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Occasionally I geek out on one of the more technical aspects of owning my Model S and today is going to be one of those days. Read on if you’re interested in the undocumented software interface to your Model S and Model X and the capabilities of the Tesla Mobile API.

The Mobile API

API means Application Programming Interface. Its a specification for how programmers can interact with another piece of software. Whenever you have connected devices they’re using APIs to communicate with other computers. These APIs come in all shapes and sizes. Security adds another level of complexity with different authentication methods for proving you are who you say you are and that you’re allowed to use the API.

In the case of Tesla, the Tesla Mobile apps on iOS and Android use an API to communicate to Tesla to allow you to start your car, vent the sunroof, etc. The car itself is also using one or more APIs to talk to Tesla to get software updates, send debugging information to Tesla, etc. Systems often have many APIs for different purposes.

The API we’re going to focus on is the one used by the mobile applications. This Mobile API is not documented by Tesla and is not intended to be used by anyone other than Tesla employees. You can use applications Tesla has created that use the API but you’re not supposed to make your own applications using the API.

Like many things these days, if it exists it can be figured out and some energetic Tesla owners have figured out how the API works. There’s a free site called Apiary that can be used for documenting APIs and that was used to document the Tesla Model S API. This specification provides what most programmers would need to successfully write an application that uses the API.

Libraries

While the API documentation is sufficient to get started programming, some of the basics you would be doing as a programmer are a bit like re-inventing the wheel. Some people have created libraries in various programming languages to assist with the basics of interacting with the Tesla Mobile API. What language you choose to program in and whether you use a Library or not is either defined by the needs of the project or the personal preferences of the programmer.

For my hacking/playing around I use the Python programming language. Searching around found a few Python libraries to make integrating to the Tesla Mobile API easier. The one I found that was the best fit for me was Teslajson by Greg Glockner which is a single small Python file containing the basics. For those interested in libraries for other languages i’ve seen libraries in JavaNodeRuby, and C# among others.

Basic Use

I won’t be going into all the API calls and how they work but here’s a quick minimal working example:Screen Shot 2015-12-31 at 10.46.51 AMIn the example above i’m using my email address and password to log into the Tesla server (same one I would use to access MyTesla or the Tesla forums) and I am getting a connection object. Then I use that connection object to request data about my car (i’ve named it “Baddog”). From that data I extract the current odometer reading.

Running this little program simply shows my cars current mileage:Screen Shot 2015-12-31 at 10.50.04 AM

Note that there are various tricks to using APIs like this. You should keep the access token around to avoid having to re-authenticate each time, you should handle API access errors, etc.

So what can you do with it?

There are large examples like VisibleTeslaRemoteS, and ConnecTT which are full blown free or for-pay applications that use the API to control or monitor your car.

Screen Shot 2015-12-31 at 11.01.15 AMFor myself i’ve done a few things:

  • Automatically recording my daily driving data (miles driven, charge amount, etc)
    (more on this in an upcoming data post).
  • Checking nightly if my Tesla is plugged in and email me if it isn’t.
  • Automatically tweeting my daily mileage and efficiency.
  • Automatically tweeting when I cross a 1,000 mile mark.
  • Check for new API fields/data (as Tesla evolves the Mobile API) and emailing me when things change.

There are other things I have in mind like automatically closing the sunroof if it looks like its going to rain, checking my calendar and pre-heating/cooling the cabin based on the next appointment time, etc. You can also access the cars’ location to track things like speed, places you’ve visited etc so that is another area for experimentation. If you use the historical charge data you could also implement the much-desired “set charge end time” feature which is on my short list to do when I have some time.

Screen Shot 2015-12-31 at 11.04.26 AMSummary

The Tesla Mobile API is undocumented and not officially supported by Tesla, but with some simple programming you can accomplish some cool things with it. Tesla understandably doesn’t have the resources to officially support this API right now, but its great to see that Tesla is not going out of their way to make it more difficult for people to use and experiment with.

While this is a programming interface and you could do odd things like open the sunroof or honk the horn at the wrong time, but you can’t control steering, power, etc so it is a pretty safe API to have available. I believe Tesla is watching what people develop using this API and will use that knowledge to enhance their mobile apps or features in their cars over time.

What would you do with access to the API? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Screen Shot 2015-12-31 at 11.08.21 AM