Hyundai will launch an in-car payment system known as Hyundai Pay in some new models next year.
The South Korean carmaker will initially make Hyundai Pay available in the 2024 Hyundai Kona model in the US.
The first service that users will be able to pay for using their vehicle will be parking spaces at around 6,000 locations around the country.
There are numerous other potential uses for an in-car payment service, however.
Drivers could eventually be able to use it to pay for fuel or electric vehicle charging, buy other goods at a garage, or even pay for drive-through fast food.
Hyundai said that the system – which uses the vehicle’s touchscreen and stored details of the user’s banking or credit card details – will have more features added and be installed into more models over time.
The Hyundai Pay system links up with participating parking services listed on Parkopedia, an international parking services provider active in 90 countries around the globe.
The vehicle then uses Hyundai’s Blue Link Plus connected car system to communicate with Parkopedia’s own software to complete the transaction.
Users’ personal details are kept secure using a process known as tokenisation, which replaces these details with a unique digital identifier, or token.
Hyundai says that the system makes paying for parking fast, easy and secure
Olabisi Boyle, vice-president of product planning and mobility strategy at Hyundai Motor North America, called Hyundai Pay the latest example of the company’s commitment to “smart mobility” and “software-defined vehicles”.
She added that everyday tasks such as finding and paying for parking will be made quicker and easier with Hyundai’s “connected-car, integrated-cockpit and secure-transaction technology”.
This isn’t the first time that an automaker has attempted to introduce an in-car payment system.
General Motors launched an in-car shopping app called Marketplace almost a decade ago, which it hoped would be used by drivers to pay for items and services such as fuel, parking and coffee on the go.
The service didn’t take off, but the demand for a similar service might now be there.
Parkopedia found that nearly three-fifths (58%) of drivers in the US wanted the ability to search for parking through their vehicle.
Even more (68%) told Parkopedia’s 2023 Global Driver Survey that they wanted to be able to pay for their parking through their in-car media system.
Today’s news was brought to you by TD SYNNEX – the UK’s number one solutions distributor.
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