Pages with tag Blockchain
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eMotorWerks and Share&Charge Deliver North America's First Peer to Peer Electric Vehicle Charging Network with Blockchain Payments
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Encouraging person-to-person sharing of charging stations is one way to expand the electric car charging network. It's clear a key to a successful switch to electric cars is the speed with which the charging network becomes ubiquitous. This isn't the first effort at person-to-person charging station sharing. To my knowledge that honor falls on PlugShare/Recargo/Xatori (Xatori and Recargo merged). In any case, the interesting twist in this case is the use of Blockchain to record payments.
Blockchain? That's the transaction recording technology underly Bitcoin and most other digital currencies. Blockchain is a simpler mechanism to record transactions than the prevailing system of monetary settlements through the ACH banking system. Blockchain-style transactions are as fast as an API call on an Internet service, and are touted as being highly secure due to well-thought-out algorithms and encryption mechanisms. Instead of Bitcoin, the team is instead using Ethereum.
Almost two years ago I had a frenzy of excitement about Bitcoin, and posted
some theorizing that using Bitcoin in charging stations would reduce the need for charging networks. Who knows if that would be the result.