A huge announcement has hit on the 2nd of May that will probably shake up the automotive industry in the future. Major automakers, startups and technology companies agreed to launch the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI). Founding members include BMW, Bosch, Ford, General Motors, Groupe Renault, ZF Accenture, Context Labs, IBM and a lot of tech oriented companies.

What is probably one of the most interesting part is that partners officially include Cryptocurrency projects like IOTA and VeChain who are also part of the Trusted IoT Alliance, which is also listed as a separate partner.

The following statement was included in the original paper from the Ford Motor Corporation VP, Rich Strader:

“We believe blockchain will transform the way peopleand businesses interact, creating newopportunities in mobility. We look forward to working together with our industry colleagues aspart of MOBI to set the standards for the mobility ecosystem of tomorrow.”

MOBI’s aim is to explore new use cases for blockchain technology in order to make transportation safer and more accessible. The most important part of the collaboration is that the initiative is building open source tools meaning that it can be adopted and used on an industry wide scale. This will allow MOBI and its industry partners to work in a transparent way resulting in growing trust from consumers and governments, while information sharing and processing will become a more seamless experience.

The following areas will be researched through the initiative:

Vehicle identity, history and data tracking

Supply chain tracking, transparency, andefficiency

Autonomous machine and vehicle payments

Secure mobility ecosystem commerce

Data markets for autonomous and human driving

Car sharing and ride hailing

Usage-based mobilitypricing and paymentsfor vehicles, insurance, energy,congestion, pollution, infrastructure, etc.

The project will not only change how we use transportation methods or how we pay for it, but it will also offer huge help with modelling and building infrastructure, will eliminate the existence of counterfeit parts and will also offer the ability to better understand human needs thus we gain options that better suit our needs in the future.