Apple showcases the CarPlay program at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California June 2, 2014. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith/File Photo

June 30 (Reuters) – Apple Inc (AAPL.O) wants you to start buying gas straight from your car’s dashboard as early as this fall, when the latest version of its CarPlay software rolls out, speeding up company’s efforts to turn your vehicle into a store of goods and services.

A new feature quietly unveiled at Apple’s Developer Conference this month will allow CarPlay users to tap an app to access a pump and buy gas directly from a screen in the car, skipping the usual process of inserting or entering a credit card. Details of Apple’s developer demo have not previously been reported.

But Dallas-based HF Sinclair (DINO.N), which markets its gasoline at 1,600 stations in the United States, told Reuters it plans to use the new CarPlay technology and will announce details in the coming months. .

“We’re excited about the prospect of consumers being able to drive to a Sinclair station and purchase fuel from their vehicle’s navigation screen,” said Jack Barger, the company’s senior vice president of marketing.

The Fuel apps are just Apple’s latest advancement to enable tap to buy from the navigation screen. It’s already opened up CarPlay to apps for parking, EV charging and food ordering, and it’s also adding apps for driving tasks like logging mileage on business trips.

Fuel is a major expense for car owners. The US Energy Information Administration estimated in April that the average US household will spend about $2,945 on gasoline in 2022, about $455 more than last year.

Apple does not currently charge automakers, developers, or users for CarPlay; commercial interest puts Apple at the forefront as cars turn into rolling computers, said Horace Dediu, analyst at Asymco and founder of Micromobility Industries. The new feature will affect hundreds of car models already compatible with CarPlay when Apple releases software updates this fall.

“Forget Apple Car – Apple CarPlay is a bigger deal,” Dediu said. “It’s very likely to expand to millions and millions of cars, if not hundreds of millions.”

To use the new CarPlay feature this fall, iPhone users will need to download a fuel company’s app to their phone and enter payment information to set up the app. Once the app is set up, users will be able to tap on their navigation screen to activate a pump and pay.

“It’s a huge market, and consumers really want to eliminate payment friction,” said Donald Frieden, CEO of Houston-based P97 Networks, which manufactures the digital plumbing that many oil companies will use to connect their apps to cars.

Frieden said he’s fielded calls from oil companies interested in making their apps work with CarPlay. BP (BP.L), Shell (SHEL.L) and Chevron Corp (CVX.N) did not respond to requests for comment on whether they plan to make their iPhone apps work with CarPlay.

FAILED ATTEMPTS

Apple’s latest move is likely to heighten tensions with automakers who have their own ambitions for in-car commerce.

For example, automakers have already tried – and failed – to popularize buying gasoline from the car. General Motors Co (GM.N) rolled out a system to do so in 2017, but closed it earlier this year “due to the departure of a supplier from the business”, GM told Reuters in a statement. .

Beyond apps for fuel and other purchases, Apple is also looking to extend CarPlay further into the car’s drive systems by accessing speed and fuel gauge data. Read more

But automakers aren’t likely to hand that data over to Apple without making their own demands in discussions that analysts say are likely already underway.

Speaking at the Reuters Automotive Europe conference in Munich on Wednesday, Mercedes Benz CEO Ola Kaellenius said the company’s goal “is to have a complete and holistic Mercedes experience”.

Kallenius said Mercedes would not seek to reinvent every app category, but that “when we interact with companies that are in this digital realm…anything related to product liability, we would be very careful.”

Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco Editing by Peter Henderson, Kenneth Li and Matthew Lewis

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