Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles
48 comments
This is an ooof. to straighten the timeline of events as i monitor the connected car space --
- 2016 YC invests in Smartcar.
- 2019 Otonomo lost lawsuit to Smartcar after stealing/copying them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19719380
- 2021 YC decides to invest in Enode which cloning Smartcar. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26468448
- 2022 YC decides to invest in Telematica which cloning Smartcar.
I give this another 12 months for YC to invest in the next clone.
- 2016 YC invests in Smartcar.
- 2019 Otonomo lost lawsuit to Smartcar after stealing/copying them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19719380
- 2021 YC decides to invest in Enode which cloning Smartcar. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26468448
- 2022 YC decides to invest in Telematica which cloning Smartcar.
I give this another 12 months for YC to invest in the next clone.
Thanks for sharing this. Smartcar was not funded by YC. And as I have replied below we have a different take on connected cars.
Is this like smartcar.com but with a different geographical focus?
Our car API is similar to what Smartcar does but we are 100% focussed on EVs. On top of the EV API we are also building tools for smart charging, dynamic load balancing and charging scheduling for fleets. We are compatible across the US and Europe.
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This is for oems to embed in their infotainment/ tcu so that they can expose their vehicle data to end users?
Actually, we help EV owners share their vehicle data (that is locked inside the car dashboard or the OEM mobile app) with third party service providers like e-mobility apps, auto insurance companies or utilities.
So you are creating a translation layer between OEM APIs and thirdparty service and giving the owner of the car to connect those pipes using your service?
Exactly, we act as a bridge between the EV owner and the third party apps. We rely on the EV owner's consent to share their data with a service of their choice.
What’s your business model?
Currently, we charge $0.25 per EV connected per month with upto 10,000 API calls allowed per month.
You’re charging the customer for this?
How do they control the rate of api calls?
How do they control the rate of api calls?
We are a B2B company so we charge the service provider that wants to use Telematica to connect their end users EV. I did not understand your second question, who does "they" refer to?
Ah. You’re B2B.
Thanks.
Thanks.
I can see how there might be a use case for large fleets, but as an electric car owner for personal use I have to say that your two "problems" (range anxiety and charging management) are actually the two things I found to not really be problems. You plug it in at night.
Yes, range anxiety should not be an issue for personal use, but you could still save money on your home charging costs by participating in demand response programmes offered by your utility or by using a smart charging app.
Honestly, this is something Hotz (comma.ai) should've done a while ago. They already have it somehow. (Don't mean this in a bad way, I like Hotz and his work).
Anyway, congrats on shipping and I will def. try it out since I have a product on a similar vertical. Actually, how may I get in touch?
Anyway, congrats on shipping and I will def. try it out since I have a product on a similar vertical. Actually, how may I get in touch?
This is 'just' aggregating the APIs the car manufacturers already expose (for their own apps or 3rd party) - without any additional hardware/direct car integration. So I don't think it's directly comparable.
I tested out the Renault reverse engineered API and BMW Cardata -> each one of them has it's (major) downsides. Especially unfortune for BMW Cardata, which is an official product that had a lot of downtime and really irregular data updates (at least for older cars).
So hats off to the Telematica guys for trying to bridge all this together.
I tested out the Renault reverse engineered API and BMW Cardata -> each one of them has it's (major) downsides. Especially unfortune for BMW Cardata, which is an official product that had a lot of downtime and really irregular data updates (at least for older cars).
So hats off to the Telematica guys for trying to bridge all this together.
Sure, please email us at [email protected] and we can get you started!
Doesn't this break the ToS of the vehicle vendors' user accounts?
Aren't users breaking their acceptable use policy (AUP) with the EV OEM when they do this? Legally speaking, users are giving you their username password to see their vehicle stats for personal consumption, but you are also making them sign a T&C that says it's ok for you to sell their data to B2B operators for revenue? Sounds fishy to me.
Should it matter? If you bought the car and have access to your charging data, you should be able to delegate that access to a third-party if you want.
I have multiple third party apps consuming my Tesla account (which contains multiple vehicles) and have had no issues.
I hope none of the developers own Teslas. Elon might just turn their car off for good.
I wish that were just a joke.
I wish that were just a joke.
