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Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

teslabot.ai

51–59 of 59 posts

Re: Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

#51

What’s the advantage to using this over the official tesla app? Typing “please lock my car” seems like so much more effort than tapping “lock” in the app.

A few things that you can't do in the official app, but you can do in the Teslabot: (1) voice control - send a voice messages/commands to Teslabot, (2) find out whether your car can go to a destination such as San Francisco with the current charge - Teslabot figures out location of the car, distance to the destination, battery range and answers that question, and also the bot is available from your laptop/desktop.

Re: Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

#52

The problem with doing this with Teslas, as I have had one for years and thought about building this, is trusting someone else to hold your credentials for your car. There is no authorization scoping and anyone with the credentials can find the car, unlock it, get in and drive it away. Also, plenty of mischief as well like opening the sun roof, the trunks, flashing the lights and honking the horn. I wish they had pro…

I would take this comment a step further.

Why should anyone have credentials for my car, including the car manufacturer?

Re: Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

#53

I do not have a Tesla, and I do not know what is available out there in terms of managing a Tesla from a remote location. But I am curious about using the chat bot-format for a status monitor application like this. What value does it provide to the user that is not fulfilled by an application just displaying the statuses to the user? I get that in this case everything is handled inside of Facebook Messenger, and to s…

There is a huge API to telsa cars:

mostly through https://owner-api.teslamotors.com/

for example:

  POST /api/1/vehicles/{id}/command/door_unlock
"Unlocks the doors to the car. Extends the handles on the S and X."

response:

  {
    "reason": "",
    "result": true
  }
details of the api people have discovered have been collected here: https://github.com/timdorr/tesla-api

Now, I personnaly wouldn't give credentials of my car out to folks, but you have to admit there is some interesting data that has come out of it.

for example, folks have discovered the details of how various tesla batteries charge:

https://forum.abetterrouteplanner.com/blogs/entry/29-faster-...

Re: Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

#54
post #49
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true? You can enable keyless driving with just a Tesla account credentials.

You still need some sort of authentication before the vehicle will let you switch into drive. In a Model 3, those options are either an authenticated smartphone, a key card, or a key fob. You cannot enroll any of those three keys without having an authenticated key present.

I do not believe this is true. You can start the car with just the account credentials. You will have two minutes to start driving, as the GP states; it’s called keyless driving mode. I’m pretty sure as I have used it when my phone broke and started the car with unpaired iPad. You need a key fob or key card to add a new paired key/phone, a paired smartphone doesn't work for that.

Re: Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However Tesla doesn’t provide a way to grant a token to a 3rd party so you (your application) would still need my tesla account credentials. How are you solving this?

I guess I am confused. I use ValetforTesla, granted it runs on my Mac, but I do not give anything other than token generated through an API call via a script, npx generate-tesla-token [1] ; after a NPM install through terminal. So yeah, its not official, but its open enough to know what it does there are sites out there which claim security to generate tokens for you but I am not going to even begin to suggest them.…

As long as you are running the software yourself then you are the only responsible party. (assuming they don't just send your credential to their server :) )

Re: Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

#56
post #40

The problem with doing this with Teslas, as I have had one for years and thought about building this, is trusting someone else to hold your credentials for your car. There is no authorization scoping and anyone with the credentials can find the car, unlock it, get in and drive it away. Also, plenty of mischief as well like opening the sun roof, the trunks, flashing the lights and honking the horn. I wish they had pro…

> anyone with the credentials can find the car, unlock it, get in and drive it away While the first three are true, you can't actually drive the car without an authorized key. Adding a new authorized key requires an existing authorized key. However, if you have a Model 3 and keep a valet key card in your car, then yeah anyone who can unlock your car can also drive it.

You can definitely drive my Model S with only the credentials. I have been in a situation where I had to install the app on a new phone then unlock it and drive away. Model 3 may be different but I don't think it is.

Re: Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

#57
post #14
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how trade-marks work, but Tesla is also just a name, isn't it? Maybe they just need to hire someone whose last name is Tesla and claim it was named after them haha.

The standards there are things like 'could one reasonably confuse your product or service with one provided by some other business, based on the names you're using' not 'do you have someone named Mercedes working in ops'.

Gotcha, makes sense. This is definitely better for the interests of the consumer.

Re: Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

#58

What’s the advantage to using this over the official tesla app? Typing “please lock my car” seems like so much more effort than tapping “lock” in the app.

I was wondering the same thing.. I understand that there are some additional features, but what is keeping Tesla from providing those features in a future app update? This is a cool product, but I wonder about the ability of it to compete with the official app, especially when they are relying on Tesla's API.

Re: Teslabot: A virtual assistant for Tesla cars – Locate, lock and other features

#59
post #41
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user I find it mildly offensive. Elon himself probably would laugh it off. Not going to use this as I find the exploitation of the name kind of gross. Maybe in 100 years if he’s not around then fine... but for now it’s too soon. “Tesla” is a separate issue and different.

But Tesla himself is not even 100 years dead....is it OK that there is a company named after him?

Of course. It’s also ok that this chatbot is called Elon.

Plenty of people get offended at stuff. That doesn’t mean they are right.

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