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Non Tesla EV charging at supercharger?
- Thread starter Mod3forMe
- Start date
Interesting question. If you buy a charge port, and charger from a wrecked model S with lifetime supercharging, is this actually legal?
It's hard to imagine that the effort involved is worth being able to steal power in the middle of the night. I'd guess this guy just likes to tinker and is playing around with the device.
It definitely violates the TOS etc. from the manufacturer. It's not like the cops are going to arrest you, but I'm sure it's technically illegal. (stealing power aside)
SomeJoe7777
Marginally-Known Member
While technically what the guy was doing was wrong (violation of terms of service), to me this doesn't rise to the level of reporting it to Tesla or prosecution (LOL).
If we take Mod3forMe's narrative at face value and assume all that was posted here was factual, then to me it's clear that this guy is simply a hobbyist who tinkered enough to make something to see if it would work. It was a personal challenge for him.
His point wasn't to get free electricity or start a business retrofitting e-Golfs. It was simply to reverse-engineer the communication protocol for the Superchargers and then control it's output. He's also attempting to not interfere with legitimate charging of Teslas by doing it at night, when the supercharger station isn't busy, spending only a few minutes at the station to conduct a quick test, and going to different stations to not attract attention. This is exactly the way I'd do it if I were working on a hobbyist project of this type. And the reaction of people in this thread is exactly why this guy is as low-key as he is.
I disagree with the notion that he's some kind of criminal that's "stealing" electricity. Hogwash -- his tests have amounted to about $2.00 worth of power, if that. I also disagree with the notion that his equipment presents a safety issue. If you know how to reverse engineer a protocol, build your own charger, and charge your own battery, then you also know the safety protocols to put in place in your code and your hardware. Plus, the supercharger has its own safety protocols in place anyway.
If more people do this and it becomes a problem, Tesla has every technical means to end it. They simply whitelist VINs in the Supercharger and a made-up or all-zero VIN then wouldn't work. If VIN cloning becomes an issue, then you simply cross-check the VIN supplied by the car against the location of that car to make sure that car is actually at the Supercharger.
The scorn and outrage expressed in this thread boggles me. Someone above wanted Tesla to prosecute this guy. You're out of your mind. Get a life.
If we take Mod3forMe's narrative at face value and assume all that was posted here was factual, then to me it's clear that this guy is simply a hobbyist who tinkered enough to make something to see if it would work. It was a personal challenge for him.
His point wasn't to get free electricity or start a business retrofitting e-Golfs. It was simply to reverse-engineer the communication protocol for the Superchargers and then control it's output. He's also attempting to not interfere with legitimate charging of Teslas by doing it at night, when the supercharger station isn't busy, spending only a few minutes at the station to conduct a quick test, and going to different stations to not attract attention. This is exactly the way I'd do it if I were working on a hobbyist project of this type. And the reaction of people in this thread is exactly why this guy is as low-key as he is.
I disagree with the notion that he's some kind of criminal that's "stealing" electricity. Hogwash -- his tests have amounted to about $2.00 worth of power, if that. I also disagree with the notion that his equipment presents a safety issue. If you know how to reverse engineer a protocol, build your own charger, and charge your own battery, then you also know the safety protocols to put in place in your code and your hardware. Plus, the supercharger has its own safety protocols in place anyway.
If more people do this and it becomes a problem, Tesla has every technical means to end it. They simply whitelist VINs in the Supercharger and a made-up or all-zero VIN then wouldn't work. If VIN cloning becomes an issue, then you simply cross-check the VIN supplied by the car against the location of that car to make sure that car is actually at the Supercharger.
The scorn and outrage expressed in this thread boggles me. Someone above wanted Tesla to prosecute this guy. You're out of your mind. Get a life.
A car is (largely) defined by it's assigned VIN. I'd say if your car was entitled to supercharging, then swapping whetver parts are needed to re-enable that would be legit.
Using those same parts to finagle a car that was never enabled (or even designed for) supercharging is an illegitimate use.
The same way that grafting a BMW oil-fill tube on to my Toyota doesn't entitle me to "free for life oil top-offs" at the BMW dealer.
Whilst I also respect the technical challenge aspect of it... it sounds as if he's validated that it works, and now sneaks around in the middle of the night in order to continue to charge. It's gone beyond science experiment.
Is the one dude going to do a lot of harm? Probably not. Is it still wrong? Yeah. The same way a single hacker infiltrating a company "just for the challenge" may not do any harm.... but it's still illegal, and I'd argue shouldn't be egged-on.
The second phase of this is where it becomes more problematic: what happens if this becomes a widely adopted practice? One guy can pave the way.
If you don't think that's likely, look at the adapters that allow non-Teslas to charge at HPWC chargers Tesla has paid for installation of as part of their destination program. Initially somebody 3-D printed a basic adapter to do it just for himself. Now you can buy commercially available ones with defeat devices built in to them that get around the lock-out Tesla had to design in to their Gen2 HPWCs to try and combat this.
