Japanese car behemoth Toyota is considering incorporating Ethereum blockchain technology into its vehicles, according to a recent blog post written by Toyota Blockchain Lab.
The car giant is conducting research on how to introduce mobility into public blockchains. The concept of mobility, which was originally announced back last April, aims to enhance the value of a car.
The blog post discussed some challenges of creating a blockchain account for a car. For instance, the account might be lost if the in-car device experiences a failure. The blockchain lab has proposed creating a mobility-oriented account based on the ERC-4337 Ethereum standard, which aims to improve wallet user experience with the help of account abstraction. The standard removes the need for seed phrase reliance while also enabling additional features such as multi-user operations. Car users, dealers, and administrative agencies could be involved in the transaction approval process.
Toyota Blockchain Lab has added that it is also “excited” about the EIP-7702 update that is set to improve the interoperability and efficiency of smart contracts. The update was proposed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin earlier this year in order to improve account abstraction.
Toyota is not new to the burgeoning blockchain space. In 2016, it became the very first member of the auto industry to become part of the consortium spearheaded by prominent enterprise blockchain firm R3. In 2019, the car giant launched its own blockchain lab in order to explore possible applications for the newfangled technology within the auto industry.
Last year, Toyota also provided financial support for Astar Network, a Polkadot parachain.
