Google Assistant Gas and Parking Payment No More
Google Assistant and Google Pay will no longer handle paying for gas and parking, with both features removed this week. Google added the option to pay for gas by voice with Google Assistant in 2021 and the parking payment feature was only released in March of this year.
Google Assistant Automotive
The Google Assistant gas payment worked at tens of thousands of 76, Conoco, Exxon, Mobil, Phillips 66, and Shell stations in the U.S. Pulling up to a station prompted the app to ask you to pick a pump and payment method. After filling up, users could confirm the payment on GPay. The parking feature worked in tandem with the parking space network ParkMobile. Users could tell Google Assitant to pay for parking on their smartphone for specific ParkMobile Zones and would get updates on time left, with the option to extend it.
The change may have a connection to Google’s interest in focusing on its own services and hardware over partnerships that provide Google Assitatnt to other businesses. The company closing down its Google Duplex on the web feature would fit that trend. The decision also comes as Google continues reworking its automotive interface. The Assistant Driving Mode dashboard was removed last month, a couple of years after sunsetting the previous smartphone version of Android Auto in its favor when the Android 12 OS came out. Instead, Google renamed that driver-friendly Maps format Driving Mode, appealing to its simpler design. Google explained in two similar statements why the features were created and ended, encouraging the use of Google Wallet and Pay at gas stations and municipal parking payment systems.
“We are removing the pay-for-gas feature from the Google Pay app in the US. We originally offered this functionality to give people a simpler way to pay at the pump and to help our partners enable contactless payments,” Google stated. “As gas stations continue to get equipped with chip readers, consumers are increasingly using tap and pay as their preferred method of contactless payments. Consumers can continue to use Google Wallet and Google Pay app to tap and pay at the pump.”
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