BMW and NXP are set to demo a prototype key at the CARTES & IDentification show in Paris next month that will double as your credit card. While the concept is nothing new with the advent of those fancy little key fobs that let you pay for items with a simple swipe. We have something like that in NYC for the subways with one of the banks. It’s nice to know the automotive industry is finally getting on the bandwagon.
This is all well and good, but what if you have to pay a toll or something? You don’t exactly want to be turning the car off to take the key out of the ignition to pay for stuff. Just a scenario where I don’t think this would be ideal.
The new car keys nowadays don’t require you to plug the key into the ignition anymore. They work wirelessly and detect when you’re in the vicinity of the car. I don’t see this new prototype being any different so I wouldn’t think that scenario is of any concern.
Exactly. Peter Ha, how could you possibly not know this? If you know enough about the auto industry to hear this key announcement, would similar announcements from Mercedes and Lexus and multiple other major companies similarly come to you?
Wait a minute. Regardless of whether you need to pull the key out of the ignition to swipe it on something (which if you are using it to swipe for payment, I would hope that BMW would implant it with the stuff they are putting in their CURRENT cars, since that’s the part that would allow you to swipe anyway), who actually stops to pay a toll anymore? EZPass FTW…
Wait a minute. Regardless of whether you need to pull the key out of the ignition to swipe it on something (which if you are using it to swipe for payment, I would hope that BMW would implant it with the stuff they are putting in their CURRENT cars, since that’s the part that would allow you to swipe anyway), who actually stops to pay a toll anymore? EZPass FTW…
Well, I don’t drive a car anymore, so little things like that seem to have slipped my mind.