SiriusXM and Visa have teamed up to turn your vehicle into a mobile payment system
Cars
Living in the 21st century, we have a multitude of ways to pay for things.
Of course, there's always cold, hard cash, or you can use a credit or debit card or even a modern smartphone, but the folks at Sirius XM have come up with another way for you to be able to pay for things using nothing but your vehicle.
Check this out.
An extension of its connected vehicle services.
The satellite radio Company announced this technology at CES last year, but now it's essentially ready to come to market.
They partnered with VISA, the credit card company to develop this technology, which enables you to pay for tolls or parking, even order a breakfast sandwich from your favorite quick service restaurant, and you can do it all from right here, the driver's seat, using either your voice or the touch screen.
Now another advantage of all of this is you can actually leave home without your phone or credit card because your vehicle itself can make those transactions.
The folks at visa have been working on this system, particularly on something called tokenization, which I don't fully understand, but basically it means it's really secure.
Making sure strangers can steal your vehicle and start racking up credit card charges.
There is an authentication process involved in all of this now, Sirius XM has opted to use an iris scanner though OEMs could implement other systems like voice control or maybe even a fingerprint scanner.
[UNKNOWN] [SOUND] And there we go a toll road just popped up and no need to have a special scanner in your vehicle or pull out your credit card or anything.
The vehicle automatically made that transaction, no need to stop or do anything else.
And right on cue we have a low fuel warning which means we should probably stop off and get some gasoline In this thing.
So, to initiate that, all I have to do is tap the fuel icon here, right on the screen, and that should pull up a map.
All right, so I found a few gas stations here on the map and I'm gonna grab this 76 station right here which has fuel at about $2.97 a gallon.
So, if I click on that.
Tap to begin route.
Hit begin route, it should start navigating us right to that gas station.
Now there is a brief setup process that you do on the computer, where it scans your irises and you enter some of your other personal information.
But it also allows you to select radio presets and a few of your favorite fast food items.
So those can be handy right on the screen when you get in your vehicle.
All right, and now we have arrived at the gas station.
But I think we're gonna have to pick a pump.
I'm not sure which one we want, but how about number 12?
That looks pretty easy.
It's right here on the end, and nobody's here All right, so here we are, I'm gonna put it in part but there's one more thing I have to do.
I'm gonna hit the microphone icon on the screen right there and tell the system basically what pump I want to purchase fuel from.
So let's do that now.
Buy gas from pump number 12.
And there it goes.
It's checking the stations it says being the vehicle should be communicating.
With the gas pump itself going through the clouds, so now all I have to do again is get out and start pumping.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
All right, we're back on the main streets of Vegas here with a full tank of fuel.
And I've got to say the whole process was really pretty seamless, push a couple buttons on screen, use your voice to pick a gas pump, and you're done.
You stick the nozzle in and go The only real concern with all of this is how they're going to get OEM the automakers as well as fast food companies and gas stations all to sort of work together so the ecosystem is fully flushed out.
Well, now we've been prompted to grab a bite to eat here.
So I'm gonna jump over one lane.
going to hit the icon on the screen here and see what's on the menu today.
Good question.
How about the chicken bowl, please?
[SOUND]
It's processing the payment just like that.
Got it.
Tap or say begin route.
Begin route.
And just like with the fuel this should route us directly to the fast food restuarant so I can get some lunch.
It's well past noon.
Currently, SiriusXM provides a wide range of connected car services to automakers, and this new payment system is something they surely gonna want to add to their New vehicles.
This technology is essentially available right now though the company is working with automakers to get it to market in addition to visa other payment offerings will be available in the future.
