Sheeva.AI and Hagiwara Electronics Take Next Steps to Build Japan In-Vehicle Payments Ecosystem

After launching in-vehicle payments in Japan with Hagiwara Electronics Co. Ltd. last August, Sheeva.AI brought together over 20prospective partners from automotive OEM, Tier 1 supplier, payments, energy and parking companies to start building out this new digital commerce ecosystem.

“We were impressed that there were so many key players in so many parts of this digital marketplace that get the opportunity this new market presents,” says Evgeny Klochikhin, CEO and founder of Sheeva.AI. “We lookforward to our first pilot projects in Japan very soon.”

 The first Partners' Day, co-hosted by executives of Hagiwara and Sheeva.AI, was held on April 18 at the new Hagiwara Innovation Center inTokyo.

“It is great to see so many possible collaboration partners in this new frontier of digital commerce,” says Takeshi Soejima, president of Hagiwara Electronics, Co.Ltd., “A lot of hard work by the Sheeva.AI andH agiwara teams is paying off to develop this new space.”

Sheeva.AI recently launched with Stellantis’ Citroën, its first global automotive OEM partner, in India. More announcements are expectedsoon, says Klochikhin.

For Japan, he adds, they expect the first pilots to be inplace by the second half of 2024, leading to a wider launch in the market in early 2025.

“While I can’t mention any new partners or new use casesuntil the announcements are public, I’m confident you’ll see more news like this for other regional markets by the end of the year,” he says. “That’s not just automakers but also energy companies, EV charging networks, parking operators and other retailers.”

The firm’s experience in other markets has shown there arethree key components needed to successfully launch in-vehicle commerce:Automotive sector participants as channel partners, retailers and service providers of all kinds that have services to sell, and payment service providers to ensure the ease of transaction.

“Sheeva.AI’s simple and secure in-car payments platform ishighly scalable value proposition for us,” says Yuya Okada, CTO of PLUGO Inc.,who spoke at the event to rally partners together. “We look forward topromoting seamless electric vehicle charging together as more EVs hit Japan’s streets.”

PLUGO operates public chargers and innovative charger reservation systems in Japan, mainly in commercial facilities.

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