Internet of things

case study
The Tesla IoT Car

UNDER SUPERVISION OF

Mrs. MAHALAKSHMI P.
SUBMITTED BY

ADITYA PRAKASH(16SECE109001)

SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL,ELECTRONICS &

COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

GALGOTIAS UNIVERSITY
GRAETER NOIDA,UTTAR PRADESH,INDIA
 ABSTRACT

This case study presents the impact of IoT on daily use

vehicles taking into account a vehicle from one of the top
manufacturers of the world TESLA.It is intended towards
providing people an idea of how it is going to bring a
change in their day to day life.The system is so deeply
designed that people can feel themselves immersed in a
better ecosystem in which they have full control over the
things they own.High quality user interface ,personal voice
assistant are there to improve the overall
experience.Security concerns whatsoever have been
addressed during testing and will be updated in the
future.The design has been made cost effective.
 OBJECTIVE

In general the objective of doing a case study is

to gain some expertise and understanding in that
particular field.Also one is faced with conditions
you have to analyze the situation really well.

After doing this case study we will be able to

understand the dynamics of IoT with relevance
to a car.We will also be able to understand some
basic iot programming.Over the course of study
if any vulnerability issues found will be
analyzed well and security improvements will
be worked upon.
The Tesla automobile is a big example of the
Internet of Things and potential problems and
benefits of this idea.
IOT properties of the Tesla
1. The tesla has a persistent 3G cell connection to the
internet that is paid for gratis by tesla.This makes it one of
the “Internet of Things”.It also has wifi , bluetooth and
garage door opener built in.

2. The car has an API(Tesla API).

3. The car can provide Geolocation information.
4. The car has altitude (angle) and various other sensors for
acceleration.
5. The car has a camera (in the back).
6. The car could be lethal to both passengers and others if
it were hacked inappropriately.
7.Tesla has reportedly formed an early warning threat
detection and reward system to reward hackers who
discover vulnerabilities in the cars security.
8. The car can detect the presence of a key fob within a
small distance of the vehicles perimeter.
9. Virtually all aspects of the cars functionality are digitized
and theoretically available for inspection and utilization
including energy use, positions of wheels, brakes and
emergency brake, climate system, seat positions, mirrors,
door handles .
10. The car has an “App framework” that allows
developers to build apps to run in the car. This was be
enabled in late 2014 with the addition of a Chrome
browser and android app compatibility. Now there are a
couple internet music apps that are built into the car.
11. The car has a browser with geolocation capability and
a map application.
12.The car has a horn, lights for external signaling as
expected.
13.The car can be woken up from a sleep low energy state
over the air and booted up at any time needed to query or
operate the car.
14.The car can take in new versions of its software and
firmware and upgrade itself automatically.
15. the car has a 17″ touchscreen console for controlling
all functions and a video console for the drivers
speedometer and other driving information .
16.The car has a smart charging system that can adapt to
almost any electrical source that is plugged into the
car. Adapters for things like RV hookups, Clothes dryer
plugs as well as standard 110V and 220V configurations are
supported. The car can also accept up to 500Amps of
current in DC mode for quick charging. It has the ability
to regulate the power consumed to the capability of the line
it is connected to and to reduce consumption as the
batteries can accept as well as allowing the user to designate
lower power levels and even a timer to control when it
starts charging.

Functionality of the Car Itself

Performance
The functionality of a car is well known. The Tesla is a
fully functional car with extraordinary performance. Even
the slowest version of the Tesla is faster than most high
performance sedans from luxury car makers in the world
and the performance version is at least as fast as any sports
car costing 5 times its price.

Cost
It is 3-5 times less expensive to drive per mile than even
fuel efficient ICE cars (Internal combustion engine car)
and the maintenance of the car is minimal considering the
number of moving parts in the car and components that
could wear down are a small fraction of an ICE. There are
no oil changes, belts to replace, spark plugs or wearable
components other than brakes and tires. There is some
concern that millions of ICE car workers could be put out
of a job because the car simply doesn’t need maintenance
like ICE cars do and if at home charging takes off then
many thousands of service stations might go out of business
as well. That’s disruptive. Since the car has so few moving
parts the body can be built with no-compromise
aerodynamic and safety considerations.

