The Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI) released the second installment of its Vehicle Identity Standard, VID II. Leading names in the auto industry are collaborating on the project in a working group chaired by BMW and Ford.
MOBI is a nonprofit alliance including the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers, technology firms and others. It aims to promote the adoption of blockchain standards in the mobility sector to make transportation more efficient and affordable.
MOBI’s Vehicle Identity I (VID I) provides a “birth certificate” for vehicles. VID I was the starting point enabling other future use cases such as the potential to track events in the car’s life, including change of ownership, repairs and insurance claims, and the ability to log odometer readings.
VID II leverages VID I in a variety of use cases, including vehicle registration and maintenance traceability. Vehicle registration enables previously disconnected registration systems to connect through a trusted shared ledger.
A reasonable number of second-hand cars are sent abroad. For example, in the UK, if a car is in an accident and the insurer decides it’s not economical to restore, it is written off with a write-off classification logged at the vehicle registry (DVLA). However, if the car is transported across borders and restored, there may not be a record that the car was a write off in the new country.
The new standard enables cross-border data sharing using blockchain, which secures and gives access to the information needed to value a second-hand car appropriately.
“The reference architecture in the VID II standard is a crucial building block in the transformation to a frictionless and trusted mobility ecosystem,” said BMW’s Andre Luckow, Head of Emerging Technologies.
With maintenance, cars that are regularly maintained are worth more. Log books of maintenance can be manipulated, lost or logged incorrectly. VID II facilitates tracking and accessing the data, supporting the car’s valuation.
“A secure digital vehicle identity sets the foundation for a fully automatic network for usage-based mobility services,” said MOBI COO and Co-Founder, Tram Vo. “We expect this network for frictionless transfer of value in the New Economy of Movement to open up trillions of dollars of new opportunities to monetize vehicles, services, data, and infrastructure.”
Other working group participants include Accenture, AWS, AutoData Group, Bosch, Car IQ, DENSO, DMX, Hitachi America, Ltd., Honda, IBM, Kar Auction Services, Luxoft, Quantstamp, Ownum, and USAA.
Last year, blockchain platform for Internet of Things solutions Filament announced the adoption of MOBI’s VID I technology on its Blocklet Mobility Platform. Integration of MOBI’s standard allows for rapid and accurate vehicle verification.
More recently, MOBI launched its first electric vehicle grid integration (EVGI) standard in a working group led by Honda and General Motors.
