As you regular readers know, I’m always in search of ways to minimize the things I have to carry around and, in particular, to avoid carrying a wallet with the cash and credit cards that goes with it. My main strategy has been to move as much of my wallet as I can into my iPhone. Other than my driver’s license, which Florida is still dragging its feet on, I’ve pretty much completed that process.
It turns out, though, that’s there’s another possibility. Sirius and Visa are collaborating to let your car pay for gas, tolls, and food. The idea is that your in-car digital interface would act like, say, Apple Pay to let you pay digitally for your gas or food.
My first thought was why would I want this when I already have my smartphone but then I realized it could be useful in certain use cases. It’s hard to use your smartphone in a fast food drive-through but this system promises to make that easy. Look at it as another arrow in your quiver. It enables another way of paying with a minimum of mess and fuss. You don’t even have to get out of your car. Or pull your smartphone out of your pocket. As the article says, this could be the end of our fumbling for our credit cards when we want to gas up or grab a burger at our local fast food drive-through.