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leoh
stetrain
The current situation for third party apps (which do exist, plenty of them) is you either give them your Tesla account username/password (super bad) or an access token that you get by signing into your Tesla account, which is less bad but still gives the app the same access as your full Tesla account.
So yes, by building a framework to allow users to authorize third party apps to receive limited telemetry data without handing over their full Tesla account keys this may allow for an improvement in privacy for those who want to use such apps.
toomuchtodo
Hard agree. I give my Tesla creds to other third party apps willingly, because I want the benefits those apps offer (we own several Teslas, and both the historical data and remote vehicle control has value add). The effort to move to a more secure auth mechanism is welcomed, and it's my data, so I don't get the outrage. This is part of the value in my purchase decisions, and within the risk appetite of my threat model.
This is also more efficient on Tesla infra (streaming telemetry data), vs aggressive polling (what current apps do, typically slow polling when vehicle updates are minimal, such as when parked, and then switching up to aggressive polling when traveling at speed).
sandworm101
And if your local police department wants to buy that data? What if a large law firm wants to buy all the data for use in lawsuits? Once you have pass it on to "third parties" then there isn't much you can do to stop such things.
It happened a few decades ago as in-car GPS rolled out. Some rental car companies started issuing speeding tickets. That game lasted about a week.
>> Feb. 2002. A Connecticut man has taken a local rental-car agency to court, after the company used Global Positioning System technology and fined him $450 for speeding.
https://www.cnet.com/culture/rental-car-firm-exceeding-the-p...
clouddrover
> both the historical data and remote vehicle control has value add
What value does it add?
dylan604
> The current situation for third party apps (which do exist, plenty of them) is you either give them your Tesla account username/password (super bad) or an access token that you get by signing into your Tesla account, which is less bad but still gives the app the same access as your full Tesla account.
In 2023, I'm amazed that this is still a thing. I'm also sad that users are so uncaring about their data that they are cavalier to just provide credentials to 3rd parties just because they pinky swear they'll not be evil and the use of their app is super worth it. I still remember the first time a coworker was singing the praises of some money/finance app that I decided to try. I immediately stopped and said nope when I realized they needed my user/password to all of the banks I wanted to connect. I feel sorry for people that feel the juice is worth the squeeze, especially when they get squeezed dry. Maybe it's not the 3rd party company, but the possibility of hackers that attack said 3rd party. Just too big of an ask
NotYourLawyer
> give them your Tesla account username/password (super bad)
Only slightly related, but buying a Tesla they encourage you to use Plaid for payment. Which involves… giving your banking account username and password to a third party.
Extremely bad. I can’t believe anyone would do this.
dcow
First off, Plaid uses OAuth when possible to do things the right way. So you really have nothing to worry about if your bank is competent.
Second, Plaid will use app passwords if you have 2FA enabled and your bank supports them. This is the correct way to handle that scenario.
Third, Plaid saves me a lot of trouble and I have come to trust them. I am happy to delegate responsibility to them.
Why is it inherently bad to trust a 3rd party?
TOMDM
Why not just an access token that only has certain perms?
cottsak
Tesla doesn't provide this. Also, its beside the point...
Which is: Tesla doesn't even want collect telemetry and then re-share it to 3rd parties. Tesla wants to provide a mechanism for the car to connect directly to a customer-authorised 3rd party telemetry collection service. This relieves Tesla from having to function as a middle-man and facilitate things like claims in tokens and granular permissions.
dylan604
Because the first party vendor, in this case Tesla, doesn't provide that kind of mechanism?
Casteil
>At Tesla we believe that security and privacy are core tenets of any modern technology.
Seeing this after the whistleblower/leak regarding Tesla employees having unfettered access to onboard camera footage (and that embarrassing/compromising footage of customers was actively shared internally) is... rich.
_ea1k
That sounds like a subtle mischaracterization of the leak to me. The leak sounded more like, "the teams responsible for tagging data uploaded by Teslas had access to data uploaded by Teslas". The fact that they could share them amongst themselves is also not particularly surprising.
