Apple teases future Car Key ambitions and growing list of partners

Today Apple celebrated 10 years of Apple Pay with some nice announcements. The VP behind Apple Pay and Apple Wallet also gave a new interview where she shared more about the car key side of Wallet. Here’s what we learned about the company’s car key plans.

Car key’s future in view

The Points Guy today published its interview with Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. It includes a section dedicated to Apple’s ambitions for car key and growing partner list.

Zach Griff writes for The Points Guy:

Apple is also working with over 30 car manufacturers (and counting) to create digital car keys in Apple Wallet.

For travelers, that last point is actually a harbinger of good things to come, according to Bailey, who shared that digital keys may one day be the key enabler of contactless car rentals.

“Being able to book a car rental, confirm your authentication and identity … you can imagine that a car rental company is going to issue you a digital key, and that key could be used to unlock and use a car.”

Bailey didn’t share more about this future use case for car rentals, but it certainly sounds like it’s a priority for the Apple Wallet team.

Currently, Apple only has eight manufacturers currently producing vehicles with car key support. So hearing that there are more than 30 total partners Apple is actively working with is a good sign for future expansion.

That expansion could, of course, naturally lead to a nice integration with the car rental process some day.

Bailey teasing the prospect of car keys for rentals hopefully means she expects some meaningful progress on that front before too long. Although Apple clearly has no official announcements ready yet, the tease makes me think we won’t have to wait too long until at least some news arrives.

Do you expect car key will come to more vehicles soon? What about rentals? Let us know in the comments.