Jaguar thinks you shouldn’t have to leave your car to pay for gas

Jaguar and Shell are teaming up to launch a brand-new feature that allows drivers to pay for gasoline without ever leaving their car. Starting today, drivers of select models will be able to use their car’s touchscreen display to pay for fuel at participating gas stations with a new cashless payment app produced by Shell. The feature, which is available in 2018 Jaguar F-PACE, XE, and XF models, utilizes PayPal or Apple Pay to make the secure payments, the British carmaker says, with Android Pay expected to be added later in the year.

The new service will only be available at all of Shell’s UK stations in the near-term, but Jaguar says it expects it to roll out globally later. And this won’t be the only cashless service offered by the carmaker: Jaguar says it is working on similar in-car payment features for parking and drive-through restaurants.

“In a world where cash is no longer king, customers are increasingly using electronic payments and contactless cards,” said Peter Virk, Jaguar Land Rover’s director of Connected Car and Future Technology, in a statement. “Making a payment directly from a car’s touchscreen will make refueling quicker and easier.”

Of course, you’ll still need to leave your car to actually pump the gas, so the time saved by paying with your car’s infotainment system isn’t likely to add up to much. That said, it will be interesting to see whether other carmakers adopt similar services, especially as more attention is focused on transforming the car interior into a smartphone-style gadget.