So apparently and not surprisingly the Tesla has a computer network running inside … Dragtimes reports how a user noticed what they believed to be an ethernet jack and decided to connect their computer for a port scan.
Some tech savvy Model S owners have located a 4 pin connector (HSD 4 pole M12) on the left side of the Tesla Model S dashboard that turns out to be a disguised ethernet networking port. After taking apart one end of an ethernet patch cable and trying different pin combinations to connect with the Tesla’s port, a networking connection was established between the Model S and a laptop computer. This connection allowed for port scanning and data sniffing to explore how the Tesla Model S systems communicate with each other and what services are running and used.
The car’s internal 100 Mbps, full duplex ethernet network consists of 3 devices with assiged IP addresses in the 192.168.90.0 subnet, the center console, dashboard/nav screen and one more unknown device. via DragTimes.com.
This raises an interesting question … would you hack or jailbreak your car? Unlike the typical computer a car has a pretty large set of safety responsibilities and I personally think it’s a bad idea. Trying to get a custom app on there outside of provided and approved platform could lead to trouble. It doesn’t seem worth the risk …