- Under the participation of Honda, General Motors, the IOTA Foundation, R3 and others, MOBI presented a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) standard for the grid integration of electric vehicles.
- The standard does not prescribe a specific DLT, but ensures that the relevant data attributes and functionalities are available.
After a long period of quiet around the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI), a working group chaired by Honda and General Motors (GM) and supported by Accenture, CPChain, IBM, the IOTA Foundation, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), Politecnico di Torino and R3 yesterday announced “the first standard for the integration of the electric vehicle network into the blockchain”.
MOBI is a member-led consortium that aims to make transportation more environmentally friendly, efficient and affordable by using the blockchain and related technologies. In this spirit, MOBI is working on the creation and promotion of an industry standard for the adaptation of intelligent mobility solutions based on the blockchain.
The members of the consortium include the above-mentioned automotive groups, as well as BMW, Continental, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Renault, Bosch, but also large technology companies such as Accenture and IBM, as well as blockchain companies such as ConsenSys, Hyperledger, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Ripple and also R3 and the IOTA Foundation.
IOTA and R3 in the lead: One standard for all DLTs
In a press release issued yesterday, MOBI stated that the working group for the network integration of electric vehicles (EVGI), led by members of the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI), “has created and launched the automotive industry’s first global standard that integrates blockchain technology into a decentralized vehicle charging system”.
The EVGI standard does not prescribe a specific application or a specific Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), such as that of IOTA or R3, but ensures “that pertinent data attributes and functionalities of each use case are available for organizations to utilize in creating their own applications”. The initial technical design specification includes the required system designs and data schemas for three core application areas: Vehicle to Grid Integration (V2G), Tokenized Carbon Credits (TCC) and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications.
According to Tram Vo, COO and founder of MOBI, the implementation of the EVGI standard “will provide a variety of benefits for players on all sides of the electric vehicle and charging ecosystem. Electric vehicles, chargers, and electricity producers can have a secure identity, communicate with a standard messaging format, and automatically record transactions such as charging, generation, and exchange on a distributed ledger”.
The standard is said to be a fundamental step towards solving some of the most pressing climate and mobility problems. MOBI hopes that applications enabled by this standard will ultimately help to reduce carbon emissions, improve road safety, reduce traffic congestion and support a wide range of other socially and environmentally beneficial outcomes. Christian Köbel, Senior Project Engineer at Honda R&D Europe, added:
Today’s energy markets are undergoing a massive transition from centralized power generation in big power plants, towards more distributed and volatile power generation. Decentralization and the concept of direct P2P interaction is set to become a key factor in leveraging this new market and building meaningful tools for energy-conscious end customers. The goal is to enable scalable, user-centric energy communities. The EVGI Standard represents one of the first essential building blocks for founding such an ecosystem.
Furthermore, the EVGI standard enables “a set of core network data services that will provide significant value to EV owners, charging infrastructure and grid operators by enabling secure, decentralized communication and immutable record keeping between data generating peers”. This in turn supports data transparency, trust, coordination and automation between mobility service providers, consumers, utilities and governmental stakeholders.
Remarkably, Mathew Yarger, Head of the Mobility and Automotive Division at the IOTA Foundation, also had his say in the press release and explained:
Bringing together organizations from all sectors of the mobility industry to align on what the future of electric vehicles and their interaction with the grid looks like is no small feat. The work done by MOBI and the EVGI working group is a promising step, laying a strong foundation for the intersecting industries to align around and build on to accelerate the future of sustainable mobility and energy.
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