While I understand the alarm, it was also completely unsurprising even based purely on the company's public statements about how they use data from the cameras.
rondini
If an employee at a photo lab was keeping and sharing copies of compromising pictures there would be huge outrage and rightfully so. Just because they have to handle personal data doesn't mean it's acceptable to share and laugh with your colleagues; it should be handled with the utmost respect for your users' privacy.
mlyle
I think few who enabled Sentry Mode thought it was reasonably likely that Tesla employees would share titillating personal moments spotted by their cars for the luls.
tyfon
You can also have to opt-in data/video collection manually when getting the car in the first place, at least here in Europe.
inferiorhuman
The fact that they could share them amongst themselves is also not particularly surprising.
dotBen
Our Teslas sends an insane amount of data home, even down to event calls for rolling down the window or opening the car door. But you kind of know that going into it - ok not everyone does but anyone who is reasonable technical and most likely to care about privacy and understand the issues is aware. And it's technically in the small print which of course everyone reads fully when they buy the car. /s
They also record the road and the way you drive it using cameras in the vehicle you own and paid for, upload it using your home internet connection and improve their self driving model which will no doubt represents $billion's, maybe $ trillions of enterprise value over time.
A Tesla is not a normal 'dumb' car, and you accept that going into it. Allowing consumers to have fair access to that data in a safe manner that doesn't involve sharing usernames and passwords is actually the right and responsible action on Tesla's part.
darknavi
> “there ain’t nothing you can do about sharing your private data with us”
FWIW there are settings in the car to disable certain things. Not sure how much it _actually_ disables though.
moffkalast
Disable and delete seem to just mean "hide from the end user" these days.
the_sleaze9
"Soft delete", and it's a requirement in almost everything
jackmott
[dead]
jackmott42
>“there ain’t nothing you can do about sharing your private data with us”
You can turn off lots of data sharing and monitoring settings in the standard UI in the car, last I looked it wasn't even hidden behind any dark patterns.
oh_sigh
Privacy isn't "no one can know anything about me, ever, even if it is my choice to tell them". By this logic you are violating your own privacy when you introduce yourself to someone with your name.
The actual concept of privacy is entirely in line with their idea that you "should be able to decide what data [you] share with third parties, how [you] share it, and when it can be shared"
m463
Same as apple. "privacy is a fundamental human right"
...can't activate a phone without connecting to apple
...privacy policy is hundreds of pages
...can't block apple
Zambyte
You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him: you must love him.
mensetmanusman
"others"
I.e. my own home server.
bouke
Every time Tesla refers to the cars they sold to customers as their ‘fleet’, I get the feeling they don’t really recognise they are no longer the owner of those vehicles.
Fleet as defined in Oxford Dictionary: “A number of vehicles or aircraft working together, or under the same ownership.”
(edit: use actual Oxford definition)
chroma
It's in reference to a company owning a fleet of Teslas, not Tesla owning the fleet.[1] The point of this reference implementation is to make it easier for companies that own a bunch of Teslas to collect data about their cars.
judge2020
Tesla does collectively reference all (connected) vehicles as the fleet, though: https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/1658301638514298880?s=20
015a
"Operated as a unit" is not an inaccurate description of Tesla's footprint. Every one of their cars, assuming factory-ish conditions, is sending live, realtime data back to Tesla-owned servers. That data is analyzed, and the output of that analysis impacts the driving behavior of the vehicles in the future (training their AI models). Commands are sent from Tesla's servers to change the operational state of the car every single day (most of the time, I hope, at the behest of the owner, e.g. "turn on the AC").
That's a fleet. You may not like it, but that's what Tesla owners knowingly opt-in to.
caf
"fleet" is also just used as a collective noun for cars, ships or aircraft.
shagie
For example... U.S. auto fleet fuel efficiency flat in 2021 as Detroit Three lag https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/us-aut...
> WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. new vehicle automotive fleet's fuel efficiency was flat in the 2021 model year as automakers sold more sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks compared to cars, while the Detroit Three lagged behind foreign competitors and Tesla.
> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday the fleetwide real-world average was 25.4 miles per gallon in the 2021 model year, the same as in 2020. The EPA estimates the 2022 fleetwide efficiency average will rise to 26.4 mpg.
That's referring to every car in the United States with the collective noun "fleet". It implies no ownership.
