Roadsters to be retrofitted with ability to SuperCharge?

[Airton]

There is a rumor flouting around that Tesla will offer a Supercharge hardware retrofit for the Roadseters this year.
hmm, sure would be nice for us to have that option with our Ravs.

 

[TonyWilliams]

There is a rumor flouting around that Tesla will offer a Supercharge hardware retrofit for the Roadseters this year.
hmm, sure would be nice for us to have that option with our Ravs.

I guess it's possible that if they offer it for the Roadster, they could offer it to us. I would put that likelihood at 0.0001% chance.

 

[nsayer]

I strongly doubt that they will even offer it to Roadsters. What percentage of the current Tesla fleet is Roadsters? It's got to be less than 1% by now. What benefit do Tesla get from doing the work?

And I also strongly suspect that if anyone were to reverse engineer the SuperCharger interface (say, to make a SuperCharger-to-CHAdeMO adapter for LEAFs), they'd get hit with a DMCA lawsuit tout de suite.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I strongly doubt that they will even offer it to Roadsters. What percentage of the current Tesla fleet is Roadsters? It's got to be less than 1% by now. What benefit do Tesla get from doing the work?

And I also strongly suspect that if anyone were to reverse engineer the SuperCharger interface (say, to make a SuperCharger-to-CHAdeMO adapter for LEAFs), they'd get hit with a DMCA lawsuit tout de suite.

They actually might do it for Roadsters because those guys are the earlier adaptors who first bought the Model S and have Model X reservations. They are also the guys who sat around a room with Elon Musk at the lowest point of Tesla, when Elon was broke, the cars had big problems, and he was asking them to pony up significantly more cash.

They did.

It's not a logical cost analysis that made them pay more money for their car, and it won't be a cost analysis for whatever Elon decides to reward Roadster owners with.

I tend to believe it will be Supercharging.

As to your second point, I think we have enough date now to build that Supercharger adaptor, but you're right, it would be obvious theft to use without Tesla's permission. Somebody will still do it, guaranteed.

 

[miimura]

I think Supercharging for Roadsters would be very cool and would greatly increase their resale value, but is unlikely. A Model S charge port modification would be easy though.

 

[smkettner]

I speculate you will need to wait for the next generation Roadster for SC access.

 

[tailgate1234]

Don't you think tesla has some kind of VIN authentication for supercharging?

 

[nsayer]

Don't you think tesla has some kind of VIN authentication for supercharging?

Even if they did, unless it was in conjunction with some sort of PKI, it just means having a collection of Tesla VINs to go through. Heck, you can go to a showroom and write down a few.

If they did do the PKI thing, then that would pretty much put the kibosh on it. The only attack would be to clone a car, and you'd be unlikely to be able to without the owner's acquiescence, and that means Tesla would know who to sue.

The PKI thing, by the way, involves a manufacturing ritual for each car, where the car is given an RSA or EC key pair. The public key is turned into a certificate signed by a Tesla signing certificate (and the certificate would likely have the VIN as its subject identity). The PKI root public key is passed around to all of the superchargers. When a car plugs in, it presents its certificate to the supercharger and the supercharger makes sure the certificate chains to the root. Then the supercharger encrypts a challenge with the car's public key. The car decrypts it and sends it back, proving it has the private key. Cloning a vehicle means getting its certificate chain and extracting its private key (and with modern crypto engine chips, that's effectively impossible). This is very similar to how SSL works.

Now, whether Tesla went to all that trouble... I don't know. But if I was giving out free electricity to a limited population, it's what I would have done.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Don't you think tesla has some kind of VIN authentication for supercharging?

Yes, they absolutely do. It's the first digital stream of data sent from car to the Supercharger.

In order to initiate digital communication, the 1kHz pulse wave modulation from the charger sends a 5% duty cycle to initiate digital communication which ultimately means DC power.

If the duty cycle is above 5%, it is telling the car that it is an AC powered EVSE and the duty cycle will announce the maximum amperage that the car will be allowed to pull from it.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Now, whether Tesla went to all that trouble... I don't know. But if I was giving out free electricity to a limited population, it's what I would have done.

No, they wouldn't want or need to do all that. What would be the entire pool of criminals with the knowledge to spoof a Tesla VIN in order to steal $2 worth of electrical power? Answer: extremely tiny and it's probably easy to find any criminal who would steal Supercharger service.

I think Tesla is safe without encryption.

 

[nsayer]

Now, whether Tesla went to all that trouble... I don't know. But if I was giving out free electricity to a limited population, it's what I would have done.

No, they wouldn't want or need to do all that. What would be the entire pool of criminals with the knowledge to spoof a Tesla VIN in order to steal $2 worth of electrical power? Answer: extremely tiny and it's probably easy to find any criminal who would steal Supercharger service.

I think Tesla is safe without encryption.

It only takes one smart guy to start selling a working SuperCharger to CHAdeMO adapter on eBay to change that.

And it's not a lot of trouble. It's 67 cents per car (http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/ATECC108-SSHDA-T/ATECC108-SSHDA-TTR-ND/4240214) and maybe a few extra seconds at manufacturing time when the car is already undergoing a bunch of similar procedures.

I mean, if HP can pull shenanigans like this to keep people from buying third party ink cartridges...

 

[davewill]

It only takes one smart guy to start selling a working SuperCharger to CHAdeMO adapter on eBay to change that.

Of course a non-Tesla charging at a Supercharger is going to stick out like a sore thumb, and be reported in no time.

 

[TonyWilliams]

It only takes one smart guy to start selling a working SuperCharger to CHAdeMO adapter on eBay to change that.

Of course a non-Tesla charging at a Supercharger is going to stick out like a sore thumb, and be reported in no time.

And the guy who built the adaptor would quickly be found.

Plus, since the very first check for the Supercharger is the VIN, when some guy ships an adapter with one VIN, that would quickly be blocked (and the real owner of the VIN will have to be issed some other one).

If it was a problem, I can see them going to a non-VIN string of numbers that you couldn't easily copy.

 

[miimura]

It only takes one smart guy to start selling a working SuperCharger to CHAdeMO adapter on eBay to change that.

Of course a non-Tesla charging at a Supercharger is going to stick out like a sore thumb, and be reported in no time.

And the guy who built the adaptor would quickly be found.

Plus, since the very first check for the Supercharger is the VIN, when some guy ships an adapter with one VIN, that would quickly be blocked (and the real owner of the VIN will have to be issed some other one).

If it was a problem, I can see them going to a non-VIN string of numbers that you couldn't easily copy.

The cars and the superchargers have mobile data connections in addition to the low speed data through the charge cable, so they could do almost anything. OTA updates to the cars makes it really easy to implement new stuff.