36 minutes in the life of a future autonomous electric vehicle

This is a short story illustrating a possible, not-too-distant future combining several potential use cases enabled through a fee-less machine-to-machine micropayment architecture currently developed by the non-profit IOTA Foundation.
The story depicts a scenario of an autonomous agent, an electric vehicle, creating value for its owner. It illustrates several use cases, including one-time payments, data and payment streams, Masked Authenticated Messaging (MAM), Flash Channels, mesh networks, TangleID, Oracles and outsourced computations and predictive AIs going hand in hand.

When Daan’s new Volkswagen Moia 4 swerves into the holding bay in front of his workplace it awaits his instructions for the rest of the day.

It’s battery is nearly fully charged and Daan will not need it until he is ready to be driven back home. As every Friday, lots of tourists will arrive in the city of Amsterdam. Daan therefore decides to let the VW roam free. He instructs it to pick him up at 6 pm and earn some money for him while he is at work.

After Daan shut its door, the Moia automatically requests information on how many level 5 autonomous vehicles currently offer their services in the wider area of Amsterdam.

It automatically makes a sub-cent one-time payment to an online location service for L5 autonomous limousines and goes through all locations and areas it knows Daan prefers it to earn money for him.

In an instant the VW figures that a lot of low cost, but very few high-end vehicles are available around the nearby Shiphol airport.
The VW Moia 4 is brand new and top of its class.

So even though it’s a nearly 30 minute drive, it decides that the airport is its best option to find passengers in need of autonomous limousine services and starts driving towards the highway.

On the way to the onramp of the A4 towards Shiphol, the VW hits a pothole. Daan could have avoided this by setting the vehicles preferences to poll updates of road damages; but as Daan’s company pays for the maintenance of his car he dismissed that checkbox when adjusting the settings for his car.

Since the Dutch government decided to increase efficiency and thus lower the cost for road maintenance by incentivizing automatic damage reports, most Dutch streets are in perfect condition anyways.

Nevertheless, the severity of the pothole and its location have been registered by the onboard sensor array of Daan’s VW. The vehicle immediately submits the registered data to the Dutch national mobility service which pays his car a sub cent reward for the information. The car only received a small bounty because it only verified the location of the damage. A couple of hundred other cars must have reported it previously already.

While driving on the A4 in the regular lane towards the airport, Daan’s car advertises its autonomous services on three automated limousine service market places. The higher class limousine AI matching services are still expensive to use but the reward the vehicle received for reporting the pothole already pays for half the fees.

While driving on the highway, the VW looks for other level 3+ autonomous cars through a local mesh network and learns that there are currently 5 around it going into the same direction. The cars negotiate to form a drive-train because all of them willing to create a platoon of cars will save energy while driving a few inches apart from each other. Daan’s car, high on energy, takes the lead and thus spends the most energy but is constantly remunerated by all following cars through payment streams in the mesh network.

Five minutes later, the personal autonomous agent of a business man contacts the VW. The PAA automatically activated itself when his human master disembarked an airplane at Shiphol airport. His human needs a ride to an address in the harbour district in Rotterdam, a few minutes drive from the airport and found Daan‘s premium vehicle through one of the limousine AI market places. Daan’s car and the autonomous agent compare the preferences of the business man with Daan‘s preferences and conclude a high match.

To make an offer, Daan’s vehicle needs more information apart from the desired destination. The personal autonomous agent didn’t reveal the identity of the business man but gives Daan’s car access to the TangleID and credit history of the business man in a private, masked authenticated messaging (MAM) IOTA channel.

Daan’s vehicle got lucky. While it does an automated credit check through an Oracle that references a fiat bank account, the credit history of the business man proves to be immaculate.
The car is pleased: the passenger preferences of his master are all met according to the immutable information got access to. The check of the TangleID doesn’t reveal any previous incidents Daan excluded in his preferences for potential passengers.

The personal autonomous agent of the business man also doesn’t seem to care much about prices and will pay for all automated highway tolls and potential parking fees during the ride. It is only looking for the best possible service for its master. Those are the best customers.

By reporting the limousine smart contract including the TangleID to the European authorities, Daan’s vehicle receives the standard reward, paid in IOTA. For every location update once the passenger embarked the VW, Daans car will receive additional rewards. Times have changed; the authorities always want to know the whereabouts of everyone and are willing to pay for that information.

This kind of „overwatch“, citizens like to call it in reference to an old 2D console game also has its advantages. When the limousine smart contract is published and takes effect, the health insurance premium of the business man will be lowered automatically by 2% for the time he rides in Daan’s level 5 autonomous VW — because of its high security. If the business man would have chosen an old-school taxi with a human driver, his health insurance premium would have been increased by 3.25% instead as those have a higher probability for accidents.

