Tesla Fleet Telemetry

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Fleet Telemetry is a server reference implementation for Tesla's telemetry protocol. Owners can allow registered applications to receive telemetry securely and directly from their vehicles. This reference implementation can be used by individual owners as is or by fleet operators who can extend it to aggregate data accross their fleet.

The service handles device connectivity as well as receiving and storing transmitted data. Once configured, devices establish a WebSocket connection to push configurable telemetry records. Fleet Telemetry provides clients with ack, error, or rate limit responses.

Configuring and running the service

Setup steps

1. Create a third-party application on developer.tesla.com.
   • In the "Client Details" step, it is recommended to select "Authorization Code and Machine-to-Machine" for most use cases. "Machine-to-Machine" (M2M) should only be selected for business accounts that own vehicles.
2. Generate an EC private key using the secp256r1 curve (prime256v1).
   • openssl ecparam -name prime256v1 -genkey -noout -out private-key.pem
3. Derive its public key.
   • openssl ec -in private-key.pem -pubout -out public-key.pem
4. Host this public key at: https://your-domain.com/.well-known/appspecific/com.tesla.3p.public-key.pem.
5. Generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR).
   • openssl req -out your-domain.com.csr -key private-key.pem -subj /CN=your-domain.com/ -new
6. Ensure the generated CSR passes check_csr.sh.
   • ./check_csr.sh your-domain.com.csr
7. Generate a Partner Authentication Token. (docs)
8. Register your application with Fleet API by sending domain and csr to the register endpoint. Use the partner authentication token generated in step 7 as a Bearer token.
9. Wait for Tesla to process your CSR. This may take up to two weeks. Once complete, you will receive an email from Tesla. The generated certificate will not be sent back to you; it is attached to your account on the backend and is used internally when configuring a vehicle to stream data.
10. Configure your fleet-telemetry server. Full details are described in install steps.
11. Validate server configuration using check_server_cert.sh.
    • From your local computer, create validate_server.json with the following fields:
      • hostname: the hostname your fleet-telemetry server is available on.
      • port: the port your fleet-telemetry server is available on. Defaults to 443.
      • ca: the full certificate chain used to generate the server's TLS cert/key.
    • ./check_server_cert.sh validate_server.json
12. Ensure your virtual key has been added to the vehicle you intend to configure. To add your virtual key to the vehicle, redirect the owner to https://tesla.com/_ak/your-domain.com. If using authorization code flow, the owner of the vehicle must have authorized your application with vehicle_device_data scope before they are able to add your key.
13. Send your configuration to a vehicle. Using a third-party token, send a fleet_telemetry_config request.
14. Wait for synced to be true when getting fleet_telemetry_config.
15. At this point, the vehicle should be streaming data to your fleet-telemetry server. If you are not seeing messages come through, call fleet_telemetry_errors.
    • If fleet_telemetry_errors is not yielding any results, please reach out to [email protected]. Include your client ID and the VIN you are trying to setup.

Install on Kubernetes with Helm Chart (recommended)

For ease of installation and operation, run Fleet Telemetry on Kubernetes or a similar environment. Helm Charts help define, install, and upgrade applications on Kubernetes. A reference helm chart is available here.

Install steps

1. Allocate and assign a FQDN. This will be used in the server and client (vehicle) configuration.

2. Design a simple hosting architecture. We recommend: Firewall/Loadbalancer -> Fleet Telemetry -> Kafka.

3. Ensure mTLS connections are terminated on the Fleet Telemetry service.

4. Configure the server (Helm charts cover some of this configuration)

{
  "host": string - hostname,
  "port": int - port,
  "log_level": string - trace, debug, info, warn, error,
  "json_log_enable": bool,
  "namespace": string - kafka topic prefix,
  "reliable_ack": bool - for use with reliable datastores, recommend setting to true with kafka,
  "monitoring": {
    "prometheus_metrics_port": int,
    "profiler_port": int,
    "profiling_path": string - out path,
    "statsd": { if you are not using prometheus
      "host": string - host:port of the statsd server,
      "prefix": string - prefix for statsd metrics,
      "sample_rate": int - 0 to 100 percentage to sample stats,
      "flush_period": int - ms flush period
    }
  },
  "kafka": { // librdkafka kafka config, seen here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/confluentinc/librdkafka/master/CONFIGURATION.md
    "bootstrap.servers": "kafka:9092",
    "queue.buffering.max.messages": 1000000
  },
  "kinesis": {
    "max_retries": 3,
    "streams": {
      "V": "custom_stream_name"
    }
  },
  "rate_limit": {
    "enabled": bool,
    "message_limit": int - ex.: 1000
  },
  "records": { // list of records and their dispatchers, currently: alerts, errors, and V(vehicle data)
    "alerts": [
        "logger"
    ],
    "errors": [
        "logger"
    ],
    "V": [
        "kinesis",
        "kafka"
    ]
  },
  "tls": {
    "server_cert": string - server cert location,
    "server_key": string - server key location
  }
}

Example: server_config.json

5. (Manual install only) Deploy and run the server. Get the latest docker image information from our docker hub. This can be run as a binary via ./fleet-telemetry -config=/etc/fleet-telemetry/config.json directly on a server, or as a Kubernetes deployment. Example snippet:

---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: fleet-telemetry
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: fleet-telemetry
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: fleet-telemetry
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: fleet-telemetry
        image: tesla/fleet-telemetry:<tag>
        command: ["/fleet-telemetry", "-config=/etc/fleet-telemetry/config.json"]
        ports:
        - containerPort: 443
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: fleet-telemetry
spec:
  selector:
    app: fleet-telemetry
  ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 443
      targetPort: 443
  type: LoadBalancer

Vehicle Compatibility

Vehicles must be running firmware version 2023.20.6 or later. Some older model S/X are not supported.

