A group of researchers found a way to hack a Tesla's hardware with the goal of getting free in-car upgrades, such as heated rear seats.
Researchers jailbreak a Tesla to get free in-car feature upgrades::A group of researchers found a way to hack a Tesla's hardware with the goal of getting free in-car upgrades, such as heated rear seats.
A group of researchers said they have found a way to hack the hardware underpinning Tesla’s infotainment system, allowing them to get what normally would be paid upgrades — such as heated rear seats — for free.
This may also give owners the ability to enable the self-driving and navigation system in regions where it’s normally not available, the researchers told TechCrunch, though they admitted that they haven’t tested these capabilities yet, as that would require more reverse engineering.
“We are not the evil outsider, but we’re actually the insider, we own the car,” Werling told TechCrunch in an interview ahead of the conference.
Werling explained that what they did was “fiddle around” with the supply voltage of the AMD processor that runs the infotainment system.
With the same technique, the researchers said they were also able to extract the encryption key used to authenticate the car to Tesla’s network.