36 minutes in the life of a future autonomous electric vehicle
A short story about a possible, not-too-distant future combining several potential IOTA use cases, one-time payments, data and payment streams including Masked Authenticated Messaging, Flash Channels, mesh networks, TangleID, oracles and outsourced computations by predictive AIs.
When Daan’s new Volkswagen Moia 4 swerves into the holding bay in front of his workplace it awaits his instructions for the rest of the day.
It’s battery is nearly fully charged and Daan will not need it until he is ready to get back home. As every Friday, lots of tourists will arrive in the city of Amsterdam. Daan therefore decides to let the VW roam free. He instructs it to pick him up at 6 pm and earn some money for him until then.
After Daan closed its door, the Moia automatically requests information on how many level 5 autonomous vehicles currently offer their services in the wider area of Amsterdam.
It automatically makes a one-time payment (a few kIOTA) to an online location service for L5 autonomous limousines and goes through all locations and areas it knows Daan prefers it to earn money for him.
In an instant the VW figures that a lot of low cost, but very few high-end vehicles are available around the nearby Shiphol airport. The VW Moia 4 is brand new and top of its class.
So even though it’s a nearly 30 minute drive, it decides that the airport is its best option to find passengers in need of autonomous limousine services and starts driving towards the highway.
On the way to the onramp of the A4 towards Shiphol, the VW hits a pothole. Daan could have avoided this by setting the vehicles‘ preferences to poll updates for potentially damaging road conditions but as Daan’s company pays for the maintenance of his car he dismissed that checkbox when adjusting the settings for his car.
Since the Dutch government decided to increase efficiency and thus lower the cost for road maintenance by incentivizing automatic damage reports, most Dutch streets are in perfect condition anyways.
Nevertheless, the severity of the pothole and its location have been registered by the onboard sensor array of Daan’s VW. The vehicle immediately submits all available data to the Dutch national mobility service which pays his car a few kIOTA for the information. The car only received a small bounty because it just verified the location of the damage. A couple of hundred other cars must have reported it previously already.
While driving on the A4 in the regular lane towards the airport, Daan’s car advertises its autonomous services on three online limousine services and two courier services. It automatically pays the collective fees in the range of a few MIOTA. The higher class limousine AI matching services are still expensive but a few limousine rides during the day will make up for the fees.
While driving on the highway, the VW looks for other level 3+ autonomous cars through a local mesh network and learns that there are currently 5 around it going into the same direction. As the VWs battery is still nearly fully charged, it negotiates a price for a drive-train with the other cars around it that are willing to create a platoon of cars, all saving energy while driving a few inches apart in each others shadow. Daan’s car, high on energy, takes the lead, spending most energy but is constantly remunerated in a MAM channel by all cars following it.
Five minutes later, the personal autonomous agent of a business man contacts the VW. The PAA automatically activated itself when his human master disembarked an airplane at Shiphol airport. His human needs a ride to an address in the harbor district in Rotterdam, a few minutes drive from the airport and found Daan‘s premium vehicle through one of the limousine AIs services. Daan’s car and the autonomous agent compare the preferences of the business man with Daan‘s and conclude a high match percentage.
To make an offer, Daan’s vehicle needs more information apart from the desired destination. The personal autonomous agent didn’t reveal the identity of the business man but sends his TangleID and according credit history in a MAM channel starting two years ago.
Daan’s vehicle got lucky. While it does an automatic credit check through an IOTA oracle that references a fiat bank account, the credit history of the business man proves to be immaculate. That’s good enough for Daan, as his car knows based on Daans previously set passenger preferences. The check of the TangleID also reveals no previous incidents Daan excluded in his preferences for potential passengers.
The personal autonomous agent also doesn’t seem to care much about prices and will take on all automatically occurring highway tolls and potential parking fees occurring during the ride. It just wants a premium service for its master.
By reporting the limousine smart contract including the TangleID to the European authorities Daan’s vehicle receives the standard bounty in IOTA. For every update once the passenger embarked the VW, Daans car will receive another few IOTA every minute. Times have changed; the authorities always want to know the whereabouts of everyone and are willing to pay for that information.
This kind of „overwatch“, citizens like to call it in reference to an old 2D console game also has its advantages. When the limousine smart contract is published and takes effect, the health insurance premium of the business man will be lowered automatically by 2% for the time he rides in Daan’s level 5 autonomous VW – because of its high security. If the business man would have chosen an oldschool taxi with a human driver, his health insurance premium would have been increased by 3.25% instead.
To meet the passenger-to-be in time at the airport Daan’s vehicle automatically requests an update from a satellite-powered traffic service (paying a small kIOTA fee) and determines that real-time updates would be in order (a few IOTA every seconds in a MAM channel) because, as it found out, there seems to be strong traffic coming up ahead.
