[HN Gopher] Running Tesla Model 3's computer on my desk using pa...
___________________________________________________________________
Running Tesla Model 3's computer on my desk using parts from
crashed cars
Author : driesdep
Score : 840 points
Date : 2026-03-25 21:11 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (bugs.xdavidhu.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (bugs.xdavidhu.me)
| owenthejumper wrote:
| Could 'lb' be load balancer?!
| trsohmers wrote:
| It actually stands for "lizard brain"... it is (or at least
| was) an Infineon Aurix control and monitoring microcontroller,
| they may have changed to a newer one.
| LikeBeans wrote:
| Very cool. Over a year and a half ago I installed a towing brake
| controller in my Tesla Model Y. Found the location of the plug,
| how to access and the pinout online (confirmed via a voltmeter..)
| so the car's side felt straight forward. But then I needed to
| find a brake controller that can work with the higher voltage
| (14.4v vs the normal 12v). Then built a cable from the brake
| controller to the connector that plugs into the car that I found
| on eBay. I velcro'd the controller under the dashboard. It works
| pretty well. I towed my small camper several times with it last
| year with no issues. Yay! However my little project is nothing
| compared to this post. Love people hacking away. So cool.
| ferongr wrote:
| >then I needed to find a brake controller that can work with
| the higher voltage (14.4v vs the normal 12v)
|
| Put a voltmeter on the battery terminals of a regular car at
| 2000rpm and note the voltage. You'd be surpised (the alternator
| can produce as high as 15V on some cars).
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Automotive transients can be wild. I did a bringup with a
| board that had specified 100+v range specified for transients
| and finicky quality requirements on the output. The power
| supplies took up most of the (very large) board.
| mixdup wrote:
| 14v is not a transient, if your voltage was 12v with the
| car running, there's something wrong with the charging
| system (DC-to-DC in an EV, alternator/generator in an ICE)
|
| 13-14v is normal in all 12v automotive systems as the
| charging voltage
| nandomrumber wrote:
| If I recall correctly, a fully charged lead acid battery
| has an open circuit voltage of 13.6V.
|
| So the alternator has to put out at least something
| higher than if it's planning on recharging the battery
| after 500 to 700 amps have been pulled from it for a few
| seconds to start the engine.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Yeah, max CV charging voltage is ~14V, max charging C
| rate is ~0.2C, open circuit voltage at 100% is that 13.x
| range. And lead acids like to stay at 100% unlike Li-ion
| which likes 50% +/-30%, so "12V" ICE cars just use a bus
| voltage of 13-14V and wire the battery there. At any
| given moment, the car's "12V" bus voltage MUST be above
| 13.x and below 14.4(absolute max).
|
| It's a bit perplexing that those lead acid systems are
| referred to as "12V" systems when that figure is
| effectively the 0% voltage, whereas 3.7V for single Li-
| ion cell is the 50% voltage.
|
| e: also, ICE transients can be in kV range, coming from
| ignition mechanisms. I've heard that you can literally
| measure engine RPM by selecting 1/dt on an oscilloscope
| and dividing that by cylinder count.
| K0balt wrote:
| The nominal range for automotive systems is 10-16v. If
| you are designing anything for automotive use that
| doesn't work reliably in that range, you are
| manufacturing problems for people.
| imp0cat wrote:
| This. Most cars nowadays come with the so-called "smart"
| alternators that vary voltage wildly depending on the
| current driving conditions.
|
| One minute you might be accelerating and the onboard
| voltage drops as the battery supplies most of
| electricity. Then, as you reach the crest of a hill and
| start engine-braking, the car frantically tries to
| convert all the available kinetic energy to electricity,
| raising the onboard voltage to quickly charge the
| battery.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| >This. Most cars nowadays come with the so-called "smart"
| alternators that vary voltage wildly depending on the
| current driving conditions.
|
| Which in practice means that they do a very miserly job
| charging the battery and are a ton more sensitive to a
| battery being in less than tip top shape so you can
| expect your battery lifetime to go down.
|
| But it's a "win" because they pushed the serp belt change
| outside of whatever interval the reviewers who calculate
| TCO care about and they saved .000003mph in the process.
| mindslight wrote:
| nit: Some vehicles can use a two stage charging system
| where if the ECU is not trying to charge the battery and
| the power draw is otherwise low, the voltage sits in a
| lower range rather than constantly float charging the
| battery. This can surprise you if you're trying to
| diagnose a battery issue!
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| Saw up to 800A on units like the FSD for the short time
| until the caps were full. Slow starting a SoC is a software
| problem, slow starting the Cs and keeping the impedance low
| at the same time a non-trivial hardware problem.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| Yeah, this is normal. When the battery suddenly disconnects
| (for example of the lugs pop off) the alternator's momentum
| will send a massive, long-standing transient on the bus up
| to 100V. This is called a load dump.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| I typically fault anything above 15.6V as "that's a bit high,
| your alternator might be on its way out" when working on
| automotive / caravan / camper van appliances and accessories.
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| For static voltage sure. For short term resilience against
| static electricity these units typically are specced to
| endure 2kV on each pin.
| silisili wrote:
| > But then I needed to find a brake controller that can work
| with the higher voltage (14.4v vs the normal 12v)
|
| Not understanding this sentence. Most running ICE vehicles
| product closer to that 14.4 than 12v. I think a standard
| controller would have worked fine?
| serf wrote:
| you're correct. a '12v ICE' alternator generates up to
| 14.8-15.2v. Most automotive stuff can operate between
| 9ish-16ish-v , of course totally depending on the product.
|
| of course this is just a modern interpretation. older stuff
| runs at 6v and some weirdo offbeat cars have a 24v/48v rail
| sitting around somewhere. Cop cars often had alternators that
| put out weird voltage ranges for certain equipment, or dual
| 12v for high amperage output.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Whilst cranking, an ICE car will drop to around 6 volts
| (then maximum power is extracted according to thevenim's
| theorem).
|
| That means all computers etc will work at 6v.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Whilst cranking, an ICE car will drop to around 6 volts
| (then maximum power is extracted according to thevenim's
| theorem).
|
| > That means all computers etc will work at 6v.
|
| Not necessarily all of them. Plenty of stuff will drop
| out while cranking; hopefully not the computers that run
| the fuel injection and ignition, though.
| cogogo wrote:
| Interesting. I now know why my windshield wipers quit for
| a sec when my vw auto stop/start kicks back on.
| Maxion wrote:
| Not a car engineer, but those motors can be pretty high
| A, so this could also just be a feature that helps the
| starter get as much power as it can while cranking.
| bluGill wrote:
| Ignition switches were turning off the wipers and other
| such extras in the 1980s. Probably longer but I'm not old
| enough to remember
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Some accessories are disconnected while cranking so the
| battery can supply as much current as possible to the
| starter.
| bluGill wrote:
| The specs say no less than 6volts. In the real world when
| the temperature drops down to -70F or colder and
| batteries get old the voltage goes well below that: deal
| with it.
| kube-system wrote:
| Even just a "12v" automotive battery itself is mostly dead
| if if actually reads 12.0V. Fully charged is around 12.6 or
| 12.7. If a car had an electrical system that actually ran
| at 12 volts, the battery would always be dead.
|
| "12v" in reference to anything automotive is very much a
| nominal reference.
| LikeBeans wrote:
| You are probably right. Surprisingly the first controller I
| tried didn't work. I assumed the voltage was too high since
| it worked in my other (much older) car. I found a reference
| online of people that tried a particular brand/model and
| that's what I went for. Thankfully my car isn't the model
| with the internal 18v battery.
| hrmtst93837 wrote:
| Voltage isn't the whole story, controllers also need to
| survive current spikes and power transients, and Tesla's
| rails may not look like generic 12V gear.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I have no wheels and I must drift
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Fun linguistic quirk: Americans tend to call it a "wiring
| harness", whereas Brits prefer "loom"
| Dan_- wrote:
| So what do you call the tubing around the wire bundle? That's
| what we call "loom".
| stackghost wrote:
| In Canada we generally call it the sleeve, or the wrap.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| I'd understand either of those, but I'd go with "tubing"
|
| https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/c/electrical/wire-
| cable/tubing...
| pitaj wrote:
| That's heat shrink tubing, but we're talking about one of
| these:
|
| [1]: https://www.holley.com/products/engine/engine_dress_
| up/hoses... [2]:
| https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/dorman-conduct-
| tite/lig...
| MengerSponge wrote:
| For performance vehicles I used adhesive-lined heat
| shrink tubing for basically everything.
|
| [1] Braided tubing and [2] conduit, respectively.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| And, of course, Germans have a dedicated composite noun for it:
| Kabelbaum (literal translation: cable tree).
| thrownthatway wrote:
| I always like to point out that Germans don't, in fact, have
| a word for everything.
|
| It's just a phrase or sentence with spaces removed.
|
| Knowhatimsayin.
| shaftway wrote:
| In German that's called Wortbildungsfahigkeit, or in
| English, WordStructureCapability
| nandomrumber wrote:
| As a result of this and the child comments...
|
| As an Australian. I often find myself saying things like "the
| wiring hardness, or loom, or cable, or whatever were calling it
| this week".
|
| Exasperated by living in a state other than the one I grew up
| in. South Australians are often easily spotted by their
| pronunciation of certain words.
| girvo wrote:
| It's funny to hear LVDS be described as an "automotive" cable
| when all of my run-ins with it are for connecting laptop displays
| to their main-boards! (though that has a very different connector
| on it, and its a very general term for the signalling protocol
| from what I remember)
| inamberclad wrote:
| SpaceWire is also just LVDS with an uber-minimal routing
| protocol. It runs on a lot of satellites.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| Not saying there's anything wrong with your perspective (lots
| of terms get in muddied waters, it's common and not a problem
| if everyone is on the same page), but this is what I just found
| on Wikipedia:
|
| "Early on, the notebook computer and LCD vendors commonly used
| the term LVDS instead of FPD-Link when referring to their
| protocol, and the term LVDS has mistakenly become synonymous
| with Flat Panel Display Link in the video-display engineering
| vocabulary."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-voltage_differential_signa...
