Apple announces that it plans to give its CarPlay customers option to buy gas directly from dashboard. The software is to be ready from this fall, when the newest software rolls out. By adding this features, Apple will be accelerating its aim to turn vehicle into a store that can sell goods and services.
The feature was unveiled at Apple’s developer conference this month. It will allow CarPlay users to buy gas from a pump they can navigate. They will be able to skip the usual process of inserting or giving a credit car at the store. Any kind of demo or other details like which pumps will be made available are not revealed yet.
Dallas-based HF Sinclair announced that it plans to use the new CarPlay technology. Its gasoline stations are located in 1,600 stations in the US. However, they did not mention about the payment system. The company’s senior vice president of marketing, Jack Barger said, “We are excited by the idea that consumers could navigate to a Sinclair station and purchase fuel from their vehicle navigation screen,” As Apple releases this feature, fuel apps will entering the market.
Fuel apps
Apple has already opened up CarPlay to apps for parking, electric vehicle charging and ordering food, and it also is adding driving task apps such as logging mileage on business trips. Fuel is a major expense for car owners. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated in April that the average U.S. household will spend about $2,945 on gasoline in 2022, or about $455 more than last year.
Apple currently does not charge automakers, developers or users for CarPlay; the business interest is putting Apple at the forefront as cars transform into rolling computers, said Horace Dediu, an analyst with Asymco and founder of Micromobility Industries. The new feature will hit hundreds of car models already compatible with CarPlay when Apple releases software updates this fall. “Forget about Apple Car – Apple CarPlay is a bigger deal,” Dediu said. “It’s very likely to scale to millions and millions of cars, if not hundreds of millions.”
To use the new CarPlay feature this fall, iPhone users will need to download a fuel company’s app to their phone and enter payment credentials to set up the app. After the app is set up, users will be able to tap on their navigation screen to activate a pump and pay. “It’s a massive marketplace, and consumers really want to take friction out of payments,” said Donald Frieden, chief executive officer of Houston-based P97 Networks, which makes the digital plumbing that many fuel companies will use to connect their apps to cars.
