If you’re like us, the thought of avoiding the hand-freezing job of pumping your own gas sounds pretty appealing. Missouri-based Husky Corporation and the Swedish company Fuelmatics Systems have joined forces to engineer the first robot gas pump. Here’s how they would work: Once drivers arrive at the station, the pump, using infrared lights, would locate the fuel door, open it with a suction cup and then insert an automated nozzle into the car’s tank. Drivers would select their preferred type of gas on a drive-thru screen, and then a potential phone app could allow customers to make mobile payments. The goal is to make filling the tank as easy as passing through a drive-thru. The system could be ready for regulatory testing within nine months, not in time for this miserably harsh winter, but frozen fingers crossed for the next one.