Superior rearview mirror applied sciences have made Gentex Corp. a key Tier 1 provider within the auto business. Now the Zeeland, Mich., firm is pursuing a brand new mirror perform that might place it for adjustments in the best way individuals will drive sooner or later.
Gentex has fashioned a partnership with PayByCar Inc., a Boston supplier of in-vehicle cost options. The companions use Gentex’s Built-in Toll Module that operates by way of RFID transponder to let drivers pay for gasoline completely contactless.
The answer permits drivers to make use of their smartphone and toll transponder to gasoline up at sure gasoline stations with out utilizing money or a bank card.
The module remains to be early to market and restricted in its capabilities. PayByCar’s expertise is available at solely seven places — 4 Alltown stations in Massachusetts and three Circle Okay places in North Carolina. And it really works solely with automobiles outfitted with a appropriate module. For Gentex, meaning a number of Audi fashions.
However given automaker and elements provider curiosity in new income streams, the module positions Gentex effectively for quite a lot of telematics prospects, Craig Piersma, Gentex advertising and marketing director, advised Automotive Information.
It additionally addresses a brand new sizzling level for customers — the COVID-inspired need for extra touchless transaction choices.
It is only one step in Gentex’s transfer into merchandise, Piersma stated.
“That is simply increasing our choices within the linked automobile area,” he stated. “It is about persevering with to construct on these platforms, add extra performance in order that it is extra engaging to our automaker clients and in the end the top consumer.”
The premise of the partnership is Gentex’s Built-in Toll Module, a product innovation that snagged the provider a 2020 Automotive Information PACE Award.
Paired with the module, which is factory-integrated into the automobile, PayByCar can establish autos at collaborating gasoline stations. The system sends a textual content to the motive force, who replies with the station pump quantity she or he is utilizing. PayByCar activates the pump, registers the acquisition, prices the bank card on file and points an electronic mail receipt.
“They’re actually trying to increase their consumer base and their buyer base,” Piersma stated of PayByCar. “For us, it is about leveraging and increasing the usage of the Built-in Toll Module or the usefulness of ITM.
“Now we have the identical frequent buyer, and that’s anyone who’s driving with a toll transponder,” he added. “This can be a … means for an automaker to get into that area comparatively shortly and inexpensively with one thing that is working and functioning and rising.”
For Gentex, which bought $1.81 billion in parts to automakers globally final yr, the event is a part of the corporate’s new markets staff technique to bolster its current portfolio for developments resembling automobile connectivity.
“We’re being just a little extra aggressive and opportunistic on applied sciences that might mesh with ours and increase our capabilities,” Piersma stated. “It is nonetheless in the end about placing some {hardware} within the automobile for us. Now we have that actual property within the mirror location.”
That is to not say mirrors are the one location the place future Gentex expertise will happen, he clarified. However in the end, the plan is to increase on “the choices that we’ve within the automobile at the moment,” he stated, “making it extra helpful.”