Safety
The Tesla was ranked by the NTSA and Consumer
reports as the safest car ever built and the most
efficient. The NTSA had their “car breaking” machine
broken by the Tesla. The Telsa broke the machine after
applying a force equivalent to 4 Teslas stacked on the roof
of the car the machine ran out of steam. The NTSA also
was unable to flip the car since the Tesla battery is
positioned on the floor. The car had a safety rating that
was higher than any other car ever tested overall and in all
5 categories it tests for. No passenger in a Tesla has been
seriously injured or killed in its short history so far as far as
I can tell and Elon has said this as well. Recent reports of
fires have not been life threatening or injurious to anyone.
SENSORS USED

FROM BUSINESS POINT OF VIEW

Battery Life
•The biggest consideration with IOT is the battery life.
•The Tesla will drive between 150 and 400 miles
depending on the battery configuration, speed you drive
the car and various options you use while the car is on.
• It has various smart configuration options to reduce
power consumption and ways of telling you how you are
using the cars power now and over various time periods for
you to learn how to optimize its performance.
•Tesla is building a network of thousands of supercharging
stations over the next several years (worldwide) where you
may charge the car from empty to half full in 20 minutes or
replace the battery with a fully charged replacement battery
in 90 seconds( a lender battery), twice as fast as the time it
takes to fill an ICE car with liquid dinosaur even at a fast
pumping station.
Program For Remotely Connected Car
Service
There are less than 25,000 Teslas on the road but already
its sales have impacted BWM and Mercedes causing them
to report declining sales for 2013 for their luxury sedans.
Every 2-4 weeks Tesla issues software upgrades to the car
via wireless connection. The latest upgrade improved the
way the variable height suspension system works, improved
the cars handling on steep hills when at a stop, improved
the bluetooth coonectivity, improved the way the car
fires. The ability of Tesla to fix the car without needing to
go into a shop and over the air is revolutionary.

The Future

•As the Android app capability has been turned on there

will be possibility to do lots more things with the car
•However, if some functions of the car itself are exposed
to apps you can imagine that there may be many additional
apps that have to do with functions of the car that broach
into security and privacy concerns.
•Also safety concerns from things as simple as distraction
of the driver to apps that actually modify the cars
functionality in unpredictable ways that cause a crash.
•In addition Tesla has said they are going to do like
Google, Microsoft and Apple and have a reward program
for those who discover vulnerabilities.
IOT Considerations
Network Effect

Once an IOT is available and providing functionality

whether it is producing data or is an actor able to do things
or both it becomes part of the network effect. The
network effect is the multiplicative impact connected
people or devices have. Usually with a network effect the
effect increases in a non-linear way with the number of
items that are connected. Some network effects could be
negative.
•For instance, the ability to reach a large number of cars
and hack them may mean for instance making large
numbers of cars fail on a highway at once.
•However, the thing we don’t know is what are the
network effects of having lots of IOT’s in the network and
people.
•New applications we can’t imagine today are possible and
could be revolutionary in terms of their impact on our
quality of life, efficiency or whatever measure you choose.
• For instance if we had lots of people who were being
monitored for their various biological parameters could we
figure out how to intervene before heart attacks occur or
could we diagnose people remotely for diseases or
problems?
•The car IOT is a good example. One of the things you
can do with a car API is to provide eventing. You can
detect events that occur based on any telemetry and let
other people know things or put business processes in that
automate activities.
Analytics

Another example of network effect is with bigdata. Bigdata

enables us to look smarter by accumulating lots of detailed
information on activity and looking at that detail to figure
out patterns that are of interest. For a car that could be
used on the car itself to improve the performance of the
car. A company is already doing that with Tesla. Smart
Trip Planner. It collects data about your cars performance
and stores that data for analysis. Already they use this
information to help you more accurately estimate the
energy consumed by going on different routes. Eventually
when the Android app capability is turned on later this year
there will be possibility to do lots more things with the car
and analytics we can produce from the car.
Privacy

Privacy concerns with the Tesla include the fact you can
know where it is and what you are doing and going to as
well as how you get there. People could potentially learn
your driving habits or even potentially figuring out you
went through a stop sign. The car links to your cell
phone and therefore has access to contacts and other
information. A virus infected car could deliver this
information to unscrupulous people potentially.

Security
Privacy broaches security if for instance using the API
someone could find and open the car. If valuable things
are in the car this could compromise security as well. I
believe like others that Tesla should implement a 2-factor
authentication scheme sooner rather than later for the car.
 CONCLUSION

This case study has been really informative.I came to

know many things related to IoT.My knowledge and
understanding in various aspects has become
deeper.From practical point of view applications and
implementation of IoT were new to me .I also got to
learn some basic programming using arduino board
and came to know about its various applications.

This case study has provided an insight into the IoT

ecosystem and its industrial applications.I hope it will
be helpful in my further projects in future.