| girvo wrote:
| Yeah I saw that too which is why I posted my comment, it's
| surprising to me :) LVDS for display cables was an
| _incredibly_ term in that context. Even still is sometimes
| despite them mostly being eDP (embedded-DisplayPort) now,
| which is _quite_ incorrect hah
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Incredibly what?
|
| And eDP is a differential signal at 200 or 400 millivolts
| so I don't see how that's "quite incorrect". It's not "the"
| LVDS but it's still in the category.
| stephen_g wrote:
| The cable in the article is pretty much doing the same
| conflation of terms that Wiki is talking about - the
| automotive one is a proprietary cable that carries some
| protocol that _uses_ LVDS as its signalling, so at the most
| basic level both it and the display cable in the laptop are
| 'LVDS cables' but that's also the most generic term that
| gives you no information about the protocol actually being
| carried by the cables.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Most modern laptops no longer use LVDS for connecting the
| screen, but they use eDP (embedded DisplayPort).
|
| So LVDS is more likely to linger in automotive displays, while
| in less obsolete devices it has been replaced by either eDP or
| by MIPI DSI (used e.g. in smartphones).
| russelg wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47527015
|
| Spoiler alert: it's still LVDS
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| LVDS with Fakra connectors is pretty standard in automotive for
| cameras and displays. The protocols used over it are often
| proprietary though.
| dogman1050 wrote:
| I love that it has a standard RJ45 ethernet connector.
| bombcar wrote:
| I thought I saw an HDMI connector, but maybe I was wrong.
| inventor7777 wrote:
| Ha! Reading this comment made me curious, so I went back and
| looked at the article and there does seem to be a full sized
| HDMI connector. I wonder if it is enabled, or just for Tesla
| internal testing?
| flutas wrote:
| It's only a debug port and not actually HDMI signaling,
| unfortunately.
| asimovDev wrote:
| i wonder if usb-c next to is like these diagnostic ports on
| Dell servers?
| wds wrote:
| How many PoE adapters would it take to charge a Tesla?
| MBCook wrote:
| Mostly depends on how fast you want to charge.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Turns out that actual cars don't have individual cables.
| Instead they have these big "looms", which bundle many cables
| from a nearby area into a single harness. This is the reason why
| I could not find the individual cable earlier. They simply don't
| manufacture it.
|
| I was really surprised to read this at the end of the article --
| how could someone be this deep into a project of this depth and
| not realize this?! Not only because all cars (...er... all
| _vehicles_ ) are wired this way, but also because the
| documentation they were referencing has plenty of detail to show
| this... there's even a whole picture of it (and to Tesla's credit
| they have amazing free docs):
| https://service.tesla.com/docs/Model3/ServiceManual/2024/en-...
| entropie wrote:
| > how could someone be this deep into a project of this depth
| and not realize this
|
| I think this is a software guy who occasionally dips into
| hardware things (to hunt bugs).
| kube-system wrote:
| That's what I figure -- but it was wild to read that _after_
| reading the part about component-level PCB repair lol
| trebligdivad wrote:
| Yeh, it seems odd to have the cut off cables, the wiring
| information...and then to go and buy a loom rather than
| bodging a cable at that point.
| MBCook wrote:
| I will say I'm surprised how far apart the two boxes are in the
| car. I guess they're not where I thought. I would assume
| they're both up near the dash.
| kube-system wrote:
| The passenger side kick panel or behind the glove box are two
| very common places for vehicle computers -- some cars have
| them under the hood, which I always thought was a bad idea.
| msisk6 wrote:
| My RAM truck with the Cummins diesel engine has the engine
| computer mounted on the engine block. You'd think the heat
| and exposure to the elements would make that a bad idea,
| but I suppose Cummins knows what they're doing.
| kube-system wrote:
| Hehe I was thinking about FCA/Stellantis vehicles when I
| wrote that. I know it works and there are components made
| to work in that environment but it always felt
| intuitively wrong to me. Especially when the other side
| of the firewall is a much better environment and not far
| away
| yearolinuxdsktp wrote:
| It's because when placed inside the engine bay, the large
| wiring harness is shorter, which is not only cheaper, but
| also shorter wiring helps with the consistency of
| electrical timing and reduces noise.
| yearolinuxdsktp wrote:
| Yes they do. They can tolerate engine bay heat, but not
| exhaust heat. They are usually shielded from getting
| soaked.
|
| Some Mazdas put the metal-cased engine computer in a
| plastic air box that feeds cold air from the front, to
| help ensure the engine computer stays cool enough.
|
| In general, I believe the cooling airflow from the
| frontal air and the cooling fans keeps engine bay in
| check.
|
| For example, this is the board that's used in Mazda CX-5
| 2017+ engine computers (mfr Denso), it lists max
| temperature range of +150C:
| https://www.renesas.com/en/document/mah/rh850e1l-users-
| manua...
| msisk6 wrote:
| Yeah, on the Cummins the ECU is mounted on the intake
| side of the engine away from the exhaust and turbo and
| toward the front right under the fuel injection pump so
| it gets lots of cooling air.
|
| This thread is interesting to me 'cause I'm also a
| software guy and recently took a job dealing with
| building fighter jets and the amount of engineering going
| into the wiring and computers on those things is insane.
| It's been a very interesting learning experience.
| phil21 wrote:
| My car has it under the passenger seat.
|
| Sounds alright until you realize after spilling a bunch
| of flower vases in the trunk (hatchback) that the
| computer has literally no case on it and immediately
| shorts out while driving. Or a passenger spills a drink
| in the rear seat cup holder.
|
| There is now a recall notice to pull the back seat out to
| install a $5 plastic cover over the thing.
|
| And yep, it's the main computer for the car which
| controls the electronic transmission etc. Immediate full
| on engine-shuts-off at speed on the freeway and you
| require a flatbed to tow it away level of broken. I'm
| sure the engine ECU is in the engine bay, but holy hell
| what a surprise!
| bdunks wrote:
| I had a car with an all wheel drive computer in a similar
| spot in the late 2000s.
|
| I had a small crack in the rubber seal around my sunroof
| from parking outside in the elements. When it rained,
| water seeped in, made its way down the a-pillar, pooled
| under the seat, and fried the computer.
|
| Expensive fix but I was able to drive it to the shop.
| cuvinny wrote:
| Could be because they sale crate engines.
| kotaKat wrote:
| If you'd like the cursed location for a vehicle computer,
| have the Smart fortwo's SAM. It's the fuse box!
|
| It's also notorious for having awful solder connections and
| failing outright.
|
| https://evilution.co.uk/mod/sam-unit-solder-repair.htm (and
| Aging Wheels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8AAleKR33Q)
| spuz wrote:
| Even if you know that cars consist of a single wiring harness,
| it's not implied that they aren't modular and the individual
| cables cannot be purchased separately.
| kube-system wrote:
| Cars usually consist of multiple harnesses -- as it is in
| this case as well. The harnesses _are_ the cables in a car.
| That is the part you can purchase because that _is_ the part.
|
| There's a list of them here: https://service.tesla.com/docs/M
| odel3/ServiceManual/2024/en-...
| longislandguido wrote:
| Software people tend to overestimate their knowledge of other
| disciplines, writing it off as "easy" or work beneath them.
| Being overpaid compared to your peers certainly doesn't help
| dispel this feeling. Some people have built entire careers
| around designing wire looms.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| There's a reason that John Salvatier's 'Reality Has A
| Surprising Amount of Detail' blog entry is so evergreen on
| this forum.
| acuozzo wrote:
| > Software people tend to overestimate their knowledge of
| other disciplines, writing it off as "easy" or work beneath
| them
|
| You should see what happens when someone involved in the
| sciences, e.g. Chemistry, gets their hands on Claude Code.
| juleiie wrote:
| What happens?
| incrediblylarge wrote:
| A professional scientist I know (tenured, professor)
| recruited me to set up a backtesting framework for a
| predictive finance model. When the results were not as
| they expected (this person does not work in finance and
| never has), they asked to see the code, then told me that
| claude had found a problem with the way some of the
| calculations were done (there was actually no problem),
| supplied the claude comments, and told me to change the
| code to match what they thought was correct. I did it
| anyway. Had they had more expertise in the domain
| (finance), they likely would have been able to leverage
| claude as a tool rather than inadvertently pursuing a
| very stupid mistake. Domain experts tend to doubt their
| ability to excel in other domains which is amplified by
| LLMs.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| I work with a bunch of PHD's and have been since before
| ai coding.
|
| Their code is aways terrible, and they constantly think
| it's good.
|
| The exercise is always the same: explain the math to me,
| like I'm 5, then we profile it and see what is faster.
|
| Oddly Claude Code, integrated into their IDE's has made
| this situation happen much less.
|
| I never want to work in a place again where the fun way
| to start the Monday meeting is a "math problem".
|
| PS: Don't even get me started on their SQL.
| ultrahax wrote:
| My first job out of university was at IBM wrangling a
| prototype some research PHDs had written into a shipping
| product, and.. yeah, this tracks.
| Reason077 wrote:
| This sounds rather similar to the form of scientific
| fraud where you first create a conclusion, then
| invent/manipulate the data until it supports your
| conclusion.
| acuozzo wrote:
| They suddenly act as if Claude has awarded them with a
| second PhD in CS. Now they know everything and everything
| you tell them gets filtered through Claude.
|
| It's like "software dude thinks he can do hardware", but
| on steroids. They don't know what they don't know and
| they think they have a panacea in their hands.
|
| Don't you know? Software is beneath them and the fiddly
| bits are just standing in the way of them getting their
| BigImportantWork(tm) done.
| desmondwillow wrote:
| Consider whether this is an uncharitable comment --- someone
| with little expertise in a discipline has made a rookie
| mistake and didn't realize that the wires weren't produced
| individually.
|
| Professionals overestimating their knowledge is a very common
| thing!
