Blockchain In Automotive

Blockchain allows shared access of data which is distributed. This maintains the trust and privacy of the participants. Blockchain has impacted every vertical and domain of the industry and no wonder automobile has also been influenced.

“Cars are not just vehicles for mode of transport. They are technology on wheels enabling connectivity.”

OEMs are pushing on connected cars. Real-time monitoring, auditability, and scalability are the key factors favoring blockchain technology to be used for connected cars, cybersecurity, and autonomous vehicles. Mobility, supply chain logistics, retailing, and leasing are some of the automotive key functional areas implementing or prototyping on blockchain applications. Smart manufacturing, connected living, IoT and connected insurance are some of the future automotive functional areas that can be leveraged based on blockchain technology.

Some key developments in automotive ecospace:

•In 2016, Toyota Financial Services joined R3 CEV Consortium. In the long term, Toyota is expected to leverage blockchain technology for automotive supply chain management and connected car systems.

•In 2017, Daimler Financial Services acquired PayCash Europe to provide e-Money and cryptocurrency-based services such as Mercedes Pay.

•In 2016, RCI BANK, owned by Renault Group, joined the R3 CEV Consortium. RCI Bank specializes in providing automotive finance services to Renault and Nissan group companies.

•In 2017, Daimler AG joined the Hyperledger project led by Linux Foundation. The IT executive of Daimler joined as the board member of the project.

•ZF Friedrichshafen AG partnered with UBS and innogy Innovation Hub to develop the blockchain-based Car eWallet to facilitate online payments.

•In 2017, Bosch, Cisco, and many start-up companies such as ConsenSys and BitSE formed a consortium to build IoT applications based on blockchain technology.

There are 6 major use cases use cases of the Blockchain in Automotive.

Let’s dive deep into them:

Though blockchain is backed by various success factors, its application for automotive use cases faces major external challenges such as lack of expertise, knowledge, hands-on training, scalability, security, low standardization across the industry and geographically variable regulatory regimes. So we also see industry consortia emerging as critical catalysts in the blockchain space. Toyota is building its own consortium, and is also part of R3. Daimler AG joined the Hyperledger project. Meanwhile, the Blockchain IoT Consortium has come together with the purpose of coordinating the universe of IoT suppliers around new blockchain-powered use cases. In the future, automotive OEMs are expected to use enterprise blockchain architecture to research and utilize the benefits of blockchain technology.

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