Sheeva.AI’s Post

At the NACS Show last fall in Atlanta, one jam-packed session discussed the roadmap that looked out at the next decade in coming retail technologies. Moderator Gray Taylor of Conexxus.org and his great panel walked through a lot of tech, from AI to touchless payments to the next generation of connected retail solutions. One item stood out for us: In-vehicle payments. The team had it at 1 to 3 years away. With our announcement this week of our SheevaConnect platform launching in Stellantis' Citroën India new C3 Aircross SUV AT, we're happy to tell energy retailers and convenience store operators that in-vehicle payments is happening now. (No, we do not have a time machine, just a really hard-working team!) Thanks to the editorial team at NACS for the shoutout here: https://lnkd.in/eAEiTU7E If you're an energy retailer, QSR or convenience store brand and want to learn more or get a demo of our tech, please reach out in the comments or send us a message. #retail #energy #gasstation #parking #SDV #invehiclepayments #Payments #EV #Convenience

We’re proud to announce the SheevaConnect™ product suite is powering the Citroën India C3 Aircross’ fuel marketplace for the Indian market, allowing the model’s owners to pay for fuel at 32,000 fueling stations across India. “We’re very excited to see our technology come to life for Citroen drivers in India,” says Evgeny Klochikhin, CEO and founder of Sheeva.AI. “We want to enable a simpler, more secure customer experience for in-vehicle services by using precise vehicle location to activate and authorize payments at the point of service.” Klochikhin adds that other Sheeva.AI use cases, like parking and tolling, are coming soon for owners of the Citroën C3 Aircross. Citroën is a key brand of Stellantis. The first Sheeva.AI-enabled vehicles are now available in showrooms across India. Sheeva.AI’s innovative product suite is currently rolling out globally with over 2,000,000 service points – including fuel pumps, parking spaces, and EV chargers – mapped in the Sheeva.AI database. This is a big accomplishment by the entire Sheeva.AI team. Stay tuned for to see where you might find us next.   “While I can’t mention any partners or new use cases until the announcements are public, I’m confident you’ll see more news like this for the US and European markets by the end of the year,” says Klochikhin. “That’s not just automakers but also energy retailers, EV charging networks, parking operators and other service providers.”   https://lnkd.in/eyeKeuQK   . . . . #invehiclepayments #softwaredefinedvehicles  #India #Stellantis #citroen #energy #retail #automotive #CX #customerexperience #autodealers #Payments 

Our Weekly Connected Car Roundup – We’ll have some of our own breaking news tomorrow but here’s our weekly Monday roundup of connected car coverage that busy people might have missed: CNBC: Tesla cuts workforce by 10% as competition in the EV space heats up. (h/t Lora Kolodny) >>   https://lnkd.in/gU6eeV3Q Kasturi & Sons, Ltd The Hindu: Stellantis' Citroën India exports India-made EVs to global markets. >> https://lnkd.in/eMQjJwDZ   Motor Finance: SDV and AI cars market expected to surpass $700b by 2034. (h/t James Falkiner at IDTechEx)  >>   https://lnkd.in/edCw9gKR   NACS' Convenience.org: Grocers like Whole Foods Market are opening smaller convenience-type stores to make the customer experience more friendly and local. >>   https://lnkd.in/eKimQk9N Have a great week! . . . . #invehiclepayments #softwaredefinedvehicles  #EV #energy #retail #automotive #CX #customerexperience #autodealers #Payments #evcharging #smartcities #SDV #Tesla #WholeFoods  

Thanks to Stefan Langin and Alex Katzman at Growth Inflection for the hosting our founder and CEO, Evgeny Klochikhin and for a great panel discussion on how the customer experience around EV charging is key to realizing the full potential of EVs to impact our climate crisis. . . . #EV #Energy #Climatetech #automotive #invehiclepayments #SDV #retail

This is great to see a huge regional player like the Ontario Government | Gouvernement de l’Ontario (h/t Hon. Todd Smith, Hon. Victor Fedeli and Hon. Prabmeet Sarkaria) take an innovative approach to EV charging and grid integration. One necessary ingredient to making the coming fleet of EVs grid-effective as a resource is knowledge of the EV's real-time location. That rolling battery becomes even more useful when we know exactly where it is at the moment, and if the driver of the vehicle can take action to benefit the grid. But beyond that, these new policies present an opportunity to integrate EV charging into the community surrounding public charging infrastructure. Say you’re parked for 20 minutes at an EV charger. What if you knew more about the community around you? The small stores and independent restaurants, or events going on at the moment?   Governments at all levels pay to incentivize economic development around this. What if you could provide the discovery of this information right in the car's infotainment screen, and not only pay for the charging event, but pay for lunch and have it delivered to you? . . . . #retail #EV #energy #Ontario #incarpayments #connectedcar #SDV

Chick-fil-A Restaurants are the customer service king, writes Kelly Beaton at The Food Institute, while a recent Business Insider story said the chain also had the slowest drive-thru lanes. How can those both be true? The customer experience is clearly memorable. Dispense with the hassles of drive-thru transactions and focus on the hungry person for a winning interaction. Using precise location to know where the car-driving hungry customer is in real-time, while making the ordering and purchase transaction easy, via a few touches inside the car from the infotainment screen. No extra apps or handing over a credit card, and your loyalty points are credited. That's what the drive-thru experience should look like. . . . #drivethru #fastfood #customerexperience #CX https://lnkd.in/e7krdHjP