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Fair, but software engineers are especially known for this.
| There was an XKCD about it
|
| https://xkcd.com/1831/
| kvuj wrote:
| What a rancid comment. The first thing you can think of when
| seeing someone earnestly sharing their learning process, is
| to insult them of being vain.
| rpmisms wrote:
| He's right about the rest. We software people can
| definitely be annoying.
| OccamsMirror wrote:
| All people are annoying. It's still mean spirited in this
| instance. The author is likely reading all of these
| comments.
| DrewADesign wrote:
| Try working on a software project as a non-developer and
| see if you still respond so negatively to their sentiment.
| I can't tell you how many times developers tried to
| _arrogantly and dismissively_ explain design principles to
| me, as an experienced, degree-holding designer, because
| they skimmed a _whole Tufte book_ at some point.
|
| I was a developer for a decade before I went to school for
| design, so I've seen it from the other side. It's not all
| bad: that overconfidence can lead people to tackle problems
| they'd abandon if they really understood the domain's
| complexities. But often it presents like developers acting
| like their genius developer brain allows them to solve
| difficult problems in completely different fields with a
| few glib analogies and a few brief thought experiments.
| gedy wrote:
| I don't know, I've had more non-technical people and trades
| try and mansplain bullshit they don't understand than tech
| people have.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| People tend to overestimate their knowledge of other
| disciplines.
|
| I have worked with a LOT of PHD's in recent years. Their code
| leaves much to be desired.
| SecretDreams wrote:
| It's called misplaced confidence and it isn't exclusive to
| software engineers. Doctors, engineers, presidents... The
| list goes on.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > and to Tesla's credit they have amazing free docs
|
| Not to Tesla's credit, they had to be dragged kicking and
| screaming into it (primarily by Massachusetts) and their right
| to repair legislation through a solid chunk of malicious
| compliance:
|
| 1. When told that they had to have a site for people to order
| parts, Tesla put up a site that had every single item as "Call
| us", including the most simple of bolts. And when a few places
| called, "Sorry, that's not available to you".
|
| 2. The service manual was originally only available in a few
| locations in MA, and had strict conditions: you had to book in
| advance, there was a $100 fee per booking, and you could only
| view the manual on premises, and could not bring electronic
| devices into the room with you, just pen and paper.
|
| The docs they have are great, and who knows how their attitude
| would have changed over time, but they absolutely didn't want
| you to have it, initially.
| cluckindan wrote:
| Tesla treated the service manual like congress treats certain
| recently surfaced files.
| creantum wrote:
| Wrong. They've always been open, even with their patents too.
| All free to use, no royalties
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Confidently incorrect.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/utivlj/tesla_
| s...
|
| > This used to cost $3187.50
|
| https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/tesla-service-manuals-
| free-...
|
| > The access story has been inconsistent over the years.
| Tesla has opened up free access to both the service manuals
| and diagnostic software in the past, but that was
| apparently a mistake, and loopholes were quickly closed.
|
| https://www.teslaownersonline.com/threads/tesla-service-
| manu...
|
| "Always ... all free to use". Not so much. And before that,
| even less available.
|
| I will grant you for number 2, there seems to be some
| ambiguity - some people claimed it was only if you needed
| to actually use their diagnostic tools, because Tesla
| wouldn't sell them to _anyone_ at the time (which is also
| in contradiction to your "everything you need, all free,
| always").
| creantum wrote:
| Diagnostic tools are built into every car and free,
| service mode is amazing. No other car manufacturer does
| that.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| _Elementary_ diagnostic tools are free.
|
| If you think this is actual diagnostic tools? No.
|
| Free? Weird that Tesla offers a subscription for it:
| https://service.tesla.com/en-US/diagnostic-software
|
| $700/year is a strange definition of "free".
|
| You seem to miss my point. The OP wanted to pat Tesla on
| the back for their amazing commitment to freeness and
| openness. My point was that even if they are doing
| good/much better now, much of the time they had to be
| dragged kicking and screaming to it. MA's AG had to wave
| the right-to-repair laws.
|
| It's not uncommon knowledge that third party repairs have
| been, for years, difficult to impossible because Tesla
| wouldn't supply either the information or the parts to
| third parties. I'm not sure why, in the face of repeated
| evidence otherwise, you seem determined to retcon those
| details out of existence.
| moomoo11 wrote:
| I'm sure you're an expert, pro at everything.
| NamlchakKhandro wrote:
| Yes I am. Thankyou for recognising that
| kube-system wrote:
| I wasn't criticizing them.
| Onavo wrote:
| EVS have actually managed to reduce the number of wire bundles
| (mostly due to switching to Ethernet instead of CAN Bus)
| jandrese wrote:
| Tesla also went to a 48v wiring harness in some of their
| vehicles to allow them to power more equipment with less
| copper. It might be one reason why they use nonstandard
| connectors, so people don't attempt to hook 12v equipment to
| the system and also the higher voltages might require
| connectors rated for it.
|
| Now they just have to take the next step and have everything
| in the vehicle running on PoE.
| shibapuppie wrote:
| How?
|
| When canbus is already two wires, and by definition, is a
| bus, so you can just keep stringing those two wires to any
| module you need. I know Ethernet BUSes exist, but what
| advantage would those have to canbus then? They're both two-
| wire buses.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I was really surprised to read this at the end of the article
| -- how could someone be this deep into a project of this depth
| and not realize this?!
|
| Usually, for most other vehicles, the connectors are either
| standardized (e.g. radios, ISO 10487 [1], high-current chargers
| by VG 96917) or the foundation plugs, sockets and re-pinning
| tools are readily available by the vehicle manufacturer or by
| aftermarket suppliers.
|
| Tesla truly went out of their way to make the life of third
| parties (such as wire harness repair shops) more miserable
| here.
|
| [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10487
| yardie wrote:
| I was more fascinated that a new wiring harness was $80! I've
| easily spent $30-50 for a single VAG cable 1ft pigtail.
| caycep wrote:
| Granted, I think it would be valuable to look at all sorts of
| automotive ECUs. I always wonder how the tuning industry does
| their thing; I shudder to think they're just sitting there
| flipping hex codes directly in running software...
| bluGill wrote:
| I used to work for a company that made third party scan tools. We
| had racks of ecus disconnected from the car with just a
| diagnostic connector and power. nothing got to a real car without
| first trying it on the rack. I remember on time we figured out a
| bmw (pre obdii) had the bytes offset from the standard
| documentation (it was a semi-standard protocol that some other
| cars used at the time), we went from we communicate but nothing
| is wrong to a very long list of dtcs on that controller. (All our
| competitors also showed nothing wrong, but the official bmw tool
| showed dtcs)
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Diagnostic Trouble Codes?
| KindOne wrote:
| Yes.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I spent the last week successfully reverse engineering my car /
| various scan tools to get the right information to diagnose a
| fuel pump problem (and to do so without the incredible
| awkwardness of many of the tools)
|
| It's pretty amazing what Claude + Ghidra + knowledgable
| coaching can accomplish. It was basically just setting
| direction, setting up an incremental workflow with the right
| kind of documentation, and questioning some of its theories and
| assumptions from time to time.
|
| I'd love to release a lot of it but I'm torn between releasing
| artifacts created with expensive software I paid for and
| thinking that many of those things should really be freely
| available to anyone (specifically the things which definte the
| protocol to talk to the car and mapping of what various things
| are reported vs what they actually mean.
| tclancy wrote:
| Wait, why wouldn't you post it/ write it up?
| bluGill wrote:
| If you release it people expect you to support it an answer
| questions. Some of them are not even nice about it. It pays
| to release this only if there is a group of people who will
| be constructive in helping make it better, otherwise it is
| a thankless effort.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The difference in ethics between reverse engineering
| something to be able to fully use/repair it vs. reverse
| engineering something to clone it. Also violating a license
| agreement I freely accepted and exposing myself to
| liability for IP theft. But is the IP just gatekeeping
| vehicle manufacturers hiding information from owners or is
| the IP the creation of this tool company or is it something
| in between
| seany wrote:
| Just dump it in a gist. That your of knowledge should be free
| jcgrillo wrote:
| +1 on the "plz tell me how" train!
| colechristensen wrote:
| The prompt I'm happy to share
|
| https://gist.github.com/cole-
| christensen/cb9119e2f6b0f29b568...
| zxexz wrote:
| Sorry, what are you talking about? Just release it? Are you
| talking about trying to make money off it? Are you claiming
| you reverse engineered ecu tuning software you paid for?
| stolsvik wrote:
| You really must be new to this, huh? Expensive software that
| you paid for?! Claude? Yes, the question is whether you want
| to share knowledge that cost you literally nothing, and will
| bring humanity one microscopic step in a better direction -
| or not, feeling superior in that only you have access to that
| knowledge. You have a choice!
| sokoloff wrote:
| > I'd love to release a lot of it but I'm torn between
| releasing artifacts created with expensive software I paid
| for and thinking that many of those things should really be
| freely available to anyone
|
| Release it or not, but either way you're almost certainly
| going to get paid back the same amount of money: $0.
