The automotive industry with its electric and self-driving cars is in the midst of a technological revolution. The next transformation stage is posed to be the large-scale adoption of blockchain, and this post explains why.

Next-level Security

The Hurdles of Autonomous Driving

It seems unbelievable but the same Chinese hackers cracked Tesla cars twice, in 2016 and 2017. Both times, the team controlled the entire car’s computer system, with the brakes included. Elon Musk worries the hackers’ attacks will be reproduced: “I think one of the biggest concerns for autonomous vehicles is somebody achieving a fleet-wide hack.”

How Can Blockchain Thwart Hacking?

The technology, due to its inherently decentralized nature, evenly distributes data through all the chain’s nodes. Hackers can crack a blockchain only if they get hold of all of its members simultaneously. Another safeguarding level is to verify each and every transaction by the chain’s participants. This prevents data from any malicious manipulations.

What’s Here Now?

In 2017, the Toyota Research Institute set out on blockchain’s mass adoption in autonomous driving, propelled by the technology’s incorruptible nature. In this case, blockchain protects ownership rights by acting as an encrypted digital ledger. In addition, its append-only approach to data storage allows defining unbiased insurance rates based on the driving conditions.

Oaken Innovations became the first company to adopt Toyota’s blockchain.

Transparent Car-sharing

How Does It Work?

The next decade will see the extraordinary growth of car-sharing. It is noteworthy that just in the next 7 years, it is going to grow to 35 million people, which is 400% more than in 2015.

How is car-sharing working now? If you need a car, you should first contact a car-sharing company. It verifies your age and the validity of your driving license to provide you with the options of available vehicles. Once a car is found, the company issues a membership card that can open this car. When you give the car, the company charges you for gas, insurance, and the company’s services.

What Can Blockchain Offer?

Blockchain’s public ledger can be responsible for validating the driver’s license, age, and current location. After this data is confirmed, the blockchain-driven smart contract can automatically offer available car options to the client. In return for issuing a secure membership card, the system will hold some money from the client’s credit card. Since the blockchain-powered system will track all the car movements and any violations, it can regulate both the insurance rate and the amount of the locked money in real time.

What’s Here Now?

Oaken Innovations and Tesloop have already adopted blockchain for their car-sharing services.

The toll road system by Oaken Innovations not only pinpoints a car’s location but charges a toll when required. The application also provides actual information to all the parties including the car owner and the driver, as well as private and state authorities participating in the process.

Tesloop’s blockchain-led system records the history of every vehicle and distributes this information among authorized participants. Hence, drivers can be sure of the car’s good condition, insurance companies can automatically adjust their rates depending on the driving behavior, and engineers can alert about potential car breakdowns. All this is due to the immutability and transparency of blockchain-stored data.

Any Other Challenges Blockchain Can Solve?

Apart from the benefits mentioned above, blockchain can improve such aspects of the automotive industry as components provenance monitoring, prevention of the odometer fraud, and automation of insurance contracts. For example, Renault and carVertical have already adopted the technology for tracing the provenance of spare parts.

However, this domain is still roomy enough for other solutions. To develop a decentralized application in a more cost-efficient way, it’s possible to use a ready-made blockchain by genEOS with its numerous pre-designed features such as smart contracts and decentralized data storage.

How Can Blockchain Transform Automotive Industry?

The highly secure blockchain technology makes autonomous driving safer due to its inherently decentralized nature.

Blockchain also records real-time transactions and provides authorized parties with this information on request, which is extremely useful for car-sharing services. When it comes to proper car maintenance, blockchain can come in handy too as it stores details about the provenance of car components and overhauls.