Porsche Bullish on Blockchain despite lack of maturity in technology

“In this situation, the car park is the transmitter and the customer the recipient of a type of IOU, which details the amount and currency. In the blockchain network, the term for these transactions is ‘You Owe Me’. At the end of the billing period these UOMs are collected by Porsche, and sent back to the provider,” says Falkenberg, explaining the principle. “This process creates new data blocks in the blockchain, the monetary equivalent of which our chosen payment service provider debits from the customer account.” The debited amount for the parking tickets is then transferred to the car park operator by Porsche. “The advantage of this is that we are able to offer our customers services without each of them needing to register for the services in advance,” comments Falkenberg.

Currently (Blockchain-supported parking is at the “proof of concept” stage, as the engineers have proven that the technology works, using a scenario that is specific even though the technology still has a long way to go.

He added that being able to open and close the vehicle remotely is a good example of a benefit of blockchain versus IT networking via central computers. “If the car itself becomes part of the blockchain, a connection can be made locally, for example from a smartphone to the car, and so without being channeled via the internet or computer centers,” Döring points out. “This not only makes the functionality up to six times faster than is possible with current technology, but also increases security as the process is built on efficient cryptographic encryption, as well as being unalterably documented in the blockchain.”

Furthermore, Porsche is working on additional business models based on blockchain, in which the relevant user always retains control of the data, and decides him or herself how it is used. Additionally, all activity throughout is documented in the blockchain, resulting in complete transparency with respect to deletion processes.

From this basis, it will in future be possible to offer autonomous driving with improved functions in future: local data can be used to achieve regional learning effects, and these effects can be securely shared with other vehicles. In this way, the customer will be able to use swarm data, whilst still remaining protected.