ElaadNL is a Netherlands based company focused on providing smart charging to electric vehicles. IOTA is a cryptocurrency focused on powering the Internet of Things. The two integrated with each other to achieve a seamless car charging experience without the use of credit cards. The following takeaways show why ElaadNL’s partnership with IOTA is actually a major step forward.
#3 Frictionless Payments
Even though most terminals accept card payments – with or without NFC technology – it simply isn’t convenient to use a credit card for small transactions. The same applies to debit cards and bank cards, primarily because the payment process isn’t frictionless. IOTA shows the world direct machine-to-machine interactions are the way forward, at least when it comes to ventures like these.
ElaadNL’s test site welcomes IOTA payments, and has been experimenting with this technology for several months. Earlier this week, the location publicly demonstrated the power of IOTA payments. A car was charged and the electricity was paid for using this cryptocurrency only. A very positive development for the IOTA community and its ecosystem.
#2 Smart Network Integration
Although it took ELaadNL five months of thorough testing, the company is quite confident this particular cryptocurrency and technology can make a meaningful impact. All of the information pertaining to the charging stations and the devices being charged is transmitted to IOTA’s Tangle, creating a vast network of valuable information.
The important takeaway of this approach is how devices can interact with transformers to request a charge on their own accord. There is no user interaction required for most of the charging activity, although the system still needs to be fine tuned further. Smart charging is one of the main benefits of integrating IOTA into these types of hardware, as it can create a streamlined and unified ecosystem.
#1 Achieving Fully Automated Services
According to ELaadNL, the system is almost fully autonomous at this stage. The only part the end user is required to do is to connect the to-be-charged device to the transformer itself. From that point forward, the smart network based on IOTA takes care of communication and payment along every step of the way. All meter values of the transformer are stored in the Tangle every 15 minutes.
Further upgrades to this system are also in the works. The team is exploring a QR code solution to introduce direct pay and charge. Although regular cars and consumers cannot make use of ELaadNL’s services just yet, that situation will change in the future. Once the necessary hardware comes to market on a large scale, a lot of interesting things will happen in the future. IOTA will play a big role in those upcoming changes.
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