With the world becoming increasingly more connected, it seems the next  device to go online will be your car. The implications may be far-reaching. You may soon be able to use your car to pay for food at a drive-in or for your petrol. Could your car turn into a credit card? If we can believe recent statements made by financial service provider Visa, it definitely seems that way.

Paying from your dashboard

In collaboration with car manufacturer Honda, the two companies intend to include a useful payment app in the next generation of Hondas very soon. The app will be able to tell drivers exactly when they’ll need to fill up their tank again and allow them to pay for their petrol straight from the dashboard. This means you’ll neither  have to worry about not having enough cash on you while on the road, nor have to get in line and wait for ten minutes to pay. Instead, you simply fill up and continue your journey.

What sounds like a scene from a science fiction movie is in fact a reality.  Honda has already demonstrated the concept in public to great acclaim.

Infinite possibilities

Obviously, paying for your petrol is not the only situation where using your car as a credit card can come in handy. In another intriguing collaboration, Visa teamed up with Pizza Hut to allow customers to order and pay for their dinner at one of the food chain’s restaurants and have the order brought to their car as soon as it’s finished. Clearly, if these prototypes turn into actual models you can buy at your dealer, ‘calzone and car’ will soon sound like a perfectly natural combination.

It is not exactly hard to imagine even more practical examples. Further down the road, it should be possible to place a groceries order from your car on your way home and pick it up at the supermarket, with everything already packed, paid and ready to go.

The future of payments

It is easy to see why the car is such an attractive vehicle for payments. After all, the market and, accordingly, the commercial potential, is huge, according to an article on the topic by CNBC: “By 2020, there will be an estimated quarter of a billion connected vehicles on the road, according to research firm Gartner. As such, people will be carrying out an increasing number of functions via their car’s dashboard and Visa is hoping to make it a source of payments too.”

As always, security risks and a few technical bugs still need to be tackled, but it does seem as though your car could soon make your credit car redundant. It’s a pleasant, yet surprising twist. When they said that payments would become mobile, you weren’t thinking of this, we’re sure.