Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant has gained a new feature that allows it to pay for gas at the pump using voice commands. The new capability, which is already live, works at over 11,500 Mobil and Exxon gas stations in the US. By simply saying “Alexa, pay for gas” and then confirming the station location and pump number, the pump will activate and be ready to use.
The new feature works from a number of different Alexa devices. As you’d expect, the Echo Auto and vehicles with Alexa built-in are compatible. The steadily growing list of 3rd-party Alexa automotive devices, like the Roav Viva USB charger and the Garmin Speak, are also compatible. You can also use the feature through personal Alexa devices, like the Echo Buds. Lastly, the feature will work through the Alexa App on both Android and Apple phones.
You won’t be able to ask an Echo in your home to pay for the gas of a family member or friend who is at a gas station. You also won’t be able to specify how much gas is purchased. For that, you’ll just need to stop the pump manually if you want a specific amount of gas. When using the feature, the payment option under your Amazon account will be the one used to pay for the gas.
Paying with a credit card at the pump is already pretty quick and efficient, so paying with Alexa isn’t going to be significantly faster. The advantage of paying this way is being able to get the pump activated and ready to pump before stepping out of the vehicle. That could come in handy on especially cold days are in less desirable locations where you want to limit the amount of time spent outside of the car.
That’s interesting. It’s also a good way to avoid card skimmers.
Good point! It might be worth using because of that alone.
It’s “Mobil,” rather than “Mobile.”
Thanks! Fixed it.
Echo Buds – wrong link
Thanks! Fixed.