How is that? TeslaFi.com has been there for ages. Many others exist. And Tesla actually improved API access over the years (can now use tokens vs. having to share your account password with the app).
This sounds a lot like abetterrouteplanner, which already uses the Tesla API. They even get daily supercharger availability information to handle any temporary closures.
A lot of people in the community use Teslamate and Teslafi. The Tesla unofficial API is actually pretty good too.
A lot of people in the community use Teslamate and Teslafi. The Tesla unofficial API is actually pretty good too.
Isn't this a straight up rip-off of https://smartcar.com/?
I don't think so. We have a very different take on connected cars. We are 100% EV focussed and are building tools on top of the car API to solve actual EV challenges like range anxiety and charging management that were absent in ICE vehicles!
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Very cool. Do you have plans to add other manufacturers like Lucid and Rivian anytime soon?
Yes, we are developing integrations for both of these brands. Could you please share your email address so that I can keep you updated once we've built them?
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Platforms not providing OAuth and the ability to delegate access to an appropriate sub-set of data and utility permission is nothing new.
Almost every major platform I can think of was slow to provide what it's innovation community wanted - I remember giving countless apps my Twitter or LinkedIn passwords in order to access 3rd party functionality and value. Blackberry/RIM held a frightening number of email address and passwords in order for the service to work.
But there's something very uncomfortable about surrendering my EV's credentials to the point that I just won't do it.
I bristle not only at giving away access to my current location but also where I'm going. I don't especially like the idea of Tesla having all this data but I'm certainly not comfortable with small startups having it.
In the event that security is compromised there's also too much opportunity for mass-griefing and inconveniencing - locking me out of my car, heating my car at the highest temperature (I won't go on, but you get the point).
My take is that the engineers at Tesla know how to build OAuth - they intentionally are not doing this because the company is not ready for this world or prepared to accept it - yet. By requiring you to give away the farm with your username and password it maintains a high stakes 'all or nothing' which I'm sure they hope will put off most of their customers.
Give it time, but once these companies do have petitioned permissioning I'm not sure what the value add will be for these startups like Telematica.
Almost every major platform I can think of was slow to provide what it's innovation community wanted - I remember giving countless apps my Twitter or LinkedIn passwords in order to access 3rd party functionality and value. Blackberry/RIM held a frightening number of email address and passwords in order for the service to work.
But there's something very uncomfortable about surrendering my EV's credentials to the point that I just won't do it.
I bristle not only at giving away access to my current location but also where I'm going. I don't especially like the idea of Tesla having all this data but I'm certainly not comfortable with small startups having it.
In the event that security is compromised there's also too much opportunity for mass-griefing and inconveniencing - locking me out of my car, heating my car at the highest temperature (I won't go on, but you get the point).
My take is that the engineers at Tesla know how to build OAuth - they intentionally are not doing this because the company is not ready for this world or prepared to accept it - yet. By requiring you to give away the farm with your username and password it maintains a high stakes 'all or nothing' which I'm sure they hope will put off most of their customers.
Give it time, but once these companies do have petitioned permissioning I'm not sure what the value add will be for these startups like Telematica.
Tesla probably has to give it to the government without a warrant or probable cause, like Google and Apple et al do.
The government can toss you in jail if they don’t like the cut of your jib, and this data lets them find a way to do so quasi-legally. Small data-hungry startups can’t really damage you with this data by comparison.
The privacy ship has sailed. If you want location privacy, rip out the GSM transceiver in your car and turn location services off on your phones.
Even then the GSM towers are following you and selling your location tracks, but at least it’s slightly harder to tie to your other data then.
The government can toss you in jail if they don’t like the cut of your jib, and this data lets them find a way to do so quasi-legally. Small data-hungry startups can’t really damage you with this data by comparison.
The privacy ship has sailed. If you want location privacy, rip out the GSM transceiver in your car and turn location services off on your phones.
Even then the GSM towers are following you and selling your location tracks, but at least it’s slightly harder to tie to your other data then.
I get the point about government access and agree it's a sad state of affairs.
The difference is Tesla has a lot to lose if they can't demonstrate adequate consumer protection of the data from theft/unauthorized access - and significant consequences if a breach does occur. They should also have high quality engineering talent to make sure exploits don't occur.
A small startup doesn't have the same burdon on penalty for breach and probably far lower quality of eng talent.