ChrisClark
This is referencing your own fleet of Tesla vehicles though, like company cars or rental fleet. Not a reference to the Tesla company's fleet.
mensetmanusman
Terms can change. To me it brings to mind that all the vehicles are sharing training data as a network to improve self driving capabilities.
vortext
They can still control them remotely, so there's that.
thebruce87m
Dropped my Model Y off for a warranty repair a few weeks ago. Asked the service desk if they needed the key, they said no. Apparently they can access the car whenever they like.
placeholderTest
All car manufacturers have had master keys for the past 100 years, it’s not a new concept.
thebruce87m
Well it’s the first time I’ve ever had to not give keys when handing a car over, so clearly something is different.
revel
this is standard industry parlance
modeless
This is cool, I've been thinking about building an application that polls the reverse engineered Tesla API, but an officially supported solution sounds much better. Is there any documentation about how users authorize applications?
Seems like this allows vehicles to connect directly to your own server instead of having a Tesla server act as intermediary. Will it be free to use then? I guess Tesla is still footing the bill for cellular bandwidth used, so it probably won't be free.
denysvitali
jnsaff2
Teslamate is awesome. I've been running it for almost a year and it just keeps on trucking without any issues. Completely open source written in Elixir uses Phoenix LiveView, data in Postgres and provides prebuilt Grafana dashboards as well.
Also authentication tokens are done locally and refreshed nicely so no fear of leaking tokens/passwords.
denysvitali
Same positive experience here. I love that tool!
modeless
Yes, that is an example of an application that polls the reverse engineered Tesla API. Not the application I wanted to build and not something using this officially supported method (understandably because this is new).
amluto
> Fleet Telemetry is a server reference implementation. The service handles device connectivity, receives, and stores transmitted data. Once configured, devices establish a websocket connection to push configurable telemetry records. Fleet Telemetry provides clients with ack, error, or rate limit responses.
I assume this means that Tesla devices can be configured to speak the client end of this protocol, and that fleet operators might enable it. If so, that’s kind of neat.
Of course, it would be nice if Tesla telemetry non-fleet vehicles worked the same way and could be turned off.
awinter-py
congratulations your motor vehicle is now dependent on kubernetes
pov you are headed for a collision and something is wrong. you issue a describe command ...
Type Reason Age
---- ------ ----
Normal Sync 100s (x3 over 100s)
chroma
The Kubernetes implementation is on the server side, not the car. The only way to control the car is through Tesla's API,[1] and that doesn't let you do dangerous stuff like turn the wheel while someone is driving.
Even if you could overwrite the software on the car, you'd still have to contend with the physical controls available to the driver. The steering wheel is physically connected to a typical rack and pinion setup. The brake pedal is physically connected to hydraulic lines just like every other car on the road. And like most cars, the brakes are more powerful than the motor.
1. There's no official documentation but a big chunk of it has been reverse engineered: https://tesla-api.timdorr.com/vehicle/commands
judge2020
The only concern is someone hacking Tesla's HSMs that sign their firmware and software updates, since then they could craft a malicious payload disguised as a software update that flashes new firmware onto the BMS and as such causes your car to explode the next time you plug into a supercharger, for example.
cryptonector
F-16s have kubernetes on them now[0].
[0] https://thenewstack.io/how-the-u-s-air-force-deployed-kubern...
awinter-py
it sounds from the article like this is on either 1 or 3 planes and hopefully that number has decreased since 2019
hoping 'deployed in 45 days' doesn't mean what I think it means
rkagerer
Good grief
siliconc0w
I may be missing something but how do you get your specific client_config deployed to your car? The quickstart says, "Share with Tesla" - do you like send them an email asking nicely?
tamu_nerd
I had the same question. There doesn't seem to be any information regarding next steps once the server is running.
drewda
> Tesla strongly encourages providers to only collect data they need, limited to frequency that they need.
If only...
bheadmaster
The problem with data is that they can often reveal information you need, but didn't even know you need.
The way I understand Tesla's meaning of "data they need" is the data that you know exists, know is useful, and has a predefined purpose. However, blind data mining can often bring insight that may give you an edge over competition, so the unethical data collectors have an advantage.
