GM wants you to buy things without leaving your car

GM wants to make life more efficient for its drivers and keep them on the road, so it's making sure you'll never have to leave the comfort of your car to order a coffee or pay for gas.

The automaker is rolling out a new commerce platform for its dashboard infotainment consoles with parter Xevo Inc. The new feature, dubbed the GM Marketplace, will allow drivers to order food and drink, find gas stations and pay for fuel, make restaurant reservations, and more using a personalized smart system honed by IBM Watson's machine learning techniques and user data.

GM says Marketplace will be the first in-dash commerce platform of its kind for the auto industry, but it's probably far from the last. The potential purchasing power of connected cars shouldn't be taken lightly, and capitalizing on the opportunity to make it easier to sell drivers even more stuff is a no-brainer.

Marketplace launches with a special GM section to allow drivers to purchase in-car data packages and parts, but the real centerpiece is the wide range of corporate partners. You can grab coffee and along your route at Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts, order meals from restaurants on delivery.com, Wingstop, Applebee's, or IHOP, or even reserve a table at TGI Fridays.

ExxonMobil and Shell will also be included in the Marketplace, with Shell offering on-dashboard payments through its Fuel Rewards program. More partners are expected to join the ecosystem going forward.

Marketplace will be included in eligible 2017 and 2018 model year vehicles from Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac that have 4G LTE-connections. GM says about four million US drivers will gain access to the in-car commerce options starting immediately, with more coming online over the next 12 to 18 months.