Hyundai Motor America recently partnered with Xevo to demonstrate an in-car payment concept that would allow drivers to pay for gas, coffee, food and parking without leaving the vehicle. Chevron, Texaco, ParkWhiz and Applebee’s have already signed on as merchants for the potential payment solution.
“The dining case is particularly interesting because those fast casual restaurants are a place where the infrastructure is there already,” said Cason Grover, senior group manager of vehicle technology planning for Hyundai Motor America. “You see those carryout-only lanes, so in a sense they’re kind of ahead.”
Grover said that parking places are exploring options for dedicated lanes, and speculated that chip-equipped license plates could allow for faster service via Bluetooth or DSRC. If, for example, a gas station could identify a vehicle the moment a driver pulls up to the pump, payment could be facilitated automatically.
“It adds convenience today,” he said. “As that infrastructure builds, we’re ready, so the value grows even more as the merchants do more and more.”
Payment Options
Hyundai and Xevo are developing the Hyundai Digital Wallet payment platform that will allow customers to store their payment information. The system goes beyond credit and debit, allowing other options (such as gift cards) to be incorporated.
“Being able to allocate which payment solutions that you would want to add to this Hyundai Wallet is really what we’re talking about being able to do,” said Paul Galle, VP of automotive programs in business development at Xevo.
The specific details are still being worked out, so it’s not yet clear how this will work. When asked if a prepaid card could be scanned directly into the automobile, Galle said he wasn’t sure Xevo and Hyundai would go down that path. More than likely the cards will be added to the wallet in a more traditional manner.
Data Sharing
In addition to its partnership with Xevo, Hyundai also recently joined the Verisk Data Exchange, which will allow customers to share their data for usage-based insurance programs.
Collectively, that’s a lot of information that will pass through Hyundai’s connected automobiles.
“I think certainly over time, as we work toward production we talk about how we share data,” said Grover. “We have some visibility into consumer preferences – who goes where the most. Maybe our brand, for some reason there’s a correlation with this particular merchant that we brought on board. If we see a lot of usage, maybe there’s some co-branding opportunity.”
Vehicle to Cloud
V2X encompasses V2V (vehicle to vehicle) and V2I (vehicle to infrastructure), but Grover is also looking at a third component.
“There’s a whole separate piece that’s really vehicle to cloud, or cloud to vehicle,” he said. “Using connectivity for possibly vastly enhancing our traffic offering or other data use for navigation, that’s the kind of thing I definitely see in the future.”
Looking beyond data that consumers willingly share, Hyundai is also curious about what could be done with anonymized data.
“As with probably every other OEM, we’re investigating that as well,” said Grover. “Genericized data is something we’re certainly studying. And that’s something we want to look at and make sure it’s within our privacy principals.”
About the author:
Louis Bedigian is an experienced journalist and contributor to various automotive trade publications. He is a dynamic writer, editor and communications specialist with expertise in the areas of journalism, promotional copy, PR, research and social networking.