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New "feature" I found - you must exit from the driver's door or else...
- Thread starter Francis Lau
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- Model S User Interface
Babylonfive
Power12
Bump - I also was concerned about the idea of 'public' situations with the owner nearby (family get together, car show, etc) but untrained people might be in the car so you'd like all aspects of the car to operate (screen, air, stereo) to allow showing-off, but NOT allow the car to move.
So, I designed and built an immobilizer device.
It's a small fob (smaller than the car fob) that plugs into the charge port - you insert it and close them charge port, and then when you continue to stay nearby the car can't go (it thinks the car is about to charge). Obviously you don't need this immobilizer gadget if you are near a real charging port with power (like your garage).
I thought that Tesla themselves would like it, for their stores - instead of a big charging cable, you'd just pop this in. But, the feedback was that they didn't want to use it.
Just a little 'product idea failure' story.
David
So, I designed and built an immobilizer device.
It's a small fob (smaller than the car fob) that plugs into the charge port - you insert it and close them charge port, and then when you continue to stay nearby the car can't go (it thinks the car is about to charge). Obviously you don't need this immobilizer gadget if you are near a real charging port with power (like your garage).
I thought that Tesla themselves would like it, for their stores - instead of a big charging cable, you'd just pop this in. But, the feedback was that they didn't want to use it.
Just a little 'product idea failure' story.
David
artsci
Sponsor
nice idea, but it will become obsolete when Tesla releases (probably the next major software update) a feature to "lock" the car, limp mode, valet mode, etc etc...
Babylonfive
Power12
I'm taking this way OT... my apologies. Any other questions I'll take to another thread.
It's a hard decision. I worry that if sold as a product, I'd take (heavy) liability for the safety of the car when in use - there might be some legalese I could use,... I don't know.
I'd actually wanted to sell them, but I decided that with the design work I did, to reach any sort of payback it'd be a $80 item or so.
As to the 'how'... it's a novel use of the charging protocol, convincing the car that it's connected to a cable, and therefore by definition immobile.
Edited: It was completely designed, tested, and is ready to go
I hadn't gone further yet because after some early exposure, I thought that because only a small number might buy it, it would have to be fairly expensive (see above)
It looks like this:
It's a hard decision. I worry that if sold as a product, I'd take (heavy) liability for the safety of the car when in use - there might be some legalese I could use,... I don't know.
I'd actually wanted to sell them, but I decided that with the design work I did, to reach any sort of payback it'd be a $80 item or so.
As to the 'how'... it's a novel use of the charging protocol, convincing the car that it's connected to a cable, and therefore by definition immobile.
Edited: It was completely designed, tested, and is ready to go
I hadn't gone further yet because after some early exposure, I thought that because only a small number might buy it, it would have to be fairly expensive (see above)
It looks like this:
Last edited:
The ~6 foot delivery driver climbed into my car from the passenger window, then over to the driver's side to get my car out of his 5th wheel car hauler because there was a bit more room on that side than the other. He climbed between the wall and the car and got inside to drive it out. Thankfully in his stocking feet:
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