Soon after Porsche partnered with IOTA Blockchain to work on a new project by AutoBahn, another luxury automobile brand is in the news for a similar alliance.
BMW, the global automobile giant, is trying out a blockchain platform partnering with blockchain startup DOVU – one of five startups to work with BMW Group UK for tracking mileage in rented cars through its startup innovation program, which was unveiled in February.
Alex Morris, Head of Product at DOVU, explained that the system that is being developed in partnership with Alphabet, a subsidiary of BMW Group, would help understand just how much activity BMW’s leased vehicles are seeing and the impact of those activities on them. He said,
“What we’re doing is we’re essentially trying to build out this circular economy on the DOVU platform. [Drivers] can earn tokens, but down the line, they’ll also be able to spend tokens on services – for example, they might be able to get replacement tires or something like that using the DOVU ecosystem. The partner, in this case, BMW, defined the categorization of the reward and that’s defined in a smart contract. As long as the parameters are met for the smart contract, they’ll receive tokens.”
According to Alex, BMW embraced this mileage tracking through token rewards stating that the present automatic mileage tracking systems are unreliable, and do not provide the information that the company might actually use.
Therefore, the test-running program necessitates drivers of rented or leased cars to log their mileage weekly, which gets stored on DOVU’s blockchain. He said,
“Right now mileage is the most important factor for the resale value of their vehicles. The problem is quite an important one for them to solve, so when we suggested tokens to incentivize them to do that they were very excited.”
The first part of the partnership – the proof-of-concept – has been completed already, said Max Lomuscio, who serves as DOVU’s community manager. Now the startup is moving into the second phase, which is the actual trial with drivers. This portion should take another 6-8 weeks, he explained. Alex said,
“the plan is to become this kind of ubiquitous rewards system that can work across vehicles, make some kind of unified wallet for token rewards that you can use on your BMW, but maybe jump into your second car and earn more tokens and then spend those throughout the ecosystem.”
DOVU wants to work with smart city environments and has already stared with discussions with a few cities to determine how tblockchain can now be incorporated into public transit and other aspects of a metropolitan area.
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