In today's digital age, all walks of life are facing transformation and upgrading. The same is true for the automobile industry as a traditional industry. It is undergoing a digital and intelligent transformation, and is evolving from a travel tool to a smart terminal.
Looking at the essence through the phenomenon, it is not difficult to see that this is a turn from "internal combustion engine + machinery" to "electricity + software". Therefore, digitalization and intelligence are not only the goal of the revolution of car companies, but also the means of this revolution.
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Towards an intelligent and connected automotive industry
As a traditional industry with a century-old history, automobiles once shined brilliantly in the industrial age and gave birth to many emerging technologies. However, after entering the Internet era, the overall development of the automobile industry is slightly behind, and the transformation is slow. However, with the emergence of new energy car companies, traditional auto giants have also woken up and actively embraced new technology trends such as 5G, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.
Throughout the 100-year development history of the automobile industry, changes in the order of enterprises are determined by the management models adopted by enterprises. For example, Ford's assembly line model defeated the European small team production model, Toyota's lean production model defeated the extensive assembly line model, and Volkswagen's modular production sent it to the throne of the global sales champion.
Looking at the current automobile industry, two major trends are quietly unfolding: one is that the automobile industry will transform from a manufacturing centered on design and production to a mobility service industry centered on operation services; tools, when autonomous driving liberates people's hands and eyes, cars will carry more entertainment and business functions, and develop an emerging economy based on the car space itself.
At present, the automobile industry has just begun to become intelligent and networked. The technical application, product form and business model of smart cars are all in the exploratory stage. In the future, as a super entrance for users to travel, in-car entertainment and new consumption, cars will inevitably generate massive user data. Data is critical to the development of the smart car industry.
When blockchain technology emerges, the Internet of Value based on blockchain technology can help capitalize these data. In addition, the integration of the Internet of Things and blockchain technology can also solve the authenticity of driving data.
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Blockchain empowers the new development of smart cars
As mentioned above, in the new mobile travel ecology, the car is no longer a pure asset or a travel tool, but a carrier of various services. In this new ecology, car carriers will gather all kinds of mobile travel service providers to provide different types of services including daily commuting, logistics express delivery, carpooling and taxi sharing, and shared leasing.
In this mode, there will be multiple transactions between cars, between cars and charging piles, between cars and gas stations, between cars and parking lots, and between cars and people. The smart contract, decentralization, and non-tamperable characteristics of the blockchain will give the smart car industry a new imagination.
Auto insurance differentiated pricing
When blockchain technology is applied, vehicle driving data, car manufacturer data, and insurance company data can all be uploaded to the chain synchronously. According to the driving information of the vehicle, the insurance company can formulate different insurance prices. And when self-driving cars are popularized, insurance companies can also prepare more types of insurance. At the same time, when a car is involved in an accident, all users within the blockchain will receive relevant information, acting as a third party to avoid disputes over claims.
Optimizing the sharing economy model
There is a great flaw in the current sharing economy model, that is, the centralized organization or platform will obtain most of the profits in the sharing economy because it provides a lot of authorization, demand matching and transaction arbitration. Through the decentralized nature of the blockchain, it is possible to achieve decentralization in the car sharing economy while ensuring that all behaviors of vehicles can also be accurately recorded, improving the operational efficiency of shared travel and the security of transactions and vehicle assets , so as to maximize the interests of all parties.
First, the owner of the vehicle asset or the mobile travel operator issues the right to use the vehicle to the blockchain in the form of digital assets. The user browses all currently rentable vehicles through the travel app, and generates a rental order through a smart contract to obtain the vehicle The right to use digital assets.
Then, the user directly unlocks and starts the vehicle through the App, and all the data generated during the use process, including the rental duration, rental start/end point/route, driving behavior, refueling/charging amount and times, and the in-car data recorded by the camera in the car Behavioral data will be uploaded to the blockchain synchronously to prevent subsequent tampering. When the user returns the vehicle, the blockchain wallet on the car side collects the user's vehicle information, uploads it to the smart contract module to generate a vehicle bill, and the user pays the bill through the blockchain network.
Although the whole process does not seem to be significantly different from the current mobile Internet technology, it is actually very different. Because the blockchain is an underlying technology, the upper-layer applications built on it have higher operating efficiency and better security, and these ordinary users are often not aware of it during use.
Improve charging/parking service experience
Charging and parking scenes can also be improved through blockchain technology. Vehicles and charging piles are mapped as a blockchain node, and P2P transactions and payments are realized through smart contracts between nodes.
The specific process is: through the charging cable, the vehicle obtains the address of the charging pile blockchain wallet; then the blockchain wallet in the car recharges the charging pile wallet through the blockchain network, and the charging pile is queried on the blockchain public ledger. After the recharge has been received, open the charging port and charge the vehicle.
Make used car transactions open and transparent
From the moment the vehicle is purchased until it is scrapped, a large amount of usage data will be generated. Such as maintenance, road assistance, driving data, vehicle control settings, and engine/battery packs, air conditioners, gearboxes, lights, door locks, tires, radars, instruments, airbags and other component usage data.
In the current second-hand car trading market, the lack of authenticity of information caused by the information asymmetry between buyers and sellers has been plagued by the further development of the second-hand car market. Cars are specialized products, and ordinary consumers cannot intuitively judge the real residual value of second-hand vehicles. Even if a professional appraiser from a third-party organization is hired to evaluate, complete standardization cannot be achieved.
The core reason is that during the entire life cycle of the vehicle, a lot of data has not been truly recorded, only the accident information is recorded in the insurance company system. Through blockchain technology, all the certificates of these vehicle data can be stored on the chain to ensure that the vehicle information is stored in a decentralized organization; at the same time, it can ensure that the information is not tampered with, providing authenticity, reliability, and reliability for used car transactions and insurance services. Traceable information sources reduce the trust cost of the overall used car market and auto insurance market, and provide an open and transparent market environment for used cars.
Personalization of parts production
With the change of consumer groups and the further upgrading of consumer demand, there are more and more personalized automobiles, which put forward higher requirements for auto parts companies. Because ordinary consumers lack the ability to judge these professionally differentiated technologies, the level of technology and craftsmanship to meet different needs needs to be transparent and traceable through blockchain technology.
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Through the empowerment of blockchain technology, problems such as information asymmetry, lack of trust, waste of resources, and low efficiency in the automotive market will be resolved. While ensuring the safety of travel, it can also ensure the transparency of various data, improve production and operation efficiency, and solve the crisis of trust. As a pioneer and practitioner in the field of blockchain, Wanglian Technology is committed to linking blockchain technology to traditional industries, and implementing landing applications in more scenarios, so that traditional industries will be full of vitality. We believe that blockchain has broad application prospects in the smart car industry, and blockchain × smart cars will surely create a future that cannot be ignored.