To meet its future passenger in time at the airport Daan’s vehicle automatically requests an update from a satellite-powered traffic service, automatically paying a small IOTA fee and determines that real-time updates would be in order costing another few IOTA every second. As it found out, there seems to be strong traffic coming up ahead. Daan’s car doesn’t like surprises. It needs to meet its customer on time.

The vehicle signals the personal autonomously agent of the business man that it will make it on time to the airport.

Based on Daan’s set preferences („always be on time to pick up passengers“), it detaches from the platoon it formed with the other cars and changes into the level 3+ autonomous vehicle express lane to be able to double its speed to 240 mph.

Daan’s VW now has to pay the Dutch highway consortium a fee in an IOTA Flash channel and an additional fee to the Dutch environmental agency for every 100m driven because it is unnecessarily burning energy by accelerating heavily.

Even though highway accidents are rare since level 3+ autonomous vehicles became the norm, Daan’s insurance increases its fee-per-mile to „high speed“, which is automatically paid by the vehicle. It’s worth it. Daan’s car calculated that the revenue for the journey with the business man will make up for the burned energy and additional fees that it has to be paid for arriving on time for the pickup.

In return to the fees imposed on Daan’s car, it now received the right to speed past everyone else, not being in a hurry.

As calculated, the VW arrives at the airport early. The TangleID of the passenger-to-be reveals that the business man passed customs. But his location profile, shared in a short-term IOTA MAM stream by his personal autonomous agent previously, clearly shows that the he already spent considerable time somewhere inside the airport. He probably just bought a coffee or is browsing the duty free area.

Of course Daan’s VW is unable to interpret the circumstances and doesn’t know whether and when the passenger will continue his journey towards the exit.

Newer AI models have this capability. Daan‘s car could pay one of these AIs for outsourced computations to receive a more detailed prediction of when the business man will likely arrive at the airport exit. But Daan’s settings indicate not to pay for services like these.

Nonetheless, Daan’s VW is intelligent enough to request a prediction from an AI based on freely available mobility statistic oracles most European autonomous vehicle producers share with each other. This AI service is part of the package coming with a level 5 autonomous vehicles.

Based on the prediction his car receives from the manufacturer AI, it decides that it is better to wait a bit before driving up to the airport exit where even short term holding space, as a quick check reveals, is currently extremely expensive. It’s a busy time of day and lots of people are arriving at the airport.

Daan’s car therefore drives straight into an automated underground parking garage reserved for autonomous vehicles.

On entering, it automatically negotiates a short term lease near the exit and automatically sets up an IOTA Flash channel to make the payments by the second, as requested by the autonomous garage agent.

After the VW found its parking spot, it hooks up to the local network and checks the latest gossip. A few cars are low on energy and are polling for any entity willing to negotiate prices for energy transfers.
The Dutch government started subsidising local energy distribution services, led by a consortium of grid providers and energy producers to fight the downsides of centralised energy production and distribution years ago. Daan’s car still has 96% energy left and recognises that there currently is a high demand for energy.

The VW checks the weather conditions by paying an oracle a small fee, and learns that a strong breeze is expected during the coming night, meaning a surplus in wind powered energy production. It requests a prediction for energy prices for the coming night with an outsourced AI by again paying a sub-cent fee and figures that it can sell off 20% of its battery capacity and buy it back during the night for a lower price.

The VW negotiates a good price with another car and starts emitting energy to the floor plate under it. Through an IOTA MAM channel it receives payments in a continuous stream from the other car that is now loading up, minus a small fee for the autonomous garage agent that provides the local energy grid infrastructure.

After a couple of minutes Daan’s VW is alerted by a previously set perimeter trigger of the location profile of the business man. He seems to make his way to the exit now. The VW figures that it is time get going for the pickup.

The VW sold off 6KW and was paid MIOTA in return. With the expected low energy prices during the coming night, it figures that it most probably already made up for all fees it paid to get to the airport in time. Daan will be pleased.

The autonomous garage agent is not disputing the duration the VW stayed in the garage or the payments it made in the Flash channel created previously. It agrees to close the Flash channel, settling all transactions, while the VW exits the garage and heads towards the airport exit.

Daan’s VW stops in front of the exit and automatically starts paying an exorbitant fee of the equivalent of several cents per second to the airport plaza autonomous agent while waiting at a holding bay for the passenger to enter the vehicle.

When the location profile of the business man‘s TangleID roughly matches the location of Daan’s car, the vehicle unlocks the doors to grant access to its passenger.

The pre-negotiated smart contract is executed through an IOTA Qubic as the business man enters the vehicle and the presence of his TangleID is sensed by the VW.

A MAM channel opens, paying Daan’s VW the negotiated fee in 1-minute intervals, as favoured by the personal autonomous agent of the red-bearded business man, who is swearing heavily in Norwegian while talking to someone about an upcoming meeting on his cellphone.

Meanwhile the car silently accelerates on the A13 highway towards Rotterdam harbour district …

This story was first published on May 15th 2018 under a different account. For an unknown reason, Medium deleted the story. This a re-upload.