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Jul 18, 2023

Apple CarPlay Could Soon Be Used to Pay for Gas

Texas-based Sinclair stations reportedly will be the first to let customers buy

Texas-based Sinclair stations reportedly will be the first to let customers buy gas from their touchscreens.

Most of the hype surrounding easy, contactless payments in the automotive space has to do with plug-and-charge electric vehicle stations, but gas-powered vehicles might not be left out of updates to a more tech-driven future if rumors about changes coming to Apple CarPlay pan out.

Reuters is reporting on a new, dashboard-based fuel payment feature scheduled to be released this fall in an updated version of CarPlay. While Apple apparently showed off the feature at its developer conference in June, details about the fuel payments were not made public until now. Reuters has confirmed with at least one gas station chain owner, HF Sinclair, which markets its diesel and gasoline brands at over 1600 stations in 30 states. The company said that it hopes to integrate the new CarPlay payment options with its stations and will provide more details soon. "We are excited by the idea that consumers could navigate to a Sinclair station and purchase fuel from their vehicle navigation screen," HF Sinclair's Jack Barger told Reuters. Gas station pumps have increasingly been equipped with contactless tap readers that can get payment information from a compatible credit card or a digital device like an Apple Watch. The general idea for the CarPlay update is that you will be able to use your car's touchscreen to pay for fuel without the need to pull out a credit card. The technical details of how a car with Apple CarPlay will communicate with compatible pumps was not divulged by Apple or Sinclair, but you will need to download compatible gas station apps in order to make it work. Once everything is installed, the navigation app will be able to not only direct you to a station but also be able to start the refueling session. CarPlay can already be used to pay for parking sessions, EV charging, and ordering food, Reuters notes, saying that the ability to use the software to log miles driven on business trips is also on the horizon.

Five years ago, General Motors introduced a pay-from-the-dashboard feature in some 2017 and 2018 Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac models, but the technology only worked at some Shell stations and was accompanied by what The Verge called a "baffling" user interface that required so many steps to make work - registering with Shell, getting three-digit codes that needed to be entered into the pump's keyboard and more—that customers never really took to the service. GM shut down its Marketplace technology in March 2022, telling Reuters it was because of "a supplier exiting the business," but said it plans to introduce another, similar technology in the future.

Sebastian Blanco has been writing about electric vehicles, hybrids, and hydrogen cars since 2006. His articles and car reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Automotive News, Reuters, SAE, Autoblog, InsideEVs, Trucks.com, Car Talk, and other outlets. His first green-car media event was the launch of the Tesla Roadster, and since then he has been tracking the shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles and discovering the new technology's importance not just for the auto industry, but for the world as a whole. Throw in the recent shift to autonomous vehicles, and there are more interesting changes happening now than most people can wrap their heads around. You can find him on Twitter or, on good days, behind the wheel of a new EV.

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