Al it takes is somebody to turn the proof of concept in to a package for sale with sufficient economies of scale to make it useful to others.
SomeJoe7777 said:
I know... the NERVE of some people in thinking illegal activity should be prosecuted and Tesla should protect their infrastructure investment.
Lets say for a moment that you found a way to tap a gasoline pump and take a half gallon of fuel from it. You goes around to different gas stations and take only $2.00 from each one. When questioned, you say its a hobby. You goes around tapping all these pumps for the fun of it, and the equipment costs more than the fuel you steal.
"Its only a small amount of gas and if I know how to tap a pump, I certainly know how to do it safely"
Still seems legit? The OP picked up on him acting and doing sketchy things. I will continue to assume he was doing something he knows he shouldn't be doing. While I am not a fan of random prosecution, there is a reason that the law doesn't define theft as whether you were making a profit from it.
He was breaking the law, hobby or not.
"Its only a small amount of gas and if I know how to tap a pump, I certainly know how to do it safely"
Still seems legit? The OP picked up on him acting and doing sketchy things. I will continue to assume he was doing something he knows he shouldn't be doing. While I am not a fan of random prosecution, there is a reason that the law doesn't define theft as whether you were making a profit from it.
He was breaking the law, hobby or not.
Interesting!
I seem to recall that the Superchargers at Topaz Lake, NV (shows up as Gardnerville, NV) are in a dead zone for AT&T cellular service. Whenever we charge there, our Model S doesn't pick up a 3G signal. If this is still the case, I wonder if anyone has ever been billed for Supercharging at Topaz Lake.
SomeJoe7777
Marginally-Known Member
The thing is, we actually don't know if what he was doing was illegal or not.
If the guy doesn't own a Tesla, then yeah, he's stealing power that doesn't belong to him. That's illegal from a law/crime standpoint. Would it rise to the level of arrest and prosecution? I don't think so -- the value of the theft is too low.
But suppose the guy does own a Tesla, and that Tesla has free supercharging. And suppose he's using that Tesla's VIN in his protocol. Now what? He actually is entitled to the power, so he's no longer stealing. He is still violating terms of service with Tesla, however.
I of course don't condone what he's doing in either case, but the freak-out expressed in this thread is still boggling to me. Yeah, he probably needs to stop what he's doing. But prosecute? I don't think you'd find a single DA in the country that would bother. I doubt even Tesla would go beyond contacting him and asking him to stop.
That's ridiculous attempt at justifying theft.
I own a BMW that I bought from dealership "A" that's entitled to free fluids for life. I pry the VIN plate off of it and stick it on a second BMW I bought from a private party, and take it to that same dealer masquerading as the car I bought there, so it can get free fluids too.
The supercharging is assigned to the car.
I don't see a freak out, most folks are calmly replying. In fact the most emotional response seems to be in response to some posters who justify it. Stealing is stealing, and he's stealing. Just like the hacker who breaks into a computer network protocol, he is doing wrong by hacking Teslas supercharger system to get a right he shouldn't have with his VW.
Additionally I don't see it impossible while he "works the bugs out" that he inadvertently damages something. If he wants a hobby he could play with equipment he owns.
If you're talking about Amarillo, the coverage seems fine. I've charged there a couple of times, and both charges are reported in my car (and Tesla app showed charging progress while I ate lunch, etc). Not sure why they don't bill for that one, but I don't think it's connectivity-related.
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Barklikeadog
Active Member
I'm sure VW would like more cheaters, he would fit right in there. Maybe you know a guy?
People treating this like it is trivial, and while the actual theft amount of power in each case might be, the hacking is not and the potential ramifications are not if he decided to profit from his hacking.
Would other Tesla owners be fine with every other EV using the Supercharger network without Tesla consent? What about if 200 of these guys were all over the country charging other EVs on the supercharger network?
In many parts of the country the superchargers are probably empty more often than not, but here in California, they are often full or close to it already with just the Tesla penetration already sold.
This makes a lot of sense, as the industry standards for vehicle to EVSE communication/billing are still being sorted out and a lot of the proposed solutions that bypass that method involve the car going to the cloud to authenticate.
As a TSLA shareholder and Tesla owner he is stealing from me and potentially damaging assets I helped pay for. If I were to observe this behavior I would get photos and call the local police and also send the photo to Tesla.
I don't remember the details but I recall there was an occurrence where a parent was waiting to pick up a child at a school. While waiting the parent used an extension cord to plug in their MS to get a charge. I believe they were charged with theft. I don't know the outcome of that incident.
Edit: It was a Leaf. You can google it.
I don't remember the details but I recall there was an occurrence where a parent was waiting to pick up a child at a school. While waiting the parent used an extension cord to plug in their MS to get a charge. I believe they were charged with theft. I don't know the outcome of that incident.
Edit: It was a Leaf. You can google it.
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