Open source hardware for communicating on CAN buses, which are the main network used in today's automotive systems. Hardware has been around for about a year, but I'm currently working on new open source software for visualizing and communicating on CAN buses. Hoping to demystify automotive electronics and make them more accessible!
If this works, it seems pretty strange to build their own devices with it. With a patent on the methods they could make a fortune licensing the technology to Si companies. They would reach the market much quicker too.
However, having worked on BMS systems for lithium batteries this sounds very fishy. Maybe they've hit on something spectacular, but it seriously looks like snake oil based on the info they've provided thus far.
SEEKING WORK - Remote (Toronto area) Embedded systems developer with experience in hardware design and firmware. I can help with ground up hardware design, prototyping, and bringing a product to market (DFM, DFT). I've worked with a wide range of microcontroller architectures and tools, and have additional experience in automotive systems and bootloaders.
It appears that they plan to do EMV in the future. This is rather scary, since you're trusting their hardware, and probably your phone, with the private key in your chip card.
While copying magstripes is already easy, no merchant will accept a stock magstripe card for a credit transaction, because it's clearly fraudulent.
If merchants will accept coin, it creates trust for this devices, and lookalikes. I think it would be much easier to create Coins, or Coin clones with stolen credit card data. This is rather concerning.
On another note, I really want one of these to tear apart and mess with. The hardware is pretty slick.
I suppose our experiences differ. I've found the majority of classes to reward most the points on exams that require knowing how to do a specific subset of problems from the course.
Thanks for sharing that, I'll check it out. One problem I'm looking forward to working on is what the embedded device will do to take care of communications, and what the firmware to do that looks like. Lots of neat problem including authentication, minimizing power consumption, etc...
I'd like to write more hw stuff for the HN audience. I'm curious if there's anything in particular that the HN community, who seem to be more sw focused, would like to see.
Assuming that the Model S uses the HV pack and a DC/DC to power the 12 V bus all of the time (like the Roadster), it would make sense that parking the car overnight in the cold would cause issues.
All other EVs that I know of shut off the battery contactors when the car is keyed off, and rely on a 12 V SLI battery (usually lead-acid) to support the vehicle when the power is off. The roadster did not do this, which is explained in Tesla's BMS documentation [1]. This means that any quiescent current consumed by the 12 V system will drain the main battery pack.