| markb139 wrote:
| I've recently built a disassembler and emulator using Claude
| to help reverse engineer a 90's ECU based on an Intel
| embedded cpu. It was quite impressive to watch when Claude
| started to use the emulator to help understand how bits of
| the code worked.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The juxtaposition of Claude+Ghidra being able to take apart
| understand and reimplement the core features of this thing
| in hours while also having to babysit it "no, those
| encrypted packets going over the CAN bus aren't from wifi"
| and "please actually look at the code you just decompiled
| instead of guessing how they work" was pretty amusing.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| That's super cool, I'm currently struggling with scan tools for
| a 1999 Mercedes E300 Turbodiesel. I had one that worked OK for
| about a decade (Autel something or other) with a 38pin
| connector, but it recently bricked itself with a message like
| "connect via USB to Updata" which I assume means its firmware
| somehow erased itself. Cannot figure out how to "updata" it,
| doesn't seem to connect via USB, the Autel software runs under
| Wine but doesn't appear to recognize the device... gave up and
| bought an iCarsoft device which sorta kinda works. It can talk
| to every module _except_ for the ECU (Bosch MSA 25.1 I
| believe?) however if I tell the device that my car is a
| different model (1995-1997 naturally aspirated) I _can_ blindly
| clear ECU DTCs, which is good enough because this thing is
| barely more complicated than a toaster. All that is to say,
| this space is ripe for some open hardware /software love.
| Maxion wrote:
| > All that is to say, this space is ripe for some open
| hardware/software love.
|
| There's just _so_ many computers and what-not in modern cars
| that this is a very tall ask. You 'd need a project on-par
| with HomeAssistant to get anywhere.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| Yeah, it seems like more modern technology has settled on
| standard protocols (maybe a naive impression--someone will
| shout at me if that's the case) but there's probably a very
| long tail of bizarre false starts if you want full coverage
| of models back to the early 90s when computers became more
| commonplace.
| bluGill wrote:
| After 2006/2007 nearly everyone did CAN. I think that is
| even mandatory in the US, though I have no clue how to
| look that up (I assume there are details and exceptions)
| However before then everyone did their own thing. Often
| with custom chips that haven't been made since 2004 (or
| even 1999): good luck finding one that works if it
| breaks. CAN is cheap and allows a lot of power while
| hiding most of the protocol complexity. The things before
| that were often not as powerful as CAN, while being in
| practice a lot more complex because the complexity wasn't
| hidden.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Not sure about your specific car, but a lot of the "consumer
| friendly" options like OBDeleven, Carly, etc are fantastic.
| You often have to pay, but a lot of work goes into them and
| they often just work.
| bluGill wrote:
| I remember getting that era working. I concluded Mercedes was
| trying to be clever in making a protocol so complex nobody
| else could understand it (thus ensuring you had to use a
| dealer) - and then discovered they couldn't debug it.
|
| each body model (nothing to do with year or style) was
| different so clearing dtc but nothing else is not a surprise.
|
| i did get that working, but I last touched it in 2007 so I
| don't remember enough details to be helpful. good luck.
| eschneider wrote:
| Interesting...1999 is probably a bit early for that Bosch to
| be running one of the usual ECU update protocols like UDS. It
| sounds like it's in the bootloader and looking for a valid
| executable. So the FW updater is likely in the bootloader.
|
| If you can open it up and find the JTAG pads, it should be
| simple-ish to use a JTAG reader to dump the image and then
| you can figure out the update protocol from that. It's
| unlikely to be complicated.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| You don't know anything about late-90s Lucas/SAGEM GEMS ECUs do
| you, or Range Rover BeCMs?
|
| I'm currently picking apart the firmware in those because it is
| now impossible to get replacement ignition key fobs, and it
| just can't be _that_ difficult...
| bluGill wrote:
| It was 16 years ago, and I only worked with what got to the
| US. I don't remember much and not those at all. I saw a few
| how to program key fob documents but we decided that was a
| dealer service and so I never implemented it. still generally
| just send the right 4-8 bytes and press a button on the fob
| in a minute. In any case it sounds like you want a different
| end: making a fob or bypassing them was never something I got
| anything on.
| kotaKat wrote:
| I'm amused reading the terms and requirements the author mentions
| in the bug bounty program for researchers gaining root access
| (under 'Vehicle Targets') -
| https://bugcrowd.com/engagements/tesla
|
| "To promote further security research, Tesla offers security
| researchers the opportunity to retain root access on their
| infotainment system even after their reported vulnerability has
| been patched. In order to qualify, a researcher must send in a
| valid report describing a novel way to gain root access on a
| Tesla infotainment system. Upon confirmation, Tesla will instruct
| the researcher on how to use their existing root access to enable
| the researcher SSH feature, along with an SSH certificate for the
| researcher's public key (tailored to their specific hardware ID).
| The certificate restricts SSH access to the local diagnostic
| ethernet link. Tesla may renew the certificate as long as the
| researcher continues reporting vulnerabilities."
|
| Very neat.
| denysvitali wrote:
| You can run QtCar (the Qt-based app that Tesla uses for their
| UIs) on QEMU - if you have the firmware.
|
| https://x.com/i/status/1722717318009041104
|
| DM me if interested
| generalizations wrote:
| Just put it online somewhere
| denysvitali wrote:
| It's on GitHub, but I want to avoid Tesla DMCA-ing it
| Trung0246 wrote:
| Hi, can you DM the firmware?
| rconti wrote:
| I _do_ find it weird that the LCDs from crashed cars are so
| expensive. I wonder if newer models have better screens, so
| people with older cars upgrade? Or if they're a common failure
| point?
|
| I have a Model 3, but I can't say I follow the forums.. but I've
| never heard of screens failing -- I'm sure it happens but I think
| if it was common problem I'd have heard of it.
| kube-system wrote:
| I'd guess they fail not on their own, but because they are
| human interface devices and take the brunt of abuse... e.g.
| iPhone screens are a popular repair despite being reliable
| components.
| denysvitali wrote:
| Some newer models have better (bigger) screens, and some are
| incompatible since they've slightly changed the connector. Old
| models (pre highland/ jupiter facelift) have used the same
| display shown in the article for a very long time across M3 and
| MY. What usually happens is that they physically break because
| people are not that careful, so the touch screen ends up
| breaking - although you really have to put a lot of force to
| break that display.
| cbeach wrote:
| My 2016 Model S LCD panel developed the well-known fault of
| delamination and leaking some kind of sticky fluid.
|
| Turns out the early Model S vehicles used consumer grade LCD
| panels that weren't designed for the prolonged high heat you
| get in a metal and glass box left outside in the sun all day.
|
| Tesla since upgraded their vehicle screens to proper
| automotive-grade LCDs which are excellent.
|
| My point is, automotive-grade hardware is higher spec than
| regular consumer computer hardware, hence the high prices.
|
| As an aside, I upgraded my whole computer and screen from MCU1
| to MCU2 and it was worth the upgrade.
|
| Credit to Tesla for building a retrofit computer upgrade for
| old vehicles. Thats a non-trivial thing to engineer and I
| appreciate their effort. Other car manufacturers would prefer
| you were compelled to buy their latest vehicle instead.
| jp191919 wrote:
| I have a 2023 model 3 and my screen had a small defect develop,
| a slightly darker area in a roughly half cm diameter area. I
| think most people would have never noticed but I pointed it out
| to Tesla service and they replaced the screen.
| a-dub wrote:
| i wish the ui on those things was more visually appealing.
| between the cheap looking gloss finish on the display itself and
| the unextraordinary ui, it's just kinda blah. one can have a
| debate about to screen or not to screen or whether to use vfd
| displays or whatever and i get the importance of cost control but
| it should look good and it really doesn't. the graphic of the car
| looks like a cartoon.
| sneakymichael wrote:
| Interesting take-- I feel the total opposite; I love the UI.
| a-dub wrote:
| i think a lot of people do. i don't know what it is, there's
| maybe just something about the car graphic that doesn't sit
| right with me. the front/side view when parked just seems
| cheesy for some reason. maybe because it's meant to show
| unclosed doors or something and when everything is set the
| car's status is car which is redundant.
| Rohansi wrote:
| It does show open doors etc. but if not that then what
| would you show on the screen? You can already shrink it so
| the rightmost 3/4 of the screen is the map, leaving just
| 1/4 of the screen for the car visualization and indicators.
| a-dub wrote:
| maybe it's the quasi-photorealistic nature of the car
| image that bothers me. it's not a photo, it's not a
| schematic, it's not a diagram. it's too artificial to
| look like a photo, yet too realistic to look like a
| schematic. or maybe the physically implausible lighting.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Animations could probably be faster and touch areas for
| opening trunk/frunk could be larger.
|
| But then I'm driving brand new Fiat RV with CarPlay this
| week. Cruise control by itself has 2 or 3 bugs, and that's
| not even trying to be picky. Or how's this - can't hotspot
| from me while phone is in carplay. Can't pinch-zoom or pan
| maps in 2026 and myriad other things that makes me cringe
| when people moan they don't buy Tesla because lack of
| carplay.
| kcb wrote:
| It's glass...
