The Tesla agreement with Alipay, operated by Ant Group, was first reported by Chinese outlet Jiemian in October 2026. Under the deal, Tesla plans to add Alipay’s smart parking payment service to its infotainment system in China. Once a future software update is released, owners will be able to pay parking fees on the vehicle’s screen without needing to scan a code with their phone or open a WeChat Mini Program. Tesla said further in-car convenience features are under development.
Several details have not been disclosed. These include when the update will be released, which models will be covered, and how many parking facilities will accept the payments.
Alipay’s expansion into in-car payments
The Tesla deal extends work that Alipay has been doing in vehicle-based payments for more than two years. The company launched Alipay Co-Driver in May 2024. The product combined in-car payments with mini programs and offered more than 40 car-related services, covering charging, refuelling, parking and highway tolls.
In July 2025, the Alipay in-car assistant went live in Li Auto’s app centre. This allowed drivers to order coffee or pay fees by voice, with payments authenticated through face verification via a cabin camera. Li Auto’s i6 SUV, launched in September 2025, added a feature that uses the car’s cameras to locate and scan a parking lot’s payment QR code while the vehicle is moving. By then, the assistant had been deployed in 66 models from 16 brands, covering more than ten million vehicles, including those from BYD, Xpeng, Nio, Geely, and Dongfeng.
In addition, Alipay launched Abao, an AI assistant built into its app, on 16 June 2026. At Ant Group’s Inclusion Bund Conference in September 2026, Alipay said Abao’s in-car services covered 17 automakers and more than 16 million vehicles, with more than 60 additional automakers signed as partners, according to state broadcaster CNR. Drivers can ask their car’s voice assistant to pay a parking fee or buy a movie ticket, and the request is handed to Abao to complete. In mid-September 2026, Alipay linked Abao with BYD’s AI agent on the Denza N8L, where payments are confirmed through voiceprint verification.
Tesla’s localisation strategy in China
The agreement adds payments to a growing set of Chinese technology integrations in Tesla vehicles. In February 2026, Tencent said it had added WeChat-linked location and merchant services to more than one million Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in China through an over-the-air update. On July 2026, Tesla began rolling out an update adding ByteDance’s Doubao large language model to its Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X. The feature requires a Premium Connectivity subscription of about USD 1.48 a month. According to Jiemian, this marked the first time Tesla had integrated a third-party large model into its vehicles in China. In the US, Tesla’s cars use Grok, developed by xAI.
The localisation effort comes as Tesla’s domestic sales in China decline. According to China Passenger Car Association data, Tesla sold 64.837 vehicles in China in September 2026. That figure was down 9.4% year on year and marked a fourth consecutive monthly decline. In the first nine months of 2026, domestic sales fell 11.9% to 381,088 units, while exports from the Shanghai factory rose 108.4% to 361,972.
For the payments sector, the deal shows the vehicle cabin taking shape as a checkout channel in China. Super-app providers are embedding payment and service layers directly into automakers’ software, and the arrangement reduces the role of the smartphone in everyday transactions such as parking.
