacturers (and companies, as well as individuals) file patents that they never follow through on. And of course, this technology would have to pass safety and other checks before becoming something that was regularly used.

Still, it would be kind of cool to be able to fill the bed of your truck with tools and not have to worry about a loose hammer flying out on the highway. Of course, an intense magnetic load just might wreak havoc on the functionality of your credit cards.

This isn’t Ford’s only patent. It has recently filed several patent applications for its truck, which suggests that Ford is looking at the next wave of pickup trucks. Until Ford moves forward with its patent application, we won’t know much more about the future of Ford’s magnetic bed. It’s fun to imagine all the possibilities that could be in store for truck drivers, but the future is, as always, uncertain.