I saw this article earlier:

Tesla ‘going bankrupt’ is endpoint of protests, says local organizer

In the spirit of right to repair, self-hosting, giving a second life to old devices, and limiting data collection by car companies:

  • What are some considerations?
  • Are there any projects worth keeping an eye on?

An example that came to mind was Valetudo, which is a cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling local-only operation. Some robot vacuums are easy to install this on, and others require more invasive modifications.

What I’ve found so far:

  • FreedomEV, a project that was presented at FOSSDEM 2019 but doesn’t have recent activity
  • TeslaMate, which is a popular and active selfhosted data logger for Teslas, but not necessarily a replacement for the software
  • DocMcStuffin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    14 days ago

    The right to repair. It’s going to require the ability to make changes to the software on the vehicle. At a minimum the ability to replace the public encryption keys used to communicate with the servers. The bootloader and software is probably locked behind signing keys; so you need to be able to disable or add your own keys. I doubt anyone has access to the full protocols used to communicate with the servers. So, the full technical standard need to be released (which is never going to happen) or reversed engineered through unencrypted traffic analysis and reverse engineering the software.

    A good right to repair law could require some of that be releasable while the company is still active or all if the company goes belly up. IIRC there was a smaller EV company that went bankrupt and there was a concern that once the servers were shutdown the vehicles would be bricked. Not sure what happened in the end. In any case, cars as IOT is the stupidest idea ever created.

  • ramble81@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    13 days ago

    Something else that people don’t think about besides the backend server is the connectivity. A lot of these cars use LTE with eSIMs that can’t be replaced, and getting an internet package for it will be next to impossible since Tesla gets them at bulk rates. Once upon a time cars did allow “bring your own SIM cards” but not anymore. Also as cars get older the cell networks get shut down. Some companies did offer upgrades but that was few and far between. Most just said “sorry, you’re SOL”.

    So even if you could hack your car, your car won’t have any way of talking to a custom endpoint.

      • ramble81@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        13 days ago

        I mean, what’s the alternative? It’s not like it has to have internet. Anything internet connected is mainly quality of life:

        • Traffic
        • Remote (app) features
        • Music

        Except maybe Teslas, damned if I know what they do. But they’re nice to have things that generally require realtime updates but the car functions just fine as a car without it.

        • EuroNutellaMan@lemmy.worldEnglish
          01·
          12 days ago

          Public transit/bikes are (or should be) a good alternative if you can’t find normal, used, dumb cars anymore

          • ramble81@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            12 days ago

            That’s a non-sequeter. You started by saying that internet on cars were bad and then switched to “you should be using bikes”

            • EuroNutellaMan@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              9 days ago

              Both of my statements are correct. Cars shouldn’t have internet and there should be less cars. In total absence of offline cars (meaning no used cars, nothing at all), use bikes and public transportation if you can.

              I mean you literally asked for an alternative and I gave you one.

  • bigDottee@geekroom.techEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    Assuming that Tesla goes bankrupt, actually shuts down forever, and shuts its servers down…

    At a minimum someone would have to find out where the software sends and receives data from. Then you’d have to reverse engineer the software to control the vehicles.

    Then you’d have to reprogram the software to send to your C&C server. I don’t think it would really take all that much to host that… it’s getting there that’s difficult.

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      14 days ago

      You’d likely need all kinds of cryptographic keys to get anywhere with that. Tesla is unlikely to ever publish those, even if they go bankrupt.