This is why I reluctantly concede to Google and Tesla tracking my location, but not random startups.
The difference is Tesla has a lot to lose if they can't demonstrate adequate consumer protection of the data from theft/unauthorized access - and significant consequences if a breach does occur. They should also have high quality engineering talent to make sure exploits don't occur.
A small startup doesn't have the same burdon on penalty for breach and probably far lower quality of eng talent.
This is why I reluctantly concede to Google and Tesla tracking my location, but not random startups.
Congrats on your launch!
What was the process of reverse engineering the APIs like?
What was the process of reverse engineering the APIs like?
It definitely had a learning curve to it, the first few being the hardest. But it's a pretty standard process using standard / OSS tools (charles proxy majorly).
What tech do you use to make this website?
Hi Aditya here, co-founder at Telematica.
Our landing page is built on Webflow and the product demo is built on NextJS, using Chakra UI for react components and hosted on Vercel.
Congrats on the launch for whats it's worth I think youre gonna make a great company.
Seems like your API is showing the incorrect distance unit (kilometers when it should be miles).
We appear to have made kilometres the default unit. For EVs in the United States, we'll modify it to miles. Thanks!
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For better or worse, all modern EVs include built-in internet connectivity and send all vehicle data to the manufacturer’s cloud servers, effectively eliminating the need for external hardware devices and OBD II dongles. The problem is that all of this information is locked inside the car dashboard or the manufacturer’s mobile app—technologies that car companies are not the greatest at building. There is no official Tesla or Volkswagen API available for developers to use to create apps and services based on vehicle data.
Some car APIs exist, but don’t focus on EVs. The fundamental problems in EVs—range anxiety and charging management—are absent in ICE vehicles. This means that developers have to build a lot of tools on top of the car API before they can solve their actual business problems. For example, (1) charging point operators must be notified when the charging begins and receive live SoC (State of Charge) every 1 minute; (2) fleet operators need to poll data to manage their operations or perform predictive maintenance; and (3) smart charging companies and utilities must manage charging based on live charging data and energy prices.
We eliminate the need to build and maintain an additional layer of infra on top of the car API for each of the above use cases by providing webhooks, data logging, and a plug-and-play smart charging module. Our product is divided into two parts: an authorization flow to obtain user consent from the EV owner to connect their car with a third-party app, and a developer API that allows our customers to query live EV data, manage EV charging, and log data for specific endpoints.
We came up with the idea for Telematica while working on a Tesla-like trip planner for the Indian market to reduce range anxiety among EV drivers. Unlike in the US, where Tesla controls both the car and the superchargers, the Indian market is fragmented - car manufacturers lack a robust charging network. Controlling both the car and the charger allowed Tesla to answer a variety of questions, such as "Will I be able to reach my destination with my current SoC?" How many charging stops should I take? My ETA, including the charging time? and so forth.
We needed access to real-time battery and location data in order to build a smart route planner. And, to our surprise, there was no Tata API (India's largest EV OEM) that we could use directly. To address this, we reverse engineered the Tata mobile app and identified the API endpoints before developing a Plaid-like product that relies on EV owners' consent to share their data with a third party app. We had to figure out the API for each OEM separately, which was time-consuming and difficult. This made us realise that instead of building the end user app let's build a developer API that anyone in the future can use to build powerful EV apps.
Our customers range across various industries. Companies that are building the charging infrastructure or mobility apps use our API to get access to real-time battery data (SoC, range, charging status). We are used by utilities and companies that offer demand response programs to manage EV charging during peak hours. Finally, instead of purchasing expensive OBD dongles, fleet operators use us to manage their fleets and optimize their charging schedules and routing.
We charge $0.25 per EV connected with up to 10,000 API calls allowed per month. Connecting up to 10 EVs is free of charge.
We collect the account credentials to the OEM (manufacturer) account as most of the EV brands don’t have their own OAuth2. We try to only store tokens in the encrypted format issued by the auth servers wherever possible. For the OEMs where this is not possible, the credentials are stored encrypted with the AES256 mechanism. Privacy policy: https://www.telematica.so/privacy-policy.
You can try out our API here - https://hn-demo.telematica.so/
We would love to hear your feedback and ideas!
Thanks, Abhishek and Aditya