On Monday, July 29, 2019, the topic of the invitation was: Mobility Blockchain Platform by Daimler. CryptoModay (eventbrite group CryptoMonday ) hosted this event on 29 July 2019 at the Bosch Stuttgart Connectory in Wilhelmsbau / Königstr. 78 in Stuttgart (btw: very cool location / very cool coworking space!).

The Mobility Blockchain Platform event

Here a Blockchain Use Case was presented in connection with Mobility: the Mobility Blockchain Platform. This was developed by Daimler and Startup partners.

Dr. Harry Behrens: Head of DFS Blockchain Factory of Daimler AG has guided through the evening. Or rather – he is the mastermind behind the Mobility Blockchain Platform. The event was very well attended.

Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform
Visitors of the Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform event
Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform
Dr. Harry Behrens – Mobility Blockchain Platform
Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform
All speakers of the Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform event
Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform
Bosch Connectory – View on the city
Bosch connectory
Bosch Connectory room
Bosch connectory
Bosch Connectory entry
Bosch connectory mit mir
Bosch Connectory and me
Table of contents

Challenges

Daimler is currently facing very great challenges in the digital world. This was recognized – and the Daimler CASE program (CASE = Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electric) was launched.
Cars are becoming increasingly networked (connected), autonomous (autonomous driving), shared (shared services/Shareconomy/Tokenization) and electric.
Each of these points has the potential to turn the automotive industry upside down. From Daimler’s point of view, however, the true revolution lies in the combination of all of these.

As Dr. Harry Behrens points out, people under the age of 15 will probably no longer want to buy or own their own car in the future. This also does not mean an increasing number of driving licences (Dr. Mario Herger: The last driver licence holder, is also dealing with this and the subject of autonomous driving). This means that mobility tends to go in the direction of service. Examples of Daimler’s mobility services are here: car2go or blacklane.

There is still an emotional connection to cars and driving (BMW, for example, advertises with “joy of driving”) – and thus to the brand. But this will disappear more and more.

Solution: Micro rentals

This means that Daimler’s goal (in addition to classic vehicle financing) is micro rentals. For this reason, the Mobility Blockchain Platform was developed. This is intended to help shape the above-mentioned CASE challenges. Especially with the point S (shared).
This means that it is a platform that automatically and decentrally manages the micro rentals. For this reason it is based on a blockchain.

There is a video about the whole event in German (see below, length 1:55:02). You can let it translate the subtitles automatically in real-time by the Youtube tools. A summary of the points can be found below.

Video about Mobility Blockchain Platform

CryptoMonday, Youtube: Blockchain Use Cases – Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform

Features of the Mobility Blockchain Platform

The Mobility Blockchain Platform (MBP) has the following features:

  • Self service: This means that you can use the service yourself and independently. So e.g. no counter employee with paper contracts needed.
  • 1-click: The service can be used with a single click.
  • multiservices bundles: The MBP should be able to be used via REST APIs, or uses them itself.

The MBP uses the blockchain with Smart Contracts for the decentralized approach. Smart Contracts (still) differ from legal contracts. The MBP is supposed to solve this as well.

Technical framework

Capabilites

The MBP consists of different capabilites. The following are the companies that provide the Mobility Blockchain Platform with the corresponding capabilities:

There are no addictions. Each component can be replaced by a similar component.

Digital User Identity

Digital User Identity by helix id – Oliver Naegele.

Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform
Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform – Oliver Naegele

helix id sees itself as LegalTech based on the Blockchain.

The following Digital User Identity features are provided:

  • Digital Signature
  • Know your customer (KYC) & anti money laundering (AML)
  • The car as a direct blockchain client
  • Supports the click and drive approach
  • Core question of Digital User Identity : How can data sovereignty be returned to the user? Answer: Best with a Self-Sovereign Identity. btw: The company Inrupt of the WWW inventor Tim-Berners Lee also goes in this direction – but not on blockchain basis.
  • OTC (Over the counter) procedure
  • Signatures about transaction, are legally not yet legal in court. Integration with DocuSign would work, however.
  • “Digital Euro” is in development

Vehicle Identity & Car wallet (Machine Identity)

Blockchain & verification by Riddle & Code – Sebastian Becker.

Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform
Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform – Sebastian Becker

The following Vehicle Identity & Car wallet features are provided:

  • Vehicle Identity / Digital Identity through highly secure hardware cryptochips
  • Addressability (public key)
  • Transactionity (Smart Contracts)
  • The “wallet capability” of the MBP can be established by the 3 points mentioned above.

Blockchain & verification

Blockchain & verification by evan.network – Thomas Müller

Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform
Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform – Thomas Müller

The following blockchain & verification features are provided:

  • Ethereum basierte Permission Chain (mit Berechtigungsnachweis)
  • FOSS
  • Neutrality, Decentrality & Enterprise Readiness

This allows the following, for example, to be mapped:

Key question: How can the transmission of real-world trust take place in the digital world? Solution: Notarial verification process has taken place for this chain.

Architecture, Integration & Rental

Architecture, Integration & Rental by 51nodes – Jan-Paul Buchwald.

Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform
Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform – Jan-Paul Buchwald

Fleet2Share architecture

The MBP architecture is shown in the picture above. The following core information:

E2E settlement

Daimler Financial Services ultimately manage the end-to-end (E2E) settlement. In other words, the financial settlement of transactions with all compliance & co. requirements.
Any business partner can use the MBP with 1-click. Even mobility service providers who were not previously known / on the platform. MBP sees itself as a B2B2C service – fleet to fleet.

Outlook / Roadmap

What is integrated? What does the MBP roadmap look like?

  • Digital Payment will be integrated.
  • B2B Services are integrated (transparent in the background for the user): Ticketing / Smart Parking, Insurance
  • It is provided as a white label solution
  • The added value of the platform also lies in the possibility of supporting mobility service providers. Utilization is increased and more customers are generated. Similar to paid peering for telecommunications companies.
  • Amazon goes truck sharing. Here, too, other fleet providers can position themselves via the MBP.

Why does MBP benefit from the market environment?

Urban Mobility is becoming important more and more:

  1. Mobility as a service is promoted by urban planning (Urban Planner / Urban Mobility). Balance / mixture / change between the different means of transport such as e-scooter, car, bus, tram, etc. is becoming more and more important: Multimodal Mobility is becoming more and more an issue.
  2. There is probably the same development as with telecommunications companies: There will be a mobility flat rate: “All you can drive…”

Requirements / Capabilites to the MBP:

  1. Must scale
  2. May not belong to a private operator:
    – no monopoly
    – Ensuring Digital Governance

Other Mobility service providers such as Ueber claim 20% of the turnover. According to Dr. Harry Behrens, no company can survive on this: “Urban Mobility will not be a private event.” Therefore the MBP can be made available here.

Monetization

How does monetization via MBP take place?

Above all about the transactions, as well as through the
Value increase of the blockchain. In addition, about the tokenization / tokenizing of assets: cars, etc. (In the USA you can see the value of the assets that can be tokenized at about 2 trillion USD).

The following topics were discussed in the round of questions

Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform
Daimler Mobility Blockchain Platform – round of questions
  • Transactions are currently technically limited. However, this is not core capability (currently, approx. 10 transactions per mobility service provider are possible; the requirement is currently sufficient).
  • Dependencies: There are none. The Identity capability can be exchanged, for example.
  • Data security: The data is stored in a decentralized system. There are talks about how this data could be stored in the customer’s own area.
  • Reliability is an open topic.
  • A repository / a website will be published soon.
  • Parity nodes are provided by evan.network.
  • Release of MBP is probably mid of next year (2020).
  • Shared Liability will be integrated in helix id.

Conclusion

It was an exciting evening with absolute leading edge technologies. I am looking forward to further developments. Many thanks to everyone for the excellent event.

Blockchain Factory at Daimler

Youtube: Blockchain Factory at Daimler

See also

See also: See also (glossary Cryptocurrency): See also (glossary End-to-End processes (E2E)):

External links:

Jan

My name is Jan Puder (LinkedIn profile Jan Puder). I am the founder & CEO of the BusinessTech-Company. Me and the BusinessTech-Company want to push the digital frontier. This is the reason, why I started this website. I want to provide information about digital businesses, especially for Chief Digital Officers.

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