Security researcher hacks Tesla via Bluetooth LE keyless entry vulnerability
computerweekly.com
computerweekly.com
>This vulnerability has forced Tesla to issue an over the air patch for its Model X vehicles.
And I'd consider it a more interesting story that "Tesla was able to address this grievous problem with an over the air patch."
This kind of problem means it's time for a recall for any car I've ever owned, and I think that holds for the majority of the industry today, still.
And yet we aren't inundated with brand-wide OEM recalls due to these other cars being hacked, despite the fact that there are hundreds of times more of them sold than Teslas every year.
Why do you think that is?
- Fight Club
Basically every keyfob sold before the mid 2000s got hacked via various methods. That's just a fact car manufacturers have not addressed retroactively.
Let's not forget you can use a De Bruijn sequence of like 3200 numbers to unlock any Ford with Securicide. I don't know if Ford fixed it in newer models but as it was on 90% of vehicles they sold since the 90s, they opted to roll the dice and not recall.
So I can't sign onto your "we aren't inundated" assertion.
Before I got rid of it in favor of the Subaru, my BMW had its key fob hacked, but the manufacturer opted not to recall it for a fix, in the US at least. I think similar models had gotten different treatment in Europe.
I could only speculate as to why the Tesla hack that's fixable OTA gets so much more attention than these others that apply to larger numbers of cars, but I have no inside knowledge and have done no study that would make my speculation on that front any more reliable than yours.
Whatever the reason is, it's not because the hacks aren't there, or because it takes something less than a recall to fix them. Why do you think it is?
In what way is breaking the glass on a Tesla considered "hacking," anyway?
Simply wait until the house is empty and break a window with a rock. No tools required.
Take 10 minutes to grab whatever valuables motivated you to rob the place, then get out of there. Even if they have a monitored alarm, it doesn't matter because you'll be gone before the response arrives.
[1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/california-housing-...
Different alternative would be to watch a street and see who has keys hidden outside. That way you're using part of the system to defeat the system.
Once when I was a kid my mum locked her keys in the car and I opened it with a coat hanger.
Not a $50k car, but not a $50 tool either - and more importantly no expertise required.
Wonder why it only applies to a Model X though
And in any case, the exploit here was that the door was opened, something that locksmiths have traditionally been offering as a paid service for decades with no computer hardware at all.
Really, the vulnerability angle isn't so interesting here at all. But it's a cool hack.
But there are many sites that hijack back button and is disgusting.
If there is anything to learn from Tesla it's about marketing, not automotive.
What Tesla brought to the game was insane performance for Electic cars, _and_ OTA updates for maps and software. And _just as importantly_ they actually update the software in meaningful ways.
Kia have none of these things.
Your statement is very similar to "Apple could slap their logo on any Chromebook and sell it for 2K!".
I used to race electric cars in college. It was no secret even then that electric motors had insane performance. With a proportional throttle you had to learn early on to go easy or you would smoke your tires. Almost any electric car will smoke a ICE car, the first lap. Even the humble Nissan LEAF is under 6secs.
What Tesla really brought was capacity (we were still lead acid and NiMH at the time) and the Supercharger network. The battery tech and network are their largest asset. The cars themselves are pretty underwhelming design-wise.
First in line, I used to habitually accelerate from stoplights at full throttle, in my Leaf. This resulted in ICE vehicles screaming past me, after they finally detonated enough fossil fuel to catch up. I realized I was inflicting permanent psychological harm and bought an i3 from Manheim using borrowed dealer credentials and slapped a skull decal on the back window. It is known and accepted that BMWs with skulls are fast. Nobody cares.
Porsche Taycan is rated somewhere in the high 400s for Wh/mile while the Model S is rated under 300 Wh/mile. The Nissan Leaf is also about 300 Wh/mile with nowhere near the performance of the Model 3 which comes in at 250 Wh/mile.
Either Tesla has a substantial technology advantage or all of their competitors are just incredibly bad.
The competition is behind, but not "so far behind".
A quick Google and you'll be able to find real world testing of these EVs, and as far as I can tell it's known that Tesla exaggerates the range of their cars, in some cases drastically.
That's not to say Tesla's tech isn't great (it is). But there are tradeoffs. The Taycan is ahead of the Model S in a few ways, too.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/best-cars/electric-cars-b...
Based on that I have a hard time believing that Tesla substantially exaggerates range. I reckon my single data point is probably worth at least as much as autocar.co.uk's single data point based on a couple orders of magnitude less driving.
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/bfhd9z/20000_m...
Edit: the point is that it is not clear that Tesla is much more efficient which was the original claim at the start of all this.
Their software is cool, not sure they pioneered anything in "maps".
But as far as performance, I'm not sure that's true. Electric cars by their nature are fast. People have been putting electric setups in drag cars for a long time and getting ridiculously fast quarter mile times. There are entire racing leagues based around electric drive trains. From what I've read, the Porsche Taycan has better performance than any Tesla.
In the 1990s there were some CARB-motivated EVs that might do 100 miles and 70mph. Not exactly performance to write home about, and they had all been discontinued (and mostly destroyed) by 2008 when Tesla started selling the Roadster.
Essentially all you could get were golf carts, mobility scooters, and the G-Wiz.
So the idea that "electric cars by their nature are fast" was very much not in evidence at that time. The Tesla Roadster, with 200+ miles of range and a 125mph top speed, was one of the first demonstrations that an electric car didn't have to mean compromising on performance.
Gucci could.
Heck I've even seen GM put their logo on the Nissan Van.
Also "simply not True" is you being incorrect. OTA always existed, it's just EXTREMELY expensive to send OTA. Tesla only has a few vehicles so it's cheap compared to Ford. And they take today's Stockholders money to pay for those updates.
Source- I did automotive telematics.
But who am I kidding. Someone probably just pays pays for a SIM to embed in an ECU with remote wake-up to phone home and grab an update, and the cost comes from all the telco networks that need to be contracted with to forward the traffic back home.
So you can't just use Wifi, you need to send it through the cellular provider.
Also it only gets expensive if you are doing it to millions of cars, Tesla doesn't have millions of cars. And also Tesla is using investor Money.
And who can forget about it's famously bad build quality? Theyre lucky that electric doesn't have many of the issues that ICE cars do because tesla build quality is terrible and they get away with it due to the simple power train...
There are too many unique issues for me to point at one.
Did you really want me to copy the first 10 links on Google?
GM is currently facing a class action suit for the infotainment system in 2019-2020 vehicles. Ford settled a class action lawsuit for its MyTouch Infotainment system and Consumer Reports failed to recommend the new F-150 due to the Sync3 Infotainment system. Subaru also has a settled class action suit for its infotainment system. BMW iDrive is pretty much universally reviled.
The Tesla Infotainment system, warts and all, is considered one of if not the best.
If it had
- fully electric propulsion
- a large charging station network
- cool styling
- an actually usable infotainment system
- OTA updates for everything
- knowledge you're funding R&D for new, more affordable battery systems
... maybe.
I didn't list advanced cruise control because many car makers have it. You could attribute the feeling of contributing to society's progress and the good feeling of buying from a company that actually cares about EVs to marketing if you're cynical (I wouldn't).