Tesla is launching their developer APIs

I take it as a sign of the current state of hackernews that nearly no one took the time to actually RTFA. This isnt about making apps that run on the car, this is about being able to integrate your external apps with the fleet API. Like, can external app that has permission would be able to locate the vehicle.<p>That said, I think the security implications are fairly important, since I expect one of the exposed features is to be able to unlock or start the car.

If you are wondering about the state of auto API&#x27;s here&#x27;s a partial list of loads of makes and models that have some form of over the air endpoints via a 3rd party:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;connectyourcar.com&#x2F;compatibility&#x2F;makes&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;connectyourcar.com&#x2F;compatibility&#x2F;makes&#x2F;</a>

I can&#x27;t wait for the opposite of this; Tesla App Store will be an insane value-add feature; for both owners and app developers.

Interesting. Home Assistant happened to post about this this afternoon after Mazda’s lawyers rattled sabres about the unofficial Mazda integration; they pointed to Tesla and moreover Audi VW as being much more constructive (including an official home assistant app for VW group’s on-board app platform)

For anyone wondering what you can actually do with this. The Fleet API link at the top is the documentation: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api</a>

I wish they&#x27;d do the same for their solar panels. Trying to get to that solar panel data seems much harder than it should be.

I&#x27;m calling for Tesla to open source all the code running onboard it&#x27;s vehicles. Consumers have the right to understand how their machines work. Elon, you built an empire off the backs of open source developers. Give back.

I&#x27;d like to hear a security expert&#x27;s take on this. Something about this makes me feel real nervous.

I&#x27;m glad to see they didn&#x27;t forget about HTTP 418[0] in their response code docs[1].<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.mozilla.org&#x2F;en-US&#x2F;docs&#x2F;Web&#x2F;HTTP&#x2F;Status&#x2F;418" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.mozilla.org&#x2F;en-US&#x2F;docs&#x2F;Web&#x2F;HTTP&#x2F;Status&#x2F;418</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api#response-codes" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api#response-codes</a>

&gt; After signing in, get started and provide your legal business details, app name, description and purpose of usage.<p>That&#x27;s an annoying amount of work if you just want to access your own car

Wish there was a way to extend voice commands in the car... my own &quot;Alexa skills&quot; but for Tesla so to speak. Even if the only output could be a tweet sized text box.<p>I would ask questions like... &quot;what streets around here have parking meters&quot; and give me a list to look out for.<p>Quick glance through the API docs and I&#x27;m not seeing it.

I would love to be able to get the data on my car for making a phone&#x2F;watch app. Ford has an API but it’s private and they have revoked accounts of people using it.<p>Too bad. It contains a ton of great stuff, more than their app surfaces.<p>I’d be quite happy with just read-only access. I bet devs could make some great stuff.

Nice! I wrote an Alexa skill years ago but had to use a reverse engineered API and stored password in AWS.<p>My GitHub is in my profile; the very ugly code is up there.

The capabilities of the vehicle_commands section are frighteningly diverse (able to control details of the charging systems, make noises, remotely prevent the car from moving, plug locations into the GPS (unclear if that&#x27;ll cause autopilot to start moving there).<p>I guess this means that the remote parts have basically unrestricted access to what they can do to the car that you theoretically own. Fun times.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fleet-api.prd.na.vn.cloud.tesla.com&#x2F;api&#x2F;1&#x2F;dx&#x2F;charging&#x2F;history" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fleet-api.prd.na.vn.cloud.tesla.com&#x2F;api&#x2F;1&#x2F;dx&#x2F;chargin...</a><p>that is quite the api url

Is the api page down for anybody else?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api</a>

The charging api end points are also interesting here. I imagine thats it will get more fleshed out for the all the other manufactures in the US to start using the superchargers.

Non related question: there are some examples of good public APIs docs? I would like to develop a product that serves an API but it’s very hard to get a great API as template.

Another SAAS embedded within Car which cannot be opted out. Is there a way to get FOSS Tesla? IMO the Government must intervene to make this opt-in rather than compulsory?

<p><pre><code> Free trial. Tesla APIs are temporarily free during this trial period. </code></pre> Oof.<p>I wonder if this is one more reason Tesla vehicles have gotten cheaper and cheaper. Elon&#x27;s probably betting on how much companies would pay for access to APIs and thus user data, and gain income to Tesla on top of simply profit margin on the vehicle itself. Much like he&#x27;s doing at X. I wouldn&#x27;t be that surprised to see Tesla data become a major part of X strategy as an &quot;everything app&quot; if he continues that path.<p>Definitely has me second guessing the trigger I was about to pull on that Model 3 performance that just keeps getting cheaper.

Does anyone actually get approved to use these APIs? Or is this another example of Tesla making big claims of openness without following through?

Every app I try to submit gets auto-rejected with no reason why. Has anyone else been able to get approval for their app?

The most important question: Can I use the car as intended without dealing with the vendor (Tesla)?<p>If not =&gt; it&#x27;s a service, not a product.

Given the state of the Twitter API post-Elon, I&#x27;d be incredibly unlikely to rely on this unless I have a business contract directly with Tesla with appropriate penalties if my app &#x2F; access were to be revoked.

$42k per month, quite a good deal

I don&#x27;t understand some things, and I&#x27;m not going to phrase them as questions but just my opinions.<p>1) it seems silly to build anything on Teslas platform. 2) it seems silly for customers to add more commercial stuff on top of Teslas platform.<p>Even as someone who develops software for a living, I think most tech out there today is stupid. Some is useful but most seems not. And occasionally someone shows me use for something I thought was dumb, but I can usually go on without it.<p>Am I a luddite?

I cannot wait for HackerOne or similar bug bounty sites to have a go with this<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api#door_unlock" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api#door_unlock</a><p>Oh my god, what a cool sounding endpoint <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api#set_bioweapon_mode" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tesla.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;fleet-api#set_bioweapon_mod...</a><p>Edit: This is coming up to EOL, Tesla has an SDK you should use now