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Comment by neallindsay | Hacker News Reader

Not applicable for this specific car, but I would really love a way that doesn't involve an ODBC dongle to monitor the nerdy battery details on electric cars. On extremely hot or cold days, battery temperature can make a huge difference in charge rate when you are on a road trip. And when I'm charging it's nice that most cars tell you the number of kilowatts you are receiving, but it would be nice to know exactly how many amps and volts as well.

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I would love an ODBC dongle! SQL queries to access diagnostic data would be quite handy. :)

I hold a patent on an improved way of implementing a diagnostic vehicle network interface, basically HW protocol offload for CAN.

Plugging the prototype into a car and getting useful data out of it was satisfying.

You can get them for about 12 bucks and talk to them over usb. Pretty nifty

> You can get them for about 12 bucks and talk to them over usb. Pretty nifty

They are quite convenient, but tend to only "see" generic PIDs. The manufacturer specific diagnostic codes are much more useful.

I've got one and I've got the actual manufacturer scanner, and there is a world of difference in the utility of what is reported (things like transmission oil temperature, which is needed to correctly set the transmission oil level, etc).

Unlike some of my sibling replies, I see(quel) what you did there.

hah. I didn't even realize that I confused my acronyms.

Heck, I'd just appreciate OBD II data that's complete and standardized. For example, I can't seem to get the odometer on my 2015 Elentra GT.

That might just be your code reader. Mine will not give me odometer on my SAAB but it will on my Volvo and Ford.

> And when I'm charging it's nice that most cars tell you the number of kilowatts you are receiving, but it would be nice to know exactly how many amps and volts as well.

Well, it's giving you kW, and you already know voltage from the charger, so you can work out the number of amps being pulled, roughly.

Not that I am disagreeing; it would be nice to see all three figures without having to try to work out any of them.

Unfortunately most DC chargers don’t tell you the voltage either. I know that my car can charge at “400 volts” or “800 volts”, but I don’t know if that’s exact or just a ballpark number.

I believe Tesla has an API that exposes some of those metrics.

Yes you can see all of these metrics and more on the Tesla mobile app. There's also a handful of 3rd party Tesla apps that do even more. https://www.tessie.com/ https://tezlabapp.com https://teslafi.com Or host your own: https://github.com/adriankumpf/teslamate

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