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They can at home (and third-party chargers), but not at Tesla superchargers. The internet access is needed not for charging, but for making a supercharger trans

They can at home (and third-party chargers), but not at Tesla superchargers. The internet access is needed not for charging, but for making a supercharger transaction. Though I would have personally expected Tesla to set up supercharges in a way that would instead provide free charging when the supercharging internet access is down. The monetary loss from that would probably cost far less than this negative PR. And this is literally the first time I hear about their network going down in a way that supercharging is unavailable (maybe it happened before, but I haven't been paying much attention until 2019), so it isn't like they would be losing tons of money by providing that charging for free. And especially since filling up from around 20% to 90% at a supercharger typically costs me way less (somewhere between $16-26 total) than it would for a gas car.

helf 4y ago
Wait wait wait. You expected Tesla to have pre-emptively done something to avoid negative PR? When have they ever done that?
- filoleg 4y ago
  It is less about having to do something pre-emptively, and more about having good default configs for fail-safes. Approving charging when there is no connection vs. blocking charging when there is no connection is just a bitflip.
  - Turskarama 4y ago
    Knowing Tesla I expect it's an exception that falls out of the whole charger handshake process.
LinuxBender 4y ago
I agree with everything you said but if I put my Elon hat on, aside from the itching sensation I can imagine their security team pointed out that people would find ways to DoS the terminal into being free. I'm not saying that would be logical, just probably how they were thinking. I'm taking that hat off now.
- filoleg 4y ago
  > I can imagine their security team pointed out that people would find ways to DoS the terminal into being free. Yeah, that's definitely a valid concern. I wonder how easy it would be to do so, given I haven't heard of it happening with superchargers before. But again, there was no incentive to do so without free charging, so who knows.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  DoSing the terminal to get free charges probably wouldn't be wise, unless you'd use burner cars that aren't traceable back to you.
  - LinuxBender 4y ago
    Totally agree. I would wager some people would not think this through and might even brag about it on TikTok.
  - thraxil 4y ago
    You'd also have to consider threat models that include attackers other than Tesla owners trying to get free charges. Eg, Tesla competitors looking to cost them money, people that have twitter beef with Elon, ransom/extortion attacks, teens in it for the lulz, etc.
    - seba_dos1 4y ago
      You always have to consider threat models like these. If you don't, you're not doing your job well. If you're trying to imply that considering these threat models is a reason not to come up with a proper fail-safe system, then the very same argument applies to creating these charging stations and letting people use them in the first place.
  - filoleg 4y ago
    I would assume you can just DDoS either the central cerver or the entire charging location, not individual charging stalls. And in the latter case, who knows which out of many cars present near the charging location did it. Keep in mind that a lot of supercharger stations are contained within much larger parking lots/garages. More specifically, they are simply just random stretches of parking spots in a garage, but with supercharger stalls installed. As a real example, 3 closest supercharging stations to where I live are: a large office building multilevel garage, Trader Joe's multilevel garage, and a giant multilevel garage at a mall. Each one can fit bajillion cars (maybe not the trader joe's one, as it only has 2 or 3 floors, with about 25 parking spots on each).
sneak 4y ago
TFA: "Some Tesla drivers say they can’t connect to their Powerwall home battery charging system."
- filoleg 4y ago
  Powerwall is just one way to charge at home, and far from the most common one. Electric outlet charging works just fine.
frumper 4y ago
They could also have the supercharger locally store what car charged how much and when the system goes back up it charges the account. If there is no card on file then it'll be owed until that person connects a card. They could even send out a list of cars to each supercharger as a blocklist if they find abusers to help deter attacks and limit the downside.

helf 4y ago

Wait wait wait. You expected Tesla to have pre-emptively done something to avoid negative PR? When have they ever done that?

filoleg 4y ago
It is less about having to do something pre-emptively, and more about having good default configs for fail-safes. Approving charging when there is no connection vs. blocking charging when there is no connection is just a bitflip.
- Turskarama 4y ago
  Knowing Tesla I expect it's an exception that falls out of the whole charger handshake process.

LinuxBender 4y ago

I agree with everything you said but if I put my Elon hat on, aside from the itching sensation I can imagine their security team pointed out that people would find ways to DoS the terminal into being free. I'm not saying that would be logical, just probably how they were thinking. I'm taking that hat off now.

filoleg 4y ago
> I can imagine their security team pointed out that people would find ways to DoS the terminal into being free. Yeah, that's definitely a valid concern. I wonder how easy it would be to do so, given I haven't heard of it happening with superchargers before. But again, there was no incentive to do so without free charging, so who knows.
seba_dos1 4y ago
DoSing the terminal to get free charges probably wouldn't be wise, unless you'd use burner cars that aren't traceable back to you.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  Totally agree. I would wager some people would not think this through and might even brag about it on TikTok.
- thraxil 4y ago
  You'd also have to consider threat models that include attackers other than Tesla owners trying to get free charges. Eg, Tesla competitors looking to cost them money, people that have twitter beef with Elon, ransom/extortion attacks, teens in it for the lulz, etc.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    You always have to consider threat models like these. If you don't, you're not doing your job well. If you're trying to imply that considering these threat models is a reason not to come up with a proper fail-safe system, then the very same argument applies to creating these charging stations and letting people use them in the first place.
- filoleg 4y ago
  I would assume you can just DDoS either the central cerver or the entire charging location, not individual charging stalls. And in the latter case, who knows which out of many cars present near the charging location did it. Keep in mind that a lot of supercharger stations are contained within much larger parking lots/garages. More specifically, they are simply just random stretches of parking spots in a garage, but with supercharger stalls installed. As a real example, 3 closest supercharging stations to where I live are: a large office building multilevel garage, Trader Joe's multilevel garage, and a giant multilevel garage at a mall. Each one can fit bajillion cars (maybe not the trader joe's one, as it only has 2 or 3 floors, with about 25 parking spots on each).

sneak 4y ago

TFA: "Some Tesla drivers say they can’t connect to their Powerwall home battery charging system."

filoleg 4y ago
Powerwall is just one way to charge at home, and far from the most common one. Electric outlet charging works just fine.

frumper 4y ago

They could also have the supercharger locally store what car charged how much and when the system goes back up it charges the account. If there is no card on file then it'll be owed until that person connects a card. They could even send out a list of cars to each supercharger as a blocklist if they find abusers to help deter attacks and limit the downside.