There’s a new eco-friendly ride in the works and instead of immediately depreciating the minute it leaves the assembly line it will mine bitcoin for you.
Elon who? Tesla what?
Introducing Spiritus
Personal light electric vehicle (or LEV) manufacturer, Daymak, released its prototype crypto mining car, the Spiritus, in June of this year. It comes equipped with Nebula, the world’s first cryptocurrency suite for electric vehicles. Nebula will allow the Spiritus to mine and manage cryptocurrencies for its owner, ideally paying for itself while parked.
Using the Nebula wallet, Spiritus model electric vehicles will be able to collect, store and make transactions with the cryptocurrencies it has mined anywhere around the world.
“Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency are two of the most disruptive innovations of our time, and we are proud to be the first auto-manufacturer in history to incorporate it into our Spiritus EV offering. While every other car sits depreciating in the garage, Spiritus owners will have a vehicle that has the potential to pay for itself while it’s parked,” says Aldo Baiocchi, President of Daymak.
About Daymak
Daymak was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. The company made its mark on the world first as a pioneer in electric vehicle technology with a line of bikes, scooters, and other personal mobility devices, including a flying vehicle prototype, Skyrider. Daymak holds the distinction of being the top LEV manufacturer in Canada with impressive global distribution through major retailers like Best Buy, Costco, and Walmart.
In June of this year, the company announced it was moving into the electric car space and that their first offering, the Avvenire Spiritus electric car, will be equipped with a new technology called the Nebula Miner. Additionally, the Spiritus will have up to a 400-kilometer range (249 miles). Its 150 horsepower engine and 60-kilowatt hour battery can take you from 0 to 60 in 1.8 seconds, or so says their website.
For interested parties, Daymak is accepting pre-orders and you can make your down payment with cryptocurrencies, of course. They are accepting dogecoin, ethereum, bitcoin, and Cardano as of right now. The start date for manufacturing on a large scale is slated for 2022 with the release date of the first consumer models sometime in 2023.
How It Works
While your Spiritus is parked, recharging for your next drive, the Nebula Miner will be mining bitcoin and dogecoin. When you hop in and fire it up Nebula will announce the amount mined and deposited in your Nebula wallet.
In order to mine cryptos, the car will need to be connected to the internet 24 hours a day which will be draining its battery so this is definitely only a car for the urban dweller where recharging stations and wi-fi is reliable and plentiful. Since it will require more recharging, long road trips in your Spiritus are not advisable either.
Blockchain And The Future Of Transportation
With more and more automakers shifting development and production to green energy-powered, self-driving cars the potential for blockchain to revolutionize the industry is already being explored.
The biggest barrier to the more widespread use of self-driving vehicles is the inability of the cars to be securely connected to the environment they are operating in. While capable of absorbing millions of bits of data as it drives, autonomous cars have no context for the information it receives nor any connection with the cars around it. With blockchain technology:
“... the information is decentralized allowing each node in the network—in this case each car and data point— to have access to all data almost simultaneously, and more accurately. Companies are already working on integrating better vehicle tracking and communication to improve overall connectivity. Creating decentralized networks that more seamlessly transfer data to all points is the first step toward building a safe driverless ecosystem.” Investopedia
Blockchain technology would allow cars and their occupants to connect with the environment around them to exchange information like traffic congestion, construction delays, weather issues, or where to find the nearest recharging or refueling station.
The use of smart contracts between vehicle manufacturers, insurers, and service providers could mean a more efficient and streamlined way to pay for a vehicle, its maintenance, and for insurance that is usage-based rather than a set price. They also have the potential to expand ride-sharing beyond the Uber or Lyft model where individuals simply communicate directly, no corporate entity middleman, to carpool and share expenses.
With the potential for blockchain to revolutionize the future of cars and transportation, a cryptocurrency mining vehicle like Spiritus is a natural first step in that direction.
The Pros and Cons of a Crypto Car
On the list of pros for the Spiritus is:
- An electric vehicle that will not contribute to carbon emissions
- A base price of $20,000 making it affordable for the general public
- With trickle solar charging, these cars will be very eco-friendly when it comes to the massive amounts of electricity needed to mine cryptocurrencies
- A car that puts money in your (digital)wallet, instead of just emptying it
There can be no list of pros without cons, however.
- Presently, Daymak has not secured a patent for its Nebula miner despite already collecting around $350 million in pre-sales
- Spiritus must be connected to the internet 24 hours a day to mine, limiting it’s driving range
- Bitcoin mining is expected to increase in difficulty over time, so the embedded mining chip may become obsolete long before the car wears out
I Want One
If your interest is piqued you can get 24-hour real-time data on how much the Spiritus prototype car has mined, see Daymak’s full line of cars, scooters, and other electric vehicles including Skyrider, their flying vehicle prototype at daymakavenire.com/products/skyrider .
