Jaguar Land Rover has unveiled it is testing connected car services that will enable drivers to earn cryptocurrency and make payments on the move.
Using Smart Wallet technology, owners earn credits by enabling their cars to automatically report useful road condition data such as traffic congestion or potholes to navigation providers or local authorities. Drivers could then redeem these for rewards such as coffee, or to automatically pay tolls, parking fees and for smart charging electric vehicles. Smart Wallet removes the need for drivers to hunt for loose change or sign up to multiple accounts to pay for a variety of everyday services.
“The connected car technologies we are developing will be transformative and truly turn your Jaguar or Land Rover into a third space, in addition to your home or office. In the future, an autonomous car could drive itself to a charging station, recharge and pay, while its owner could choose to participate in the sharing economy – earning rewards from sharing useful data such as warning other cars of traffic jams,” said Russell Vickers, a JLR software architect.
Smart Wallet uses the latest cryptocurrency technology and Jaguar Land Rover has partnered with the IOTA Foundation to harness distributed ledger technologies to make and receive these payments. Unlike other similar systems, due to its structure, it requires no transaction fee to operate, and over time transactions will get faster across the entire network, which is forecasted to include some 75 billion connected devices by 2025. Drivers could also top up the Smart Wallet using conventional payment methods.
The technology is being trialled at the new Jaguar Land Rover software engineering base in Shannon in the Republic of Ireland, where engineers have equipped several vehicles, including the Jaguar F-Pace and Range Rover Velar, with Smart Wallet functionality.