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > Unfortunately I had no other choice but to buy this entire loom
| for 80 USD.
|
| Fwiw, mine costs $450 from Ford. Also in the US we call this a
| wiring harness, with the loom being the material that goes over
| the wires
| denysvitali wrote:
| That particular statement is also wrong. For this particular
| setup you can also buy the correct cable (making sure to not
| get the one that inverts some pins!!!) for cheaper. Mine was
| around 15$.
|
| Violet HSD Code D 4+2 Pin Female to D Female Jack Connector 6
| Pin HSD LVDS High Speed DataTransmission Harness Wire LVDS
| Cable https://a.aliexpress.com/_EuGOh9e
| anilakar wrote:
| Parts and labor combined that would be a 4000-5000 eurobuck
| job. A Nissan importer tried to weasel out of a warranty
| replacement on a friend's X-Trail so they first offered to
| completely refund options that had become unusable.
|
| The car was full of issues and probably spent more time in the
| shop than on the road. Nissan finally had to buy it back after
| service techs failed to tighten the oil drain cap after an
| engine overhaul.
| mixdup wrote:
| "tuner" almost certainly refers to a radio (think AM/FM/SiriusXM)
| tuner module
| a1o wrote:
| > A DC power supply capable of providing 12V
|
| Hey, I just remembered my school used to have ages ago some cool
| power supplies (I think from Agilent?) that were very idiot
| proof, they had current limit with a dial that I think didn't
| went over 1A or perhaps even less, and they would instantly
| disarm on short circuit (and indicate it with a led), and also
| the voltage dial I think wouldn't go over 25V. I remember it was
| very big and heavy, but it survived countless students that used
| the lab daily.
|
| Nowadays, is there any power supply available that is that
| resistant or is the recommended approach to get an used old one?
| Does anyone have a power supply at home that is also used by kids
| with a brand/model they would recommend? Thanks!
| bombcar wrote:
| Those were called something like desktop power supplies.
|
| https://www.mouser.com/c/power/power-supplies/power-supplies...
|
| AT $5k it better make me breakfast, too.
| virtue3 wrote:
| They have variable dc power supplies on amazon on the cheap.
|
| If you want that sort of reliability it will probably go
| towards 100$.
| duskwuff wrote:
| What you're describing is a lab power supply. (The "instantly
| disarm on short circuit" is overcurrent protection, which is a
| standard feature.) The name brands like Keysight or Rigol are
| kind of expensive, but there are a lot of no-name models on
| Amazon which will do the job well enough.
| budman1 wrote:
| Keysight == Hewlett-Packard Old School.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| Or Agilent, at some point in between
| numpad0 wrote:
| {Keysight, Agilent, Avago, HP, HPE} are/were all HP
| a1o wrote:
| Thanks! I had a BK Vision or something similar at some point
| and it just blew up. I will give it a search for these
| brands, sometimes I find a well-cared used one from the more
| expensive brands at good prices so that's what I will look
| for first. :)
| denysvitali wrote:
| Got this for ~50$ a while ago. It works perfectly for this
| exact setup (Tesla MCU on a bench), tested it, and used it for
| a lot of other projects.
|
| https://a.aliexpress.com/_EvT5Kog
| guyzero wrote:
| Congrats, OP has recreated a test/development bench, the bane of
| developers working on automotive software development all around
| the world. They're so close to being a real vehicle that you
| think you'll be able to get a lot of work done, but they're not,
| so you don't.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Honestly I love it. Few things develop a more fun camaraderie
| than a bringup bootcamp with two precious/priceless new samples
| on a large conference table, and everyone being very careful to
| keep cups/mugs very far away.
|
| And a soldering robot with a specialist a few rooms away to
| beam down the latest errata into physical form, at times.
|
| Tracy Kidder just died, and _Soul of a New Machine_ was a
| favorite of my formative years as an engineer. Once I started
| in headunit ECU development it felt very familiar to me at
| times.
|
| I'm a software guy, but the gear has a lot of allure.
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| Haha, don't forget your wristbands.
| Phelinofist wrote:
| Can confirm. We are required to test all of our stuff on a
| bench, but no one really trusts this, because everything is
| mocked anyway (RSI).
| completelylegit wrote:
| People need to request the source code.. There's a ton of open
| source they use that forces Tesla to give you source if you're a
| customer and you ask. I don't get why security people aren't
| doing this already.
| bluGill wrote:
| You get the linux kernel and a bunch of other things you can
| find on github anyway. You can't do anything useful with that,
| except what you already can get from any linux package manager.
|
| Sure someone should do it just to verify the process works, but
| it isn't really useful. (in general companies are very careful
| to not violate GPL license terms, often refusing to use GPL3 at
| all)
| dwa3592 wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| > A REST-like API on :8080 which returned a history of "tasks"
|
| I am curious to know what kind of historical tasks- since it's a
| media control unit; does it show what kind of media was being
| played in the last trip? does it reveal any other info about the
| driver?? There might be a privacy angle here that you could
| exploit and share it with Tesla.
| denysvitali wrote:
| They hit Odin. Odin is the diagnostic tool of Tesla. The tasks
| they've seen are like "TEST_BRAKE_X_STIFFNESS-TEST-PRESSURE-
| BURNISHED" and are used to test different components of the
| car. They're also used for example to reset FSD strikes.
|
| In Tesla terms, the infotainment does much more than just
| playing music - it has full access to the rest of the car.
| shibapuppie wrote:
| I remember back when Chrysler did that and researchers were
| able to shut a Jeep down mid-drive by attacking the internet-
| connnected infotainment. This doesn't sound great.
| denysvitali wrote:
| You need to be physically connected to the ethernet port
| and service mode must be enabled. On top of that, to run
| these you need service mode plus, which requires a
| subscription (signed JWT). Additionally, IIRC, most of
| these can't be run if the car is not in park.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Say what you will about Tesla, but from a hacking point of view
| this is some of the coolest things I've seen in a while!
| softbuilder wrote:
| Great project. This begs for real-world feedback though. A go
| kart would be fantastic.
| nreece wrote:
| Very cool.
|
| Now why didn't an AI think of that? :)
| tuo-lei wrote:
| Human have a better taste (at least for now :D)
| koinedad wrote:
| Really cool breakdown. You've got a full Tesla gaming rig now!
| kklisura wrote:
| Nice read. I would LOVE for someone to dump the whole FSD AI/ML
| model and try to run it in simulator! That would be awesome!
| varenc wrote:
| From the article
|
| > _Tesla offers a "Root access program" on their bug bounty
| program. Researchers who find at least one valid "rooting"
| vulnerability will receive a permanent SSH certificate for their
| own car, allowing them to log in as root and continue their
| research further._
|
| Pretty interesting. Sounds like Apple's Security Research Device
| Program[0], where you're loaned a rooted iPhone, but with a clear
| qualification criteria.
|
| It strikes a nice balance, because to qualify you have to 1) show
| you have the skills to get root access anyway and 2) show you're
| willing to participate in the bug bounty program and get things
| patched.
|
| I would of course love root on everything I own, but I can
| understand Tesla's motivation here since root for everyone would
| make vulnerability discovery easier for malicious actors. And if
| everyone had root on their Tesla, it'd be much easier to make
| naughty modifications that might catch the ire of regulators.
| (like disabling driver attentiveness checks in self-driving
| mode).
|
| [0] https://security.apple.com/research-device/
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| Having shell is extremely handy for further discovery. SO handy
| that if they were just gonna patch the bug and lock you out,
| you would simply not disclose it.
| freerobby wrote:
| This is what happened. Tesla security received tons of bug
| reports that required root access to identify, yet they got a
| vanishingly small number of root vulnerability reports. This
| policy fixes that misincentive.
| fomine3 wrote:
| If they don't give root, researcher may have incentive to keep
| vuln secret for root access. Looks reasonable.
| EquallyJust wrote:
| It's a mixed bag. This only applies to the infotainment system
| and not the autopilot computer.
|
| They've also revoked certificates from researchers personal
| cars in the past
| jordanb wrote:
| > Researchers who find at least one valid "rooting"
| vulnerability will receive a permanent SSH certificate for
| their own car
|
| It feels like this is something you should get by being owner
| of the car, and not have to do free speculative research for
| the manufacturer to get it.
| CalRobert wrote:
| As much as I tend to agree philosophically, could it not
| result in people making changes that endanger other road
| users?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I don't think that's the reason, seeing as a car is already
| endangering everyone around it by existing. More likely
| about keeping the tooling to diagnose issues proprietary
| and expensive.
| auggierose wrote:
| Obviously, they are both very good reasons. Just because
| you don't like one of them, doesn't mean the other one
| doesn't suddenly exist anymore.
| UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote:
| You could screenshot this and put it under the definition
| of "perfect being the enemy of good"
| chneu wrote:
| No, one can do that anyway. There is basically no real way
| to stop folks from modifying their cars. It can be made
| more difficult, sure.
|
| This is about selling tools and access. It's another profit
| pipeline for car OEMs.
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| Perhaps it is also about liability. Otherwise, we would
| have people installing OpenClaw on their Teslas.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Then why wasn't it a problem before? People have always
| been able to install aftermarket or possibly even hacked
| together physical parts. If there was liability you'd
| expect some sort of shield blocking access to, for
| example, the hydraulic system for the brakes.
|
| As it turns out though blatant irresponsibility is quite
| rare (depending on your definition anyway) since people
| have a strong self interest in not endangering their own
| lives or wallets. It's similar for homeowners - many
| states explicitly carve out a requirement that insurance
| companies cover DIY modifications that are within reason
| and this generally works out since you have a strong
| vested interest in not destroying your own house
| regardless of any insurance policy.
| lmm wrote:
| > Then why wasn't it a problem before?
|
| It is. Thousands of people have died because of
| aftermarket headlights. Harder to assess, but probably
| much larger, is the number of excess deaths from nitrous
| oxide etc. emitted by modified cars.
| pastage wrote:
| There are about 3000 deaths per year in Sweden attributed
| to position from cars, and 300 physical accidents. So it
| is a really big issue, but it is almost impossible to
| make people understand that their car use and
| modification mains people.
|
| Modified cars can release 1000x more polution, on streets
| with 800 daily cars that will have an affect.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| You can ban modifying your car to pollute more (which we
| do) without banning modifying your car.
|
| This isn't complicated FFS.
|
| The difficulty against this in the US is the unfortunate
| reality that the people coming to these shops to enable
| their stupid trucks to roll coal are the people who
| should technically be raiding and shutting down these
| companies. This can be fixed.
|
| Physically, you can _already_ modify your car to be
| controlled by a stupid program and that has been possible
| since at least the 90s. You can do the supposed harm by
| not being aware of damage to your exhaust system.
|
| The solution to exhaust harms of ICE engines is electric
| cars, not a reduction in consumer rights.
| vablings wrote:
| The EPA heavily regulates any emissions defeat devices.
