Alibaba Joins SAIC Motor Corp to Deliver an Alipay-Themed Car

We’ve seen mobile payments systems added to cars before; that’s not anything particularly new.

It’s a little different, though, when a mobile payments company gets directly involved in the creation of a new car with its mobile payments system front and center in the car’s operation.

Alibaba recently did just that by getting together with the SAIC Motor Corp to produce a car that uses Alipay.

Alibaba designed the OS’Car RX5 sport utility vehicle (SUV) with SAIC Motor, calling on a version of Alibaba’s Yun operating system to power its operations.

The new OS was built with cars in mind, so we may see other such entrants to follow.

The company has a complete ecommerce environment built in, effectively allowing users to drive to a parking space which has been paid for in advance, and then park there, carrying on with a day that can be largely paid for in advance.

An Internet ID will allow users to more readily connect, and also take advantage of learning behaviors; eventually, the car will learn restaurant preferences and similar matters, but will also know what temperature a user prefers, as well as the best music to stream for the ride.

Those interested in picking up an RX5 will be able to do so for 148,800 renminbi, or about $22,221 US as of this writing.

This isn’t really a new move, even if it’s a bit novel that a mobile payments company would have so much involvement in the development of a car around its payment system.

Still, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a car with built-in mobile payments systems, and seen firsthand how such a platform could prove welcome for its users. Any drive-thru, for example, would be tailor made for such a system, allowing users to pull up and pay in the same move, collecting food faster.

A conversion from mobile payments to cash would be as easy as driving up to an ATM and collecting the cash.

The service is valuable enough that its presence in a car is neither outlandish nor unwelcome, and we’ll likely see more of this kind of thing as we go along.

That’s good news for users, and though Alibaba’s approach may be a bit heavy-handed, it will likely be imitated as we go along.