Car manufacturers are constantly telling us increased connectivity and over the air updates are going to make our lives easier - and now finally that rings true.

RingGo has confirmed that its app will be available on BMW models running Operating System 7 - that's cars build since July 2018 - which will allow you to pay for parking without having to use cash or get your phone out of your pocket.

RingGo is the platform that's used by a lot of councils across the UK, which has added flexibility to public car parks by allowing you to pay using the app on your phone rather than having to use coins. Remember coins?

Having access to the app natively in your car means you'll be able to park, open the app, select the car park you're in and the duration of your stay so you can pay via your RingGo account, all while sitting in your car.

"The new feature will be delivered as an integrated vehicle app and installed automatically over-the-air on all BMW vehicles in the UK which have Operating System 7 and were built since July 2018," said Chris Hollis, ConnectedDrive & Technologies Product Manager at BMW.

That's thought to be 150,000 vehicles that could potentially benefit from this new connect method of parking payment, saving the need to get your phone out and open the app.

One thing to watch out for if you are a RingGo user, is that the platform charges a fee even if there's no parking charge at the time you're there. That will mean that if you opt not to get the free ticket from the machine and use the app, you'll be paying a fee for nothing.

While we expect this still to be a mostly manual process, it's not hard to envisage a future where the parking service you're using can automatically be prompted to open when you stop the car in the car park.

The next step we'd want to see, naturally, is in-car payment for electric car charging services.