| The problem is they spend most of their time going after
| tuner shops where most cars run on ethanol rather than
| diesel shops who cater to brain-damaged customers who
| think rolling coal is "cool"
| CalRobert wrote:
| People get killed by changes to exhaust, height (lift
| kits), bumpers (bull bars in particular), etc pretty
| often, though. And I can imagine software changes
| (exhaust is part of that actually) could kill people too.
|
| Maybe you think daytime running lights are stupid and
| want to disable them for instance.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Sure. Point is nothing has really changed. Largely
| there's no problem and to the extent that bad things
| happen it isn't something novel that's only just come up.
| It's not in and of itself an excuse to erode private
| ownership. If intervention is required then regulation
| should be passed deliberately by the legislature.
| cj wrote:
| I dunno, I think there's a big difference between making
| digital modifications to software vs. making physical
| modifications to hardware.
|
| The risk profile is very different and non-obvious to
| your average car owner.
|
| It's the difference between trying to repair your leaky
| dishwasher vs. trying to repair the electrical panel in
| your basement.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Well both of those examples could potentially electrocute
| you or start a fire and both can be done by a homeowner
| if he feels like it.
|
| I don't disagree that it's a bit different in certain
| ways but I feel like that's drifting off topic. It
| shouldn't be up to manufactures to determine these things
| unilaterally but rather the legislature. Particularly any
| justification to the contrary rings hollow in this case
| because there's a very strong conflict of interest.
| stephen_g wrote:
| That kind of thing is always the stated justification but
| never the real reason.
|
| Almost invariably when that excuse is trotted out, there
| are are usually many things that are much more common that
| are also far more dangerous. For example, texting while
| driving or driving with bald tires in the wet are both 100x
| more dangerous than anything almost anybody would do by
| modifying the car's software.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| Four 9/11s worth of people die every year from drunk
| driving. If we can't even get that under control, I don't
| see why being able to modify your own car is a big deal.
| UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote:
| It doesn't have to be a "big deal" for the powers that be
| to resolve that you shouldn't have root access to your
| iPad on wheels, dude.
| CalRobert wrote:
| We could do both...
|
| Disabling alertness sensors might worsen drunk driving
| actually.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Isn't this largely a US problem?
|
| Enforcement is abysmal for stupid reasons. Courts are
| reluctant to remove the ability for people to drive
| because America purposely made itself dependent on cars,
| and cops are reluctant to actually arrest a lot of people
| for drunk driving because they tend to be buddies, or
| worse. You can find plentiful examples of off duty
| officers trying to get out of drunk driving simply by
| being a cop.
|
| This is what you get when you can vote on the sheriff and
| judges who insist they are "Tough on crime" because they
| sentence a dude smoking a joint to years in the joint
| while ignoring real problems like, you know, murder and
| theft and violence and all the shit their buddies are
| doing. The "Tough on crime" people are the ones drunk
| driving often enough.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| You can feel that way, but plenty of car configuration has
| always been locked away and walled off, and manufacturers
| make a tidy profit selling software licenses to dealers and
| mechanics to perform basic diagnostics. Proprietary software
| is big business what can you do.
| franga2000 wrote:
| Definitely not always. It used to be that a mechanic or a
| skilled owner could tune, modify, repair or replace
| absolutely anything in your car. That was basically since
| the invention of the car, up to somewhere in the 2000s. And
| even then, various hackers and pirates made sure almost
| anyone could get their hands on the software. In fact, many
| mechanics these days use 3rd party software because the
| manufacturer refuses to sell them their version or even
| that version doesn't have all the features.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| That is the recent (and gradually worsening) situation but
| it is not in and of itself a justification. Effectively
| you're saying "it's currently this way therefore it's okay
| for it to be this way".
|
| Manufacturers have increasingly restricted control over
| products as they've gradually been digitized. Prior to the
| digital era anyone could do anything to personal property
| (regulations notwithstanding ofc); more expensive items
| typically came with circuit diagrams for the purpose of
| repairing them.
| unglaublich wrote:
| You can translate that to corresponding car-purchases, i.e.
| vote with your wallet.
| Yaggo wrote:
| Really? Which car manufacturer officially provides you a
| root access to your vehicle?
| UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote:
| It's almost like there's no market for this because it's
| a silly thing that practically nobody actually wants
| enough to vote with their wallet.
|
| That, or no company wants to assume liability. In which
| case, go whine to your local representative. That'll be
| hilarious for all involved.
| bluGill wrote:
| Even as a well trained software engineer who works on
| transportation software including ECUs (heavy equipment
| not cars), I'm not sure there is much I could do with
| root. IF I had full source code to my car's radio I might
| try to add android-auto back in (it has android-
| automotive so I know it can do it), but if that isn't
| easy I'd probably give up. Without source code and a lot
| of time doing anything is impossible - as anyone else who
| works on complex software knows.
| Yaggo wrote:
| Maybe 0.1% of consumers even know what "root access"
| means.
| AbanoubRodolf wrote:
| The underlying tension is that "you own the car" means
| something very different from "you own the software running
| the car." Tesla treats the firmware as licensed software
| rather than property you can inspect and modify. The bug
| bounty program is a PR-friendly way to say "we support
| security research" while keeping full control over who gets
| access and under what terms.
|
| Right-to-repair legislation is chipping away at this but
| slowly. The EU's right-to-repair directive covers physical
| repair and doesn't really touch software access. The real
| test would be a regulator taking the position that
| restricting root access on hardware you own constitutes an
| anticompetitive tying arrangement, since you can't use the
| car's data for your own purposes without going through
| Tesla's APIs and paying their fees.
|
| John Deere has been the main battleground for this argument
| so far. Farmers can't repair their own tractors without
| paying for dealer access to diagnostic software. Tesla is the
| same pattern applied to consumer vehicles, but the consumer
| advocacy pressure is weaker because fewer people feel the
| pain directly.
| gspr wrote:
| > The underlying tension is that "you own the car" means
| something very different from "you own the software running
| the car."
|
| How is this different from the 2000s, or the 90s, or even
| before, when the normal thing to do with commercial
| software was to purchase a license to use said software and
| a physical medium containing a copy? You'd also then not
| "own the software", but you owned the right to install a
| copy on your own computer and use it. That worked without
| having to hand over the keys to your own computer.
|
| Sure, the physical delivery medium is gone, but that's just
| a detail. Why do we now think that just because we license
| software for use, we can't be in ultimate charge of our own
| devices?
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| In 1990 Ford couldn't turn off your Mustang because you
| plugged a TwEECer into the J3 port and screwed around
| with the tune. Best they could do was void your warranty
| and deny you further upgrades (i.e. tunes flashed as part
| of a recall or TSB).
|
| These days unauthorized access tends to lose you
| effective use of the hardware you bought because the
| hardware requires software features to work and that
| software often unnecessarily phones home so if the OEM
| toggles a field in a DB somewhere you lose access to back
| up assist or whatever other fancy tech features that you
| a) paid for b) don't strictly need to have dependencies
| that phone home to work but do "because reasons".
| bluGill wrote:
| Have a lawyer look up the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act for
| you if that happens. What Ford can do is legally limited.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" Tesla is the same pattern applied to consumer
| vehicles"_
|
| It really isn't. Unlike John Deere, Tesla is actually
| pretty good on right-to-repair. All of their technical and
| repair manuals are available for free to anyone. The
| service/diagnostics software ("Toolbox") is also available
| to anyone, albeit for a (not entirely unreasonable) fee.
|
| (There is also a service mode built in to the car which can
| do many basic diagnostics for free)
| consp wrote:
| > All of their technical and repair manuals are available
| for free to anyone.
|
| That should be the bare minimum. Ford charges you 40
| dollar an hour for it and unless you know exactly what
| you are looking for you will spend several hundreds on
| it.
|
| Too bad ford killed their old site, the print form was
| unauthenticated and you could print the entire schematics
| to pdf if you knew the internal model number. Or do what
| I did and run a script to dump it to higher res PNGs.
| RankingMember wrote:
| Any chance someone ripped that old site? Do you remember
| the URL? I don't have a Ford, just always curious about
| this stuff.
| scrumper wrote:
| charm.li covers Fords and many other makes too up to 2013
| ish. It is a pirate archive site holding workshop manuals
| for thousands of cars. Very useful. Very free. Long may
| it stay hidden.
|
| More legitimately, alldata.com has repair data, workshop
| manuals for most marques up to today and will sell you
| either single vehicle (called "DIY") or a package aimed
| at independent mechanics where you can access anything.
| Same manuals either way, but you pay per vehicle with DIY
| (and have to contact support to switch.)
|
| I use alldata for my GM truck, it is fantastic.
| consp wrote:
| ETIS is dead and Ford finally pulled the plug, though
| since the current backend is some semi-custom IBM bloat I
| would not be surprized if you could get by that without
| too much hassle (took them three years to find out I was
| downloading all my car's travel and charging logs before
| they banned the dummy account, but now they track it and
| discontinued most of it anyways).
|
| I won't go into details but searching around with the
| "forum" keyword and etis might get you somewhere (at
| least that did the trick a few years ago, now with LLM
| slop I don't know, and what the other person posted).
| holoduke wrote:
| Tesla absolutely does not apply the same patterns as John
| Deere. Everyone can fix Teslas. Parts are easy to obtain.
| Never had issues with them. John Deere on the otherhand is
| the absolute evil of right to repair.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| >> Tesla is the same pattern applied to consumer vehicles
|
| No i'd push back on this because the entire workshop manual
| is available for free without even registration required.
| You can literally google and land in the relevant sections
| and it is of a far higher quality than ford, VAG or bmw as
| three examples i'm pretty familiar with. I haven't seen the
| John Deere stuff.
