The car manufacturing giant Volvo cars, owned by Geely Motor group, the Chinese automotive group has recently announced about their new vehicle. The new vehicle is the first electric car that is built with recycled cobalt and is mapped on the blockchain.
Formerly the car company was a part of Volvo Group of Sweden. Later it was acquired by Ford in 1999. Chinese company Geely Holding purchased the company in 2010.
As per the reports, the Volvo company is under the constant pressure to prove that the material used by them for car manufacturing are ethically sourced. The car company has told Reuters that they have sourced cobalt over two months from a recycle plant of china to Volvo Cars Zhejiang. They used blockchain technology for the same.
The UK based blockchain firm Circular has developed the blockchain for the company in collaboration with the tech giant Oracle. The battery producer for the vehicle is CATL.
Advertisement
Finding battery material, particularly cobalt, is challenging as two-third of the supply are from Congo where domination challenges are tremendous. Tracking the mineral with the blockchain will not provide any solution unless transparency is induced into the supply chain.
Doug Johnson-Poensgen, the chief of Circular, has told no technology can replace the due diligence. It can only improve the implementation benchmarks by highlighting the things that are not working the way it should.
The company is exploring the blockchain technology to create an immutable ledger to provide improved liability and transparency all over the supply chain. In an email, to Reuters, the company has said the corporation is working to ensure full traceability and transparency.
Some of the big companies like auto Huayou Cobalt, IBM, Ford, and LG Chem have come together for the initiative of Volvo. The blockchain technology used by Volvo is trying to find its uses in different industries. And it vastly differs from the open network that is used in the digital currencies like Bitcoin. The closed system used by the firm requires permission to run and validate a node.
Advertisement
The blockchain technology is finding its adoption in many industries. Government of many countries is researching on it to understand the principle behind its speed accuracy and transparency.