  Our Weekly Connected Car Roundup – Here’s our weekly Monday roundup of connected car coverage that busy people might have missed: ZDNET: Connected cars will be 95% of vehicles on the road by 2030, but how much do drivers know what they can do with that?  (h/t Vala Afshar of Salesforce) >>   https://lnkd.in/epjxfxAN   LinkedIn: AI companies may have reached the last page of the Internet, but still need more data. Could IoT and connected car data be sucked up next?  (Rob Tiffany⚡️) >>   https://lnkd.in/ev-AB_fd Also LinkedIn: In EV charging, the customer experience is the only thing that matters. (h/t Chris Kaiser) >>   https://lnkd.in/e_4S9j5V   Forbes: What is the future of the c-store customer experience? (h/t John Lamb of Elo Touch Solutions) >>   https://lnkd.in/eWHTmYBk Have a great week! . . . . #invehiclepayments #softwaredefinedvehicles  #EV #energy #retail #automotive #CX #customerexperience #autodealers #Payments #evcharging #smartcities #SDV  

Amazon's decision to pull the plug on their Just Walk Out technology may say one thing about the capabilities of AI today, but may just serve as a reminder of how hard it is to alter consumer behavior and at what cost. On the surface, the JWO tech promised the easiest customer experience: pick your items and...just walk out. But delivering on that promise in real-time apparently took a team of dedicated humans scanning video. Receipts were delivered much later as a result. What is the customer experience in retail today? The basic customer journey is "find something, confirm your choice, pay for it and get a receipt" -- but what else makes it easy and memorable? For us, as we work enabling retail purchases from inside the car cabin via the vehicle's infotainment screen, we often see discussions of time savings creeping into that, but it cannot come at the expense of completing the journey. Example: It may take 3 minutes to fill a car's tank with gas and 30 minutes to charge up an EV's battery. You may therefore say that a good customer experience is "making charging as fast or faster than fueling" to amp up EV adoption. It would certainly help, but is that what the customer really wants? Let's look at that basic customer journey again in this context: 👀 "Find something" - Navigate to the nearest gas station or EV charging station. ✅ "Confirm your choice" - Activate the right gas pump/EV charger from inside the car. 💰 "Pay for it" - At this step, that means confirming that you have the payment method needed to buy gas or electricity. 📃 "Get the receipt" - After you know the final amount, payment occurs and a receipt should be "instantaneous" upon completion of the transaction. Maybe the JWO failure was a late receipt and a non-scalable human intelligence needed to make it all seem simple. But for our "Gas vs. EV" example, the receipt is immediate; the cause of the time delay between gas and electric is in the movement of the energy from a tank/battery/plug into the car. What is the better customer experience then? If all else is equal and one way takes 10x the time of the other way, it seems obvious. But think about gas -- you handle all the activation and payment, but need to stand there and actually operate the pump in a safe manner. For an EV -- you plug in, confirm the car is connected, and you're free to safely walk away. The customer journey is the same, but the customer experience is different. That seamless, easy payment at the start and the quick receipt at the end is critical. But what other things can I do with "downtime" of being plugged in but with no need to hang around my car? . . . #invehiclepayments #softwaredefinedvehicles  #EV #energy #retail #automotive #CX #customerexperience #Amazon #Payments #evcharging #smartcities #SDV

"Consumers have a desire for convenience and immediacy, meaning retailers must focus on real-time conversion — or risk a purchase being made elsewhere....Customers can enjoy an immediate shopping experience from the comfort of their own home or on the go." -- Ashley Hubka, SVP and General Manager of Walmart Business. (h/t Judy Mottl of Retail Customer Experience) Retailers of all kinds -- whether selling a tank of gas, a 2-hr parking session, a bag of groceries or a family-sized to-go order for Taco Tuesday -- need to reach the customer with the simplest, quickest and safest customer journey where that customer is, at the moment. Context via real-time location will become more critical. The cabin of their connected car will increasingly be a place where they will be buying, via one touch of the car's infotainment screen. . . . #invehiclepayments #softwaredefinedvehicles  #EV #energy #retail #automotive #CX #customerexperience #autodealers #Payments #evcharging #smartcities #SDV     https://lnkd.in/dYkDRB5Z

Our Weekly Connected Car Roundup – Here’s our weekly Monday roundup of connected car coverage that busy people might have missed: The Financial Brand: Digital wallets will dominate global e-commerce payments by 2025. (Steve Cocheo) >>   https://lnkd.in/gFmW73cT Green Car Congress: J.D. Power sees consumer consideration of an EV purchase still weak as public charging experience gets worse. >>   https://lnkd.in/esR4hb_s   The Wall Street Journal: Stellantis CEO Tavares still all-in on EVs despite choppy market. (h/t Ryan Felton -- Paywall) >>   https://lnkd.in/eWHTmYBk   CleanTechnica: Shell to sell of 1,000 gas stations to focus on retail opportunity around Shell Recharge EV charging. (h/t Jennifer A. Sensiba) >>   https://lnkd.in/e83HHwUA Have a great week! . . . . #invehiclepayments #softwaredefinedvehicles  #EV #energy #retail #automotive #CX #customerexperience #autodealers #Payments #evcharging #smartcities #SDV