|
| Tesla does have "special tools" for some repair procedures,
| a practice as old as the auto industry but they don't rely
| on them to the same extent as BMW for example. Anecdotally,
| the special tools i'm aware of are genuinely useful - for
| example, the tool for disconnecting seatbelt anchors saves
| time vs the traditional bolt - where special tools on other
| marques are often clearly to workaround a failure of
| packaging or engineering resulting in tight access for a
| regular tool.
|
| Their online API access is a little bit annoying, or at
| least unfriendly to casual home user, specifically the
| workflow to register an OIDC client, but not
| insurmountable.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Tesla treats the firmware as licensed software
|
| This would be okay if there's a way to reject the license
| and install my own firmware.
| Rychard wrote:
| You'd be required to jump through the hoops to get your
| custom firmware approved by the necessary regulatory
| bodies, just as Tesla did for theirs.
|
| It's not really feasible for a private owner, so I can
| see why it's not offered as an option.
| protimewaster wrote:
| Surely not if I certified that the car was never going to
| be used on the road?
| myself248 wrote:
| If you're going to sell the car with the modified
| firmware, fine.
|
| But at least in my jurisdiction, I can mechanically
| modify the car in any way I please, as long as it still
| has seat belts, brake lights, and bumpers of a certain
| height. It doesn't even still require a steering wheel;
| that's not specified in the law as far as I've been able
| to find. (Now, if I removed the muffler and made it
| louder than proscribed by law, I could be cited for a
| noise violation, but only at such a time as I womped on
| the gas and actually made the noise. The car itself being
| _capable_ of the noise is not, inherently, illegal.)
|
| This blew my coworkers' mind once as I unplugged the
| passenger-side airbag while mounting a bunch of new stuff
| there. Apparently in some places, it requires paperwork
| and certifications just to unplug a connector? Weird.
| thegreatpeter wrote:
| Tesla's manuals are all online and many of the parts sell
| for cost plus. You may be thinking of Ford and Toyota
| fluoridation wrote:
| >The underlying tension is that "you own the car" means
| something very different from "you own the software running
| the car."
|
| What does that mean? "The software" is a specific
| configuration of the hardware you own. How can you own the
| hardware and not the specific copy of whatever data is on
| it? Note that I'm not confusing the copy of the data with
| the IP rights to it.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Because American courts have entertained utterly moronic
| claims for decades now and the DMCA eliminates any sanity
| in consumer rights around IP products.
|
| When you bought a DVD, you didn't "Own" the movie, but
| you had a legal right to do things with that data you
| didn't "own" anyway, like format shifting and selling
| that physical object on to another person. You could copy
| that data off and do things with it. I think technically
| it would be a copyright violation to then put that movie
| file into Movie Maker and cut up your own personal
| highlight reel, but good luck finding a judge willing to
| hear that case if you don't upload it to youtube.
|
| Now, thanks to the DMCA and courts being absurdly
| credulous of bullshit arguments from corporate attorneys,
| _you no longer have basic consumer rights_. If you try to
| even inspect the code that runs to protect your literal
| life, that can be a crime. You own the literal hardware,
| but if you try to act like you own it, that 's a crime.
| You _technically_ still have the right to format shift a
| BluRay for example, but bypassing the math protecting
| that data overrides that "right" and you are guilty of a
| crime. A CEO's wet dream.
|
| If the DMCA was older, IBM could have prevented the
| existence of the Clone PC market and ensured a locked up
| market. We would all be stuck on absurdly shit hardware
| because that's what was more profitable for IBM.
|
| Pre-DMCA, Sega was told that their trademark rights were
| overridden by the innate market right to interoperate
| with their product. IP rights used to be fairly weak!
| Sony could not prevent a company from selling a software
| product that ran playstation games. To this day, Nintendo
| simply pretends these court cases didn't happen.
|
| This is part of why China has so much success in
| manufacturing and product development IMO. They don't
| need to develop purposely worse versions of things just
| so some other company can sit on their hands for 20 years
| collecting rent. If you want a fast moving market, the
| ability to lock things down for 20 years is
| _fundamentally unacceptable_ , only enriching a few
| owners, and outright harming our country. Basically every
| time in history that IP rights are weakened or nullified,
| you see a burst of development and advancement in
| products and solutions.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| I would love to lobby to change how the law works for these
| cases: for some definition of "firmware" (informally
| "software that ships with hardware and is not intended to
| be selected by the consumer like a computer operating
| system"), add a copyright exception so that modifying the
| firmware in situ is treated like modifying the physical
| hardware, because in practice they are in fact the same
| thing: a single component that does a single thing.
|
| With this, the John Deere approach to gatekeeping vehicle
| repair would no longer be legally protected by the DMCA or
| by copyright law. All the other protections afforded by
| copyright law would still apply: you cannot rip the
| firmware off the hardware and distribute it, the
| manufacturer is under no obligation to help you modify it,
| etc.
|
| However, tools which patch or circumvent antifeatures of
| the firmware would now be legal to use on hardware you own:
| it would be legal to patch out software locks, retune
| engine computers, etc.
| trvz wrote:
| Normies get scammed on Discord into pasting commands into
| their browser console.
|
| As a pedestrian I prefer for most people to not have root
| access to their multi-ton fast-moving killing machine.
| pastage wrote:
| Agrred, but it is remote root access is the danger, they
| already have root access to the physical dangerous things.
| UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote:
| That is blatant whataboutism. Stop performing mental
| gymnastics and accept that what you personally want is
| not what's good for society as a whole.
| fluoridation wrote:
| It's not whataboutism, it's a legitimate question. How
| does it increase safety on the road to reject local SSH
| connections by a dumb user, when that same user can mess
| with the car physically?
| Thews wrote:
| How does adding another way to cause safety issues affect
| safety?
|
| Give me root access so i can install openclaw.
| zeagle wrote:
| Simplest example: a driver could probably disable
| attentive driving checks by pasting a script in from a
| web search in a few minutes. Nothing like an inattentive
| 3750 lbs weapon.
| fluoridation wrote:
| A driver could also install a little machine that turns
| the wheel slightly at regular intervals, to the same
| effect.
| zeagle wrote:
| Yeah and they could hire a professional driver or a
| engineer and IPO for billions a life sized driving AI
| powered crypto robot too. Look, like clearly google +
| ctrl-v scripting or running an one click deployment exe
| on your computer on a whim is different than physically
| ordering/picking up something and then installing it into
| a vehicle?
| fluoridation wrote:
| Of course they're different, but you're trying to argue
| that the former takes objectively less effort than the
| latter, and it doesn't. One or the other may take less
| effort depending on who you are and what you know.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| I've heard multiple people claim an ankle weight on the
| steering wheel is sufficient for hands-free driving.
| tenthirtyam wrote:
| In most cases I agree with this, but maybe not for
| potentially dangerous things like cars? What if someone roots
| into their car and disables some essential safety feature -
| maybe even a legally mandated safety feature?
|
| More concretely, the expertise-required-to-access-root is in
| a different field to the expertise-required-to-make-wise-
| changes. i.e. you might know how to hack a car, but that
| doesn't mean you know how cars operate.
| malwrar wrote:
| People have been modifying their cars since cars have
| existed, an electric car shouldn't be anything new.
| mikegreenberg wrote:
| Given electric cars are responsible for much bigger
| responsibilities than combustion cars (avoid driving into
| that bicyclist), there are new concerns here which beg
| extra consideration.
| malwrar wrote:
| I actually think we should be asking more of safety
| regulations here with regards to the design of
| electric/computerized cars.
|
| Think of it this way: every concern you have about a
| teenager having root on their electric car is the same as
| any sociopath hacker (AI enabled for modern nightmare
| fuel) who finds a root vulnerability and decides to not
| be a good person with it. If a teenager can mess with the
| collision avoidance, e.g. Israel can modify it to murder
| anyone who talks shit about Israel in the car. Or the CIA
| could turn it into a weapon. Or one day some dev could
| push a bad OTA update. Et cetera. Our safety regulations
| should mandate design features to prevent a
| malfunctioning computer from posing any greater safety
| risk than any other modified part in the car.
| jmalicki wrote:
| People have been killing each other with weapons for as
| long as they've been around, nuclear weapons shouldn't be
| anything new.
| dotBen wrote:
| Up until v recently cars were not remotely accessible and
| part of a command-and-control network which Teslas are
| _(perhaps other modern cars are too, I only know Tesla
| because I have one)_.
|
| I know that the car reports practically all user events
| to Tesla in real time over the cell network (eg, open
| door), and I know it has root access. I don't know if
| that root is available remotely and I don't know if
| foundational commands like steering, acceleration and
| brake are accessible via the CLI (they are computer
| controlled actions locally)
|
| THUS I would not want to drive a Tesla if there was the
| possibility of all cars being rooted and remotely
| controlled by an unauthorized actor.
| Interesco wrote:
| Not intentionally, but some cars have been vulnerable to
| remote control/hijacking since at least 2015.
|
| https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-
| hig...
| dostick wrote:
| That's quite a weak confidence in their own platform security
| if finding a root level vulnerability is not one-off event, but
| it's a program expected to have multiple people routinely
| finding those.
| unglaublich wrote:
| Well it's a selection bias.
|
| If an athlete breaks a world record, they're likely to do it
| again. Even though it's incredibly hard to break a world
| record.
| noosphr wrote:
| Imagine having to hack your device, then having to submit a
| request to actually own it.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| The interesting part is this implies that Tesla cars have
| static certifcates that don't rotate. (Whoops.)
| worthless-trash wrote:
| Why can't they rotate ? having root ssh keys on the device
| doesn't imply the certs don't rotate.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Not necessarily. All they have to do is roll a pub key into
| the update package. Same as any OTA update.
| jon-wood wrote:
| My read of the output in the post when they tried to SSH to
| the device was that Tesla are actually doing the right thing
| here and using an SSH certificate authority, which allows
| issuing certificates signed with a private key authorising
| access to a subset of devices (optionally for a defined
| period of time). https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSSH/Cookbo
| ok/Certificate-b... has more information, but in summary
| unless the private signing key is compromised in some way
| this is entirely legit. I'd hope that they also have some
| mechanism for distributing a new public key if the signing
| key does get compromised but who knows.
