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- Canadian electric-vehicle maker Daymak is planning a car that will mine bitcoin while charging.
- It is intended to launch in 2023, and Daymak is accepting pre-order payments in cryptocurrencies.
- Critics have slammed bitcoin mining, however, as very energy intensive and bad for the environment.
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Forget Tesla, there’s a new electric carmaker on the cryptocurrency block. Maybe.
Canadian light-electric-vehicle manufacturer Daymak said on Tuesday that its new Avvenire Spiritus model will be able to mine cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and dogecoin.
However, the technology – which Daymak calls the Nebula Miner – is yet to secure a patent. And the Avvenire range is yet to begin production, although Daymak has received more than $350 million of pre-orders, with the bitcoin-mining Spiritus three-wheeler set to launch in 2023.
Nonetheless, Daymak is bullish about the future. “Whereas most vehicles are depreciating while they sit in your garage, the Nebula Miner will make you money while your Spiritus is parked,” said Aldo Baiocchi, president of Daymak, cited in a press release.
“Daymak has been a champion for disruptive technologies since its inception, and the current crypto movement is a clear indication that by the 2023 Spiritus release date, we will be in the midst of the blockchain revolution.”
Daymak – which specializes in electric scooters but is planning a major move into cars – said the Nebula Miner will go to work whenever the vehicle is charging.
Cryptocurrency mining is the energy-intensive process through which computers solve complex puzzles to secure crypto networks and create coins. Critics – now including bitcoin evangelist and Tesla boss Elon Musk – have slammed it as extremely bad for the environment.
Daymak is planning to link the car to a Nebula Wallet that will allow owners to collect, store and transact with the cryptocurrencies their car has mined.
The company is accepting pre-order payments in cryptocurrencies including dogecoin, ethereum, bitcoin and cardano, it said in its statement.
Bobby Ong, cofounder of crypto data platform Coingecko, said there are a number of problems with Daymak’s idea.
“Embedding a bitcoin mining chip into a machine that is supposed to last for several years assumes that bitcoin’s difficulty will not increase over time,” he said. “Bitcoin’s difficulty will increase over time, making old mining chips inefficient and obsolete.”
He added that the car would need to be constantly connected to the internet to mine, “not to mention draining electricity from the car too.”
At least one amateur crypto fan has already had a crack at mining bitcoin with a car. Simon Byrne decked out a BMW i8 hybrid with a small crypto mining rig in January, according to the Hardware Times.