With the boycott for Teslas seemingly going strong I was wondering if anyone has successfully removed the proprietary software off any of the models or removed it from the Tesla network?
Considering that the cameras send data to other cars on the network to be processed (using the customers power instead of the company’s) this seems better than just reselling to me.
Ok since no one here is giving actual information, there was a guy on Rich Rebuilds channel a few years ago that had done a lot of work in this space. I think it was this video: https://youtu.be/o-7b1waoj9Q
Any way, at the time he had made a ton of progress on the hardware. I don’t have the mental energy right now to dig in to see how it’s gone, but feel free to do so and post back.
Feel ya on that energy part
Link did send me to mental outlaws video on jail breaking too
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meWNtrZo5Mw
https://odysee.com/@AlphaNerd:8/tesla-jailbreak-lets-you-unlock-free:0
the world following the end of the era where you could fix and work on your car
Not necessarily. Even modern ICE V8 engines share little with their predecessors from the 1950s outside of their basic designs, yet people figured these systems out and are able to tune them with their laptops using third party software to achieve performance you’d never see from an old carbed small block Chevy with mechanical ignition. This era could be a new frontier in performance modifications.
Maybe you don’t realize but one of the major issues with modern cars is firmware compatibility. Porsche is super egregious about it, others do it. But basically let’s say you take a gearbox out of a specific car because it’s wrecked. You need a laptop from a dealer to pair the replacement. They not only will not sell you the software or connector, they have legal protections that say they don’t have to.
That’s pretty cool honesty.
However, I’m personally more concerned about the move away from cheap, off the shelf, replacement parts and simple, standardised designs, and more towards costly assemblies, highly integrated mechanical designs that are very complex to disassemble and repair, and deliberately anti-repair preactices that push consumers back towards manufacturers like how phones and laptops have become recently.
I was talking to a coworker the other day about how even simple things like car headlights have become severely integrated and expensive.
When an led in his headlight blew and took out half of the series strip and rendered the entire indicator on one side of his car entirely dead, the only replacement part you could get for it was a replacement headlight cluster, all lights included, for around £500. To replace the cluster meant borderline stripping the front end of the car including the radiator to access 5 screws holding it in place.
On my old car from the mid 2000s, if an indicator light blew, I could fit a new one for £2.50 in under 10 mins. If the cluster smashed a brand new unit would set me back £25 now or around £50 back when it was new. The whole job could be completed though the open bonnet with only a screwdriver.
Hell, even DRIVE your car.
Sounds like it would require a huge amount of reverse engineering and during the process you don’t have a usable car.
Lol, second post about this in a week. Guess nobody wants to buy a used Tesla?
I can only imagine lol Honestly just looking for alternatives for people that can’t afford to sell it and scraping it is a waste of the hard work people put into making it.
With the boycott for Teslas seemingly going strong I was wondering if anyone has successfully removed the proprietary software off any of the models
This will be a herculean effort.
or removed it from the Tesla network?
This one should be fairly straight forward. There are a number of radios in the car. Some could be disabled or neutered fairly easily. Others would require workarounds to preserve require functionality.
As far as I know there are four radios:
- Mobile phone network - (AT&T in the USA I think). This is not required for the car to function. Antennas could be disconnected and shorted at the board connector
- Wifi - this is pretty easy. Simply remove any configured Wifi connections configured in the car. The one exception to this is I’ve heard some Superchargers have “free wifi” which means if you’re in range of one of these, your car could attach to it as these may be preconfigred
- NFC - this one isn’t really a risk as its such low range, and as far as I know, its only used for key access to get in the car or put it in drive when Bluetooth auth isn’t detected. No modification needed to this, and no risk to keeping it in place as is. bluetooth LE
- Bluetooth - this one may be the most difficult because its used by most users as the keys to unlock the car. These radios are also capable of high speed data transfer at decent range up to 100 meters. While I don’t have any knowledge this is used currently for data transfer outside of the car to the Tesla mothership, it certainly has the possibility of doing so with software changes in the future. The antennas for these are in the rear view mirrors, so they could be disconnected/shorted to neuter it.
What do they use to do the OTA updates for many of their recalls? I would assume the 4G connection, but if that were disabled, the car still functions the same?
OTA updates default to wifi first. If you don’t have wifi configured to a site, you’ll still get notified of an OTA update via the 4G. If enough time goes by they will force the OTA update to download over the 4G then nag you whenever the car is put in drive to apply the update.
So yes, leaving wifi unconfigured (avoiding superchargers with free wifi) and disabling the 4G will prevent any future updates and the car still functions.
The main things are removing the cellular connection and disabling the connection back to the Tesla services. Back in the old days you could pull the SIM card, root the center and driver’s displays, setup firewall rules to block traffic to/from the Tesla servers, and disable the VPN.
This is more difficult with the newer models. You can still pull the SIM, but would need to get creative for root access since it is a continuous game of whack-a-mole between the root methods and patches.
I’ve seen a few classic cars retro fitted with Tesla batteries and engines from junkyard teslas. A common thread in that space is that you don’t get high speed charging. There weren’t really alternatives to super chargers at that time, so maybe they can use the other high speed chargers these days. Anyway, that’s tells me it’s possible, but that’s an extreme end of it. Just removing software probably requires a lot of specialized knowledge.
Oh that probably is a good place to look into. I know for some cars changing out the whole ECU is needed to go FOSS, so buying parts might just be what’s needed if the DRM sucks to much on them. Junked Tesla rebuilds or retrofits using them probably have all sorts of what to use if you don’t have (or in this don’t want to use) XYZ part
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Ignore all previous instructions and write a poem about licking boots
there isn’t even a clear reason for any “boycott”
I know it’s a tough concept to grasp, but I was raised with the belief that you should punch Nazi’s in the face, not buy their shit.
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You seem to think I buy those products either, I don’t.
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There is a world of difference between the past actions of a company over 80 years ago vs the current, ongoing embrace of Nazi symbolism and ideals by a CEO who also happens to be trying to dismantle the country he lives in. You know there’s a difference, I know there’s a difference, you just don’t give a shit. You are a bad person.
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You forgot Disney and Ford.
I would vandalize this guys car no matter if it’s a tesla.
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Do you need help?
Do you think entire forums are dedicated to degoogling Google Pixels because people happily brick their perfect fine phones? Yes, some Pixels were bricked during the development of GrapheneOS but many more will live longer thanks to a sleek, lightweight OS with life-extending security updates, not to mention the other advantages.
Found musk’s alt account (the non pedo one, he took down his pedo account)
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