FuelEV operates on the Internet Computer Protocol, tapping into its superior canister technology to allow investors across the world to invest into city fleet networks and earn powerful returns.
A new electric car tokenization platform aims to build the world’s largest community owned electric vehicle fleet, by tapping into the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP).
Speaking to DroomDroom on the eve of the platform’s launch, FuelEV’s co-founders Kshitij Bhatawdekar (known as KB) and Javier Arroyo Ferrer said the project has been in development since July 2023. The team has built a car tokenization platform on the ICP, and a car rental booking platform that allows users to rent a vehicle for a multi-day duration.
Ever since I came across RWA tokenization, we knew vehicles were the perfect asset to work with. Not as expensive as real estate, not as small a ticket as physical goods.
The FuelEV team highlighted the growth in the market capitalization of RWA tokenization since their inception in July 2023. The market cap now exceeds $186 billion, with widespread adoption already on its way. For example, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has tokenized 42 million vehicles to date on the blockchain (https://www.ledgerinsights.com/californias-dmv-digitizes-42m-car-titles-on-permissioned-avalanche-chain/).
FuelEV’s platform features a collection of vehicles that users can pick to invest into. Typically, they will be divided by city networks that users might want to capitalize on. For example, our first launch city i.e. Mumbai is one of the world’s fastest growing car rental markets. Interested investors can invest into the city network of Mumbai, and those funds raised will be used to acquire vehicles. These would generate revenue through multiple modes- anywhere from car rentals to ridesharing networks like Uber.
Users will be required to use ICP’s native Internet Identity to use the FuelEV tokenization platform. This allows users to log into the platform using conventional Web2 user experiences, while maintaining noncustodial control of their wallets and assets.
ICP is a “Fantastic RWA-friendly Chain”
Building on ICP also allows FuelEV to claim transaction finality times below two seconds, as well as zero gas or network fees. Its architecture provides optimized storage costs, averaging around $5 per gigabyte of data stored annually.
KB added that most of FuelEV’s team has been building on the ICP since genesis, and now has extensive experience building smart contract wallets, marketplaces, booking platforms and tokenization platforms.
Built on the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP), both platforms leverage cutting-edge technologies such as Rust for backend development and Leptos for frontend implementation. While Rust guarantees safety and high performance, Leptos allows building dynamic, declarative UIs that enhance performance for interactive web applications.
“ICP is a fantastic RWA-friendly chain right now because it has wonderful technology at the protocol layer.”
FuelEV’s Users and Target Market
Cointelegraph also inquired whether FuelEV’s Web3 fundamentals could be a potential barrier to entry for users. Javier said it has no intention to gatekeep its platform for only Web3 users. A car rental business is for everyone, and we strongly believe in acquiring users through the path of ‘solving their problem’. They will be issued FUEL tokens, and while they may not use them immediately- they will eventually be curious about wanting the perks that come with holding FUEL tokens. This could also act as a huge surge of users for the ICP, and should supercharge future projects to create a larger ecosystem among themselves to give new users an all-round experience.
Their rental platform launch earlier this week after officially acquiring their first vehicle, the MG ZS EV has already started gaining traction. KB said-
“We expect our vehicle to be fully booked out over the next few weeks, thanks to the strong waitlist we built in our target market. Mumbai is a key long-term market for FuelEV, and we’re focused on maintaining this momentum to scale our operations.”
Why ICP is Key to Scaling EV Adoption?
A report from the International Energy Agency (https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2024/trends-in-electric-cars) talks about how we’ve reached a point where one out of every five vehicles sold globally is an electric vehicle. However, Javier argues that we need to accelerate this global mobility transformation.
FuelEV aims to make individual car ownership obsolete. Fleets would be owned by the community, and individuals would own all vehicles in the fleet by just investing in the network- all built on the Internet Computer.
FuelEV’s team believes robocars will proliferate global markets soon, and they intend to be ready to position themselves as a key player. All vehicles in the fleet would be retrofitted with cameras (external as well as internal dashcams to track driver behaviour). This would be crucial in gaining training data, on which artificial intelligence could be applied to map safe drive patterns and paths for robocars. This data would be exposed to robotaxi operators through paid APIs, making it a key revenue source for FuelEV. At the centre of this technological effort sits the continuous iteration and improvement of the Internet Computer in helping us realize our AI ambitions at scale.