On the other hand, collecting all available data makes you biased by the particular nature of data collected - not everthing that is measurable is important, and not everything that's important is measurable. Even 100% accurate data can lead you astray if it gives you an incomplete picture. That's how we got algorithms that optimize outrage, because outrage and stress create massive engagement.
sodality2
> That's how we got algorithms that optimize outrage, because outrage and stress create massive engagement.
I mean, in this case, it's not a "problem", it's a predetermined goal. It's not some sort of accident that they optimize for engagement, it's explicitly what they want to optimize for. The fact that it causes harmful interaction isn't an unwanted side effect, at least for the social media company, but a means to an end.
hatthew
It is absolutely an accident. Engagement recommender systems do not optimize for outrage, they optimize for engagement. It just turns out that outrage causes engagement. The difference is that at no point is there a human who says "Let's cause outrage!" It's the algorithms that figure out the connection, which is the point being made by the person you replied to.
bheadmaster
The assumption is that engagement = good for business. I personally believe it isn't, as I've personally quit all social networks (notwithstanding HN and a few private communities) because they made me addicted and unhappy. Unhappy users stay because they're addicted, and a part of them quits. Happy users stay because they want to.
Not making people unhappy is good for business. Or at least I hope it is...
WWLink
Then you get the weird software engineers that are very defensive of spying on their users lol.
judge2020
I mean, it's all logging how users use your product. For things that aren't cloud-dependent, there are toggles in the car the user can click to turn them off, and it doesn't harm almost any functionality (of course disabling app camera access in the car will prevent you from seeing your live sentry cam in the app; it'll still record locally to the USB though).
bonestamp2
I wonder if they started building this API to comply with the newer Massachusetts right to repair law, then just made it public when the feds told automakers to ignore the Massachusetts law.
VectorLock
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw this post and read the code a bit.
Also fuck the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for telling auto makers to ignore a very well intentioned state law.
bonestamp2
Agreed. It was well intentioned, but I think it went too far by trying to prescribe the solution. Their 2012 law was much better written and it was easy for automakers to implement (I did the technical implementation for one automaker).
wilg
Seems like the idea here is to provide a public API for third party integrations, which currently use a private API.
bytesmith
Based on the message spec[0], it doesn't look like this can be used to track Full Self Driving disengagements which is a shame. However, for its intended purpose which is presumably to help 3rd parties (eg Hertz) manage fleets it seems like a boon.
[0] https://github.com/teslamotors/fleet-telemetry/blob/main/pro...
seanieb
That’s great and all, but I’d settle for my Model 3 Autopilot staying in its lane and not trying to slam me into the median.
simondotau
I've used many brands of adaptive cruise control with lane centering and none of them are absolutely trustworthy. I don't see why anyone would expect Tesla's adaptive cruise control with lane centering to be any different. Especially considering they called it "autopilot", a term which can refer to the performing of rote tasks without self-awareness.[0]
[0] https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/on-a...
VectorLock
Which brands did you try and how much did you try them?
abledon
I'm a kubernetes noob, in https://github.com/teslamotors/helm-charts/blob/main/charts/...
why do they do `helm repo add teslamotors https://teslamotors.github.io/helm-charts/` instead of
`helm repo add teslamotors https://github.com/teslamotors/helm-charts/` ?
isn't the first one a webpage rather than a repo?
AgentK20
The github.io site that they include the link to is the actual repository that can be read by Helm, in particular by it polling the known "index.yaml" file at https://teslamotors.github.io/helm-charts/index.yaml. Something _could_ be done using Github's "/raw" endpoint, but generally speaking Github pages works better for this sort of purpose and also is built to be a CDN, meaning it has additional caching layers in front of it that make it more performant.
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>At Tesla we believe that security and privacy are core tenets of any modern technology. Customers should be able to decide what data they share with third parties, how they share it, and when it can be shared. We've developed a decentralized framework: "Fleet Telemetry" that allows customers to create a secure and direct bridge from their Tesla devices to any provider they authorize.
Complete non-sequitur.
“We care about your privacy”
“Here’s a way to share private information with others”
Also, un-stated “there ain’t nothing you can do about sharing your private data with us”
Cool that they give you a way to access some of your data at all though, I guess