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Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles

news.ycombinator.com

41–49 of 49 posts

Re: Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles

#41
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your business model?

Currently, we charge $0.25 per EV connected per month with upto 10,000 API calls allowed per month.

You’re charging the customer for this?

How do they control the rate of api calls?

Re: Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles

#42

This is an ooof. to straighten the timeline of events as i monitor the connected car space -- - 2016 YC invests in Smartcar. - 2019 Otonomo lost lawsuit to Smartcar after stealing/copying them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19719380 - 2021 YC decides to invest in Enode which cloning Smartcar. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26468448 - 2022 YC decides to invest in Telematica which cloning Smartcar. I give…

Thanks for sharing this. Smartcar was not funded by YC. And as I have replied below we have a different take on connected cars.

Re: Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles

#43

I can see how there might be a use case for large fleets, but as an electric car owner for personal use I have to say that your two "problems" (range anxiety and charging management) are actually the two things I found to not really be problems. You plug it in at night.

Yes, range anxiety should not be an issue for personal use, but you could still save money on your home charging costs by participating in demand response programmes offered by your utility or by using a smart charging app.

Re: Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles

#44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, we charge $0.25 per EV connected per month with upto 10,000 API calls allowed per month.

You’re charging the customer for this? How do they control the rate of api calls?

We are a B2B company so we charge the service provider that wants to use Telematica to connect their end users EV. I did not understand your second question, who does "they" refer to?

Re: Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles

#45
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re charging the customer for this? How do they control the rate of api calls?

We are a B2B company so we charge the service provider that wants to use Telematica to connect their end users EV. I did not understand your second question, who does "they" refer to?

Ah. You’re B2B.

Thanks.

Re: Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles

#48
post #3

Doesn't this break the ToS of the vehicle vendors' user accounts?

Aren't users breaking their acceptable use policy (AUP) with the EV OEM when they do this? Legally speaking, users are giving you their username password to see their vehicle stats for personal consumption, but you are also making them sign a T&C that says it's ok for you to sell their data to B2B operators for revenue? Sounds fishy to me.

Re: Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles

#49
post #22
post #21

Platforms not providing OAuth and the ability to delegate access to an appropriate sub-set of data and utility permission is nothing new. Almost every major platform I can think of was slow to provide what it's innovation community wanted - I remember giving countless apps my Twitter or LinkedIn passwords in order to access 3rd party functionality and value. Blackberry/RIM held a frightening number of email address a…

Tesla probably has to give it to the government without a warrant or probable cause, like Google and Apple et al do. The government can toss you in jail if they don’t like the cut of your jib, and this data lets them find a way to do so quasi-legally. Small data-hungry startups can’t really damage you with this data by comparison. The privacy ship has sailed. If you want location privacy, rip out the GSM transceiver…

I get the point about government access and agree it's a sad state of affairs.

The difference is Tesla has a lot to lose if they can't demonstrate adequate consumer protection of the data from theft/unauthorized access - and significant consequences if a breach does occur. They should also have high quality engineering talent to make sure exploits don't occur.

A small startup doesn't have the same burdon on penalty for breach and probably far lower quality of eng talent.

This is why I reluctantly concede to Google and Tesla tracking my location, but not random startups.

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