Selfhosted

Depends what you want to do. They don't require a network connection to operate as a vehicle. So if you don't care about the remote app features (local ones such as lock/unlock still work over BLE), live traffic, streaming music or updates, then a network connection isn't necessary.

If you do want any of those features, then you would need to either get root access to the gateway and infotainment systems to modify the endpoints or take over the C&C server (formerly named "mothership") domains and certificates.

I wait for the day when we install Graphene OS Automotive Edition on the car

It sucks that the stick is rising. Trumps asshats are actually investing.

The right to repair. It's going to require the ability to make changes to the software on the vehicle. At a minimum the ability to replace the public encryption keys used to communicate with the servers. The bootloader and software is probably locked behind signing keys; so you need to be able to disable or add your own keys. I doubt anyone has access to the full protocols used to communicate with the servers. So, the full technical standard need to be released (which is never going to happen) or reversed engineered through unencrypted traffic analysis and reverse engineering the software.

A good right to repair law could require some of that be releasable while the company is still active or all if the company goes belly up. IIRC there was a smaller EV company that went bankrupt and there was a concern that once the servers were shutdown the vehicles would be bricked. Not sure what happened in the end. In any case, cars as IOT is the stupidest idea ever created.

Realistically they would get a bailout "for the consumer".

More likely than central hosting would be some of the same people enabling faster modes via software hacks currently making them run offline.

Something else that people don’t think about besides the backend server is the connectivity. A lot of these cars use LTE with eSIMs that can’t be replaced, and getting an internet package for it will be next to impossible since Tesla gets them at bulk rates. Once upon a time cars did allow “bring your own SIM cards” but not anymore. Also as cars get older the cell networks get shut down. Some companies did offer upgrades but that was few and far between. Most just said “sorry, you’re SOL”.

So even if you could hack your car, your car won’t have any way of talking to a custom endpoint.

Assuming that Tesla goes bankrupt, actually shuts down forever, and shuts its servers down…

At a minimum someone would have to find out where the software sends and receives data from. Then you’d have to reverse engineer the software to control the vehicles.

Then you’d have to reprogram the software to send to your C&C server. I don’t think it would really take all that much to host that… it’s getting there that’s difficult.

so, from what little I know, and I'm absolutely not even remotely a car person:

car electrical systems run at really high voltage with much harder systems than you'd find inside a normal computer, because it's an extremely noisy environment that has to survive lots of fucked up shocks

and AFAIK the standards are only kinda-sorta standards. interfacing with them is very very hard. im sure this gets easier once you get TO the network, but flashing that shit and changing what it does with the network seems like a pretty tall order. maybe try swapping out something near the cellular chip itself? that's probably a pretty standardized part, right?

If you bought a live service car you're probably shit out of luck

probabaly full replacement of the motor controller and user facing hardware. basically a diy ev conversion using tesla motors but converting the tesla itself. you would lose features but they would be lost regardless.

Some brainstorming from me:

• Ideally people do not buy more teslas
• An initial goal would be to use the vehicle without it phoning home. Would the TeslaMate project be sufficient for that?
• Long term, would it be possible to replace the software running on the car's console? Or would it be better to tear out the console and replace it with something else?

Alternatively, what would a recycling/conversion program look like?

Not in these next 4 years.

Afterwards, if judges still exist, you can try to force Tesla (with the help of judges) to allow your right to repair.

A problem is volunteers and critical mass.

Open source "hacks" need a big pool of people who want something to seed a few brilliant souls to develop it in their free time. It has to be at least proportional to the problem.

This kinda makes sense for robot vacuums: a lot of people have them, and the cloud service is annoying, simpler, and not life critical.

Teslas are a whole different deal. They are very expensive, and fewer people own them. Replicating even part of the cloud API calls is a completely different scope. The pool of Tesla owners willing to dedicate their time to that is just… smaller.

Also, I think buying a Tesla, for many, was a vote of implicit trust in the company and its software. It’s harder for someone cynical of its cloud dependence to end up with an entire luxury automobile.

I am pretty sure it would be impossible.

That connection I expect to be secured by using signature keys that are private and would need to be released by Tesla to allow anybody connect its car to a different back end.