| everfrustrated wrote:
| I understand there are also certs involved with tesla
| vehicles communicating with a supercharger as well.
| Traster wrote:
| And as we all know, if you're smart enough to get root access,
| your neighbours children playing football in the street should
| be subject to the risk of you driven a car that claims to have
| full self driving with custom code on it.
| magistra wrote:
| this is the coolest shi i've ever read on hackernews
| jeffbee wrote:
| I am surprised that they are surprised that car wiring diagrams
| are online. People wouldn't accept cars without online service
| manuals and schematics, and some states mandate them by law. I
| just looked up this subsystem for my car via my public library.
| https://appcontent.chiltonlibrary.com/chilton_images/Honda/E...
| rconti wrote:
| Just peruse the comments here to see how difficult they are to
| obtain on many cars.
| nishanseal wrote:
| This is awesome. Curious if these are plug and play and if that's
| the case where is the memory that tells you what the mileage is.
| If it's attached to the computer than the mileage would be off if
| you switch/repair it.
|
| Completely unrelated. Would be interested if you figure out how
| to retrofit the new adaptive shocks on performance models to the
| older cars. Something I would love to do if I had hobby time. I'm
| pretty sure they fit physically, but needs to be connected to the
| main computer. I likely would never touch the main computer
| unless I got root access. In my brain I was thinking about a
| separate system made with raspberry pi's.
| AndroidKitKat wrote:
| You can, at the very least, retrofit the Juniper suspension
| onto the old car [1]. I haven't ridden in the new Performance
| yet, but I recently got a 2026 Model Y and the suspension is
| night and day compared to my 2024.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EahoyTgkkyU
| jabedude wrote:
| I'm actually somewhat surprised the OS fully boots when it's not
| connected to the expected vehicle peripherals
| asimovDev wrote:
| Yeah, I expected some gigantic writeup about tricking it into
| thinking all other systems are connected to it but maybe it's
| made this way so it's easier to repair without needing the
| whole car
| pta2002 wrote:
| I work on automotive software (not Tesla), and it's like this
| partially because it makes development _way easier_. Rather
| than needing to get a whole car to the dev team, you just give
| them the specific part that they're working on. Anything that
| needs outside features usually just fails gracefully (e.g. no
| speedometer or no location for maps). These are usually mocked
| for testing, or you add the specific ECU that provides it for
| your testing setup if needed.
|
| Modern cars have tens of ECUs, so if you had to have all of
| them for testing, that would get unwieldy extremely quickly.
| Not to mention that cars are pretty resilient to having random
| parts failing, you don't want to lose the entire dashboard just
| because the ECU that provides camera data failed, or something.
| bluGill wrote:
| I work on that software too (again not Tesla). One other
| thing - often the hardware we get is per-production and has a
| list of errata that will be fixed before production. They
| don't want to make too many of these for engineers because it
| is done in a fast turn-around higher cost factory and it is
| expected that once in a while things won't work at all
| (someone forgets to connect power to the CPU pin or something
| similarly stupid that requires a lot of manual wiring to fix
| on each one). As such you have to justify getting any
| controller and often share. Once the product is shipping they
| make many of them and it isn't a big deal to get one on your
| desk - but you have now moved onto the next thing and so the
| problem returns.
| nine_k wrote:
| It's funny how the biggest problem turned out to be a mostly
| mechanical part, the rather trivial 6-pin connector.
|
| Given the presence of the wiring schematics and the mechanical
| dimensions, I'm surprised that the author did not try to 3D-print
| the mechanical parts of the connectors, givem that the electrical
| parts extracted from the BMW connectors did fit.
| dmead wrote:
| You're going to make it drive an RC car right?
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| Anyone finding this fascinating, please check out Openinverter
| Forum [0]. Ton of work has been done in decoding CAN messages,
| DBC files are floating around, open source firmware and
| controllers are available for Tesla and others components, mostly
| inverters and chargers but there are overlaps with the VCU and
| displays as well.
|
| [0] - https://openinverter.org/forum/
| voidUpdate wrote:
| > " I needed this because both the computer and a screen were
| being sold with the cables cut a few centimeters after the
| connector (interestingly most sellers did that, instead of just
| unplugging the cables)."
|
| Can't you just solder some extra wires onto the cut off bits,
| rather than having to try and find a compatible cable? They've
| left the connectors in, and that's the hard bit, the rest is just
| wires
| bdavbdav wrote:
| From messing around with these units from various cars, which
| often need more enablement than these, sometimes it's nice to
| just know your interpretation of the wiring diagrams isn't at
| fault when chasing down "no lights at all" issues.
| smithza wrote:
| LVDS implies differential signals and are designed to minimize
| EMI and can be hard to splice while still maintaining signal
| integrity. They can support high data rates (ethernet cables
| also use twisted pair LVDS). Theoretically this should be
| feasible up to 100s or even 1000s of mbps
| mNovak wrote:
| He does that in the write-up, though it's unclear from the
| photos if he actually soldered it or just twisted up pairs. The
| discussion of part of the wire melting also raises an eyebrow..
| no idea about the authors hardware experience, but I've seen
| software guys use piddly 24 AWG on a multi-amp circuit
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| I'd say low, given his surprise about "wiring looms" which
| have been the norm for 50 years? Nice write up though!
| tedk-42 wrote:
| But can it play doom?
| pelf wrote:
| It could probably run it and learn to play it too.
| yc-kraln wrote:
| I would love to use the drive units from a Tesla in a conversion
| project. Unfortunately, they're cryptographically paired with the
| main computer, and there's no way to use them.
|
| What a waste.
| fragmede wrote:
| The trick is to pick up the main computer and the paired drive
| unit(s) by picking up a whole vehicle (with a salvage title).
| There are shops in LA, and elsewhere who do conversions this
| way.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is done to kill the "chop shops" criminals used to steal
| cars and then break them up for parts. You can't do that with
| computers because of that pairing and so stealing a car pays
| much less and in turn is less common. (it still happens, it
| just doesn't pay as well)
| rconti wrote:
| These conversions are super common. What am I missing?
| uticus wrote:
| > We ordered the chip and took the board to a local PCB repair
| shop, where they successfully replaced it and fixed the MCU.
|
| What is a "local PCB repair shop"? All the guys who used to fix
| TVs and radios are gone. Anyone else (not living in China) having
| trouble locating such an outfit in their neighborhood?
| WarmWash wrote:
| Cell phone/laptop repair shops.
| uxp100 wrote:
| When I've brought atypical stuff in to be repaired at one of
| those shops they have been absolutely willing to solder
| whatever, however they did have just one "soldering guy" for
| every shop in the metro area who only came as needed. So just
| keep that in mind if you're in a hurry or want to talk an
| atypical task through with someone. Probably call ahead.
| uticus wrote:
| > Turns out that actual cars don't have individual cables.
| Instead they have these big "looms", which bundle many cables
| from a nearby area into a single harness. This is the reason why
| I could not find the individual cable earlier. They simply don't
| manufacture it.
|
| Typical setup for cars (and lawn mowers). As a software guy my
| first instinct is, computing power is cheap enough, seems like a
| CAT5-like thing running between all components would do it.
| Speaking as a software guy - meaning I'm probably missing a _lot_
| of the big picture. On the other hand, it 's a lot easier to
| safety-check a mechanical lockout that physically opens a
| circuit, than something running on software.
| smallpipe wrote:
| Cars are moving towards something like that, mostly because
| copper is expensive and there are miles and miles of it in even
| a basic car these days
| moduspol wrote:
| I read somewhere that the reason they don't typically use IT
| networking cables / tech is because normal IT infrastructure is
| a lot less strict with things like packet loss. It's actually
| not a huge deal to drop packets here and there, especially if
| any given component is at capacity. But in a car, some devices
| are super chatty and you can't be dropping packets much at all.
|
| That said, I'm sure there's gotta be a better way to solve it
| with less copper. And I think they did something like that with
| CyberTruck.
| uticus wrote:
| > ...in a car, some devices are super chatty and you can't be
| dropping packets much at all....there's gotta be a better way
| to solve it with less copper.
|
| I know CAN is a thing for a while now, and in the aviation
| world they have ethernet-derived standards like AFDX etc. But
| for some reason cables abound.
|
| Meh, even in the IT industry cables abound.
| 23curious wrote:
| Any way to make sure my tesla hasn't been rooted and modified by
| previous owner, perhaps with remote access?
| msarrel wrote:
| I feel like maybe you're headed towards this
| https://youtu.be/K9a2_3XObNI?si=vkP_utLfo3M0LFGO
| tom-blk wrote:
| Prime example of free will
| bennydog224 wrote:
| I see in the attached SS that the car has the "BIFL" FSD (?).
| Does this mean you could swap this CPU a non-FSD Model 3 and get
| it?
|
| :O
| eschneider wrote:
| ECU software development is sort of my day job. If you're going
| to go down this path, I seriously recommend getting the
| specialized plugs and connectors and making your own wiring
| harnesses to whatever size you need. It's absolutely easier than
| manhandling a full wiring harness or cutting one down. Cheaper,
| too.
| JohannesCortez wrote:
| This is cool, how exactly did it boot?
| caffeinedoom wrote:
| Excellent detective work. I had no idea you can get a Tesla's
| computer off market. I wonder if these may be the last decade
| that we may be able to get root access to our on hardware
| consumer products. Keep the good work up.
| ge96 wrote:
| Makes me think imagine finding a crashed drone somewhere and you
| pull its guts out, use it for the home automate something, run a
| shed, plot point in a story
|
| It could be clout like "I turned a Shahed into a gaming PC"
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-03-26 23:00 UTC)