Daan’s car signals the personal autonomously agent of the business man that it will make it on time to the airport.
But based on Daans set preferences („never mind cost but always be on time to pick up passengers“), detaches from the platoon and changes into the level 3+ autonomous vehicle express lane of the highway to be able to double its speed to 240 mph.
Daan’s VW now has to pay the Dutch highway consortium a fee in a MAM channel and an additional fee to the Dutch environment agency for each 100m driven because it is unnecessarily burning energy by accelerating heavily.
Even though highway accidents are rare since level 3+ autonomous vehicles became the norm Daans insurance still increases its fee-per-mile to „high speed“ (additional kIOTA per mile, automatically paid by the vehicle) while Daans VW drives at speeds more than 150 mph. It’s worth it. Daan’s car calculated that the revenue in the range of several MIOTA for the journey with the business man will make up for the burned energy and additional fees for being on time.
In return to the fees imposed on Daan’s car it now received the right to speed past everyone not being in a hurry and the traffic jams of the lower autonomous level and few conventional cars in the regular lanes.
As expected, the VW arrives at the airport too early. The TangleID of the passenger-to-be reveals that the business man passed customs. But his location profile, shared in a short-term MAM stream by his personal autonomous agent previously, clearly shows that the he already spent considerable time somewhere inside the airport. He might have just bought a coffee or is browsing the duty free area.
Of course Daan’s VW is unable to interpret the circumstances and doesn’t „know“ whether and when he will continue his journey towards the exit.
Newer AI models have this capability. Daan‘s car could pay one of these AIs for outsourced computations to receive a more detailed prediction of when the business man will arrive at the airport exit. But Daan didn’t chose to pay for services like these.
Nevertheless, Daan’s VW is already intelligent enough to request a prediction from an AI based on freely available mobility statistic oracles most european autonomous vehicle producers share with each other. This AI service is „part of the package“ coming with a level 5 autonomous vehicle.
Based on the prediction his car receives from the manufacturer AI, it decides that it is better to wait a bit before driving up to the airport exit where even short term parking space, as a quick check reveals, is currently extremely expensive.
Daan’s car therefore drives straight into an underground parking garage reserved for autonomous vehicles.
On entering, it automatically negotiates a short term lease near the exit (a couple kIOTA per minute, including free WiFi) and automatically sets up an IOTA flash channel to make the payments, as requested by the autonomous garage agent because of the spotty underground 5G access. They really should fix that. But Daans car doesn’t bother as it doesn’t have feelings.
After the VW found its parking spot, it hooks up to the local network and checks the latest gossip. A few cars are low on energy and are asking to negotiate prices for energy transfers. The Dutch government started subsidizing local energy distribution services, led by a consortium of grid providers and energy producers to fight the downsides of centralized energy production and distribution already years ago. Daan’s car still has 96% energy left and figures that there is a high demand for local energy.
The VW checks the weather conditions (small IOTA fee) with an oracle and learns that a strong breeze is expexted during the coming night, meaning a surplus in wind powered energy production. It requests a prediction for energy prices for the coming night with an outsourced AI (small IOTA fee) and figures that it can sell off 20% of its battery capacity and buy it back during the night for a lower price.
The VW negotiates a good price with another car and starts emitting energy to the floor plate under it. Through a MAM channel it receives IOTA from the other car that is now loading up, minus a small fee for the autonomous garage agent that provides the local energy grid.
After a couple of minutes Daan’s VW is alerted through changes in a previously set perimeter for the location profile of the business man. He seems to make his way to the exit now. It’s time for the VW to get going.
The VW sold off 6KW and received some MIOTA in return. With the expected low prices during the coming night it most probably already made up for all fees it paid to get to the airport in time.
The autonomous garage agent is not disputing the duration the VW stayed in the garage or the payments it made in the offline flash channel opened previously. It agrees to close the flash channel while the VW exits the garage and heads towards the airport exit.
Daan’s VW stops in front of the exit and automatically starts paying an exorbitant fee (several kIOTA per second) to the airport plaza autonomous agent in a MAM channel while waiting for the passenger to enter the vehicle.
When the location profile of the business man‘s TangleID roughly matches the one of the Daan’s car, the doors unlock automatically.
The pre-negotiated smart contract is executed as the business man enters the vehicle and the presence of his TangleID is sensed by the VW.
A MAM channel opens, paying Daan’s VW a low MIOTA fee in 1-minute increments as favoured payment option by the personal autonomous agent of the red-bearded business man, who is swearing heavily in norwegian while talking to someone about an upcoming meeting with a shipping line on his cellphone.
Meanwhile the car silently accelerates on the A13 highway towards Rotterdam harbour district …