Amazon now delivers packages to car trunks

From now on, Amazon delivers orders to the trunk of your car. The retail and technology giant has given its Prime subscribers access to get packaged delivered to the trunk of their car, without any additional costs. The service is currently limited to the United States.

Amazon Key opens doors at home and in the car

Amazon informed that it now also delivers prodcuts to cars as part of its Amazon Key service. That same service also allowed for deliveries at home last year. Customers have to install a camera and smart lock and subsequently, a smartphone app shows them who is in front of the door and then grant them access. 

The car delivery service now also uses the Amazon Key app, but users have to link their car and Amazon Prime subscription to an application for connected cars. There are already several applications on the market right now, like General Motors’ OnStar. It allows customers of an Opel or Chevrolet to detect car defects, get a stolen car to drive more slowly and to know where their car is at all times, the exact thing Amazon needs.

No additional fee

Once Amazon is able to track Prime subscribers’ cars, they can choose to have packages delivered to their car. First step is a notification of a four-hour time period and the second step is another notification when the shipment is actually on its way. The customer then has to approve whether the trunk can be opened. Afterwards, Amazon will inform customers of who entered the car when. The interesting part is that the retailer does not charge extra for this service.

However, customers currently have to live in one of 37 cities and own one of a limited range of cars (Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac and Volvo) to enjoy the service. Obviously, this applies to new cars (2015 or later), with remote-controlled locks and they have to be parked in public, accessible locations.

Experimented for years

The Atlanta-based tech giant is definitely not the first to experiment with car deliveries. Volvo did something similarly in Goteborg several years ago, with smart car keys granting couriers access to the trunk of parked cars.

It is not even a novelty for Amazon itself: it already launched the service in Germany three years ago, in a collaboration with Audi, but it turned out the technology still needed work.