Amazon expands its in-car delivery service to include Ford and Lincoln so drivers can drop off packages to your parked vehicle
- Amazon is expanding in-car delivery services to automakers Ford and Lincoln
- Drivers of the cars will be able to get deliveries straight to their trunk
- Amazon’s ‘Key’ lets customers grant access to their garages through smart tech
- The e-commerce giant has shown increasing interest in tech inside cars
Amazon is continuing to rev up its interest in cars, adding Ford and Lincoln to the list of automakers eligible for a service that delivers packages directly to customers’ trunks.
With the participation of the two automakers, Ford customers with a 2017 or newer model and Lincoln customers with a 2018 or newer model will now be able to receive packages to their vehicles through Amazon’s ‘Key’ service.
‘Key’ was previously rolled out for drivers of newer GM and Volvo cars last year after a trial test in 2015 and recently rolled out the ability to let customers grant access to their garages by linking their smart garage accounts.
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Amazon wants to have access to your garage and your car by expanding deliveries to both. The firm has now added Ford and Lincoln to its in-car deliveries
Amazon’s Key feature lets owners of internet-connected cars grant delivery workers conditional access to their trunks so that they can drop off packages wherever the Prime customers are parked — as long as that place is publicly accessible.
Delivery drivers locate customers’ cars using a mixture of GPS, license plate numbers, and an identifiable picture, and users are able to receive notifications on when the package is delivered and when their trunk is re-locked.
To make use of Amazon’s key service for one’s car, customers will need to be Amazon Prime members as well as customers of their car manufacturers premium services such as FordPass or Lincoln Way.
According to a report from The Verge, the service will only be available in 50 cities and does have some restrictions in terms of what can an cannot be delivered.
For instance, packages that weigh more than 50 lbs., or are bigger than 26 x 21 x 16 inches still need a signature, and anything that costs more than $1,300 is not eligible.
Cars will also have to be parked within two blocks of the delivery address and according to the company, deliveries can be cancelled at any time.
Users of Amazon’s ‘Key’ can leverage the advanced computer systems in cars to grant access to delivery workers and make sure they’re never out of reach of Prime delivery.
As cars and the computers that they’re equipped with, become more and more sophisticated, Amazon has shown an increasing will to integrate their technology into vehicles.
The Verge reports that Amazon has already struck deals with Audi, BMW, Toyota, and Ford to let the company integrate its Alexa voice assistant into the car’s infotainment systems.
Amazon also plans to offer a standalone device — a thin plastic version called the Echo Auto — that hooks up to a car’s bluetooth or auxiliary jack and offers many of Alexa’s most-used features.
The company has reportedly received 1 million pre-orders for the device.