Backends/dispatchers

The following dispatchers are supported

• Kafka (preferred): Configure with the config.json file. See implementation here: config/config.go
• Kinesis: Configure with standard AWS env variables and config files. The default AWS credentials and config files are: ~/.aws/credentials and ~/.aws/config.
  • By default, stream names will be *configured namespace*_*topic_name* ex.: tesla_V, tesla_errors, tesla_alerts, etc
  • Configure stream names directly by setting the streams config "kinesis": { "streams": { *topic_name*: stream_name } }
  • Override stream names with env variables: KINESIS_STREAM_*uppercase topic* ex.: KINESIS_STREAM_V
• Google pubsub: Along with the required pubsub config (See ./test/integration/config.json for example), be sure to set the environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS
• ZMQ: Configure with the config.json file. See implementation here: config/config.go
• Logger: This is a simple STDOUT logger that serializes the protos to json.

NOTE: To add a new dispatcher, please provide integration tests and updated documentation. To serialize dispatcher data as json instead of protobufs, add a config transmit_decoded_records and set value to true as shown here

Metrics

Configure and use Prometheus or a StatsD-interface supporting data store for metrics.

Protos

Data is encapsulated into protobuf messages of different types. Protos can be recompiled via:

1. Install protoc, currently on version 4.25.1: https://grpc.io/docs/protoc-installation/
2. Install protoc-gen-go: go install google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/[email protected]
3. Run make command

make generate-protos

Testing

Unit Tests

To run the unit tests: make test

Common Errors:

~/fleet-telemetry➜ git:(main) ✗  make test
go build github.com/confluentinc/confluent-kafka-go/v2/kafka:
# pkg-config --cflags  -- rdkafka
Package rdkafka was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `rdkafka.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'rdkafka' found
pkg-config: exit status 1
make: *** [install] Error 1

librdkafka is missing, on macOS you can install it via brew install librdkafka pkg-config or follow instructions here https://github.com/confluentinc/confluent-kafka-go#getting-started

~/fleet-telemetry➜ git:(main) ✗  make test
go build github.com/confluentinc/confluent-kafka-go/v2/kafka:
# pkg-config --cflags  -- rdkafka
Package libcrypto was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `libcrypto.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
Package 'libcrypto', required by 'rdkafka', not found
pkg-config: exit status 1
make: *** [install] Error 1

~/fleet-telemetry➜ git:(main) ✗  locate libcrypto.pc
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/openssl@3/3.0.8/lib/pkgconfig/libcrypto.pc

~/fleet-telemetry➜ git:(main) ✗  export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/homebrew/Cellar/openssl@3/3.0.8/lib/pkgconfig/

A reference to libcrypto is not set properly. To resolve find the reference to libcrypto by pkgconfig and set et the PKG_CONFIG_PATH accordingly.

libzmq is missing. Install with:

sudo apt install -y libsodium-dev libzmq3-dev

Or for macOS:

brew install libsodium zmq

Integration Tests

To run the integration tests: make integration

Building the binary for Linux from Mac ARM64

DOCKER_BUILD_KIT=1 DOCKER_CLI_EXPERIMENTAL=enabled docker buildx version
docker buildx create --name go-builder --driver docker-container --driver-opt network=host --buildkitd-flags '--allow-insecure-entitlement network.host' --use
docker buildx inspect --bootstrap
docker buildx build --no-cache --progress=plain --platform linux/amd64 -t <name:tag>(e.x.: fleet-telemetry:local.1.1) -f Dockerfile . --load
container_id=$(docker create fleet-telemetry:local.1.1) docker cp $container_id:/fleet-telemetry /tmp/fleet-telemetry

Security and Privacy considerations

System administrators should apply standard best practices, which are beyond the scope of this README.

Moreover, the following application-specific considerations apply:

• Vehicles authenticate to the telemetry server with TLS client certificates and use a variety of security measures designed to prevent unauthorized access to the corresponding private key. However, as a defense-in-depth precaution, backend services should anticipate the possibility that a vehicle's TLS private key may be compromised. Therefore:
  • Backend systems should sanitize data before using it.
  • Users should consider threats from actors that may be incentivized to submit falsified data.
  • Users should filter by vehicle identification number (VIN) using an allowlist if possible.
• Configuration-signing private keys should be kept offline.
• Configuration-signing private keys should be kept in an HSM.
• If telemetry data is compromised, threat actors may be able to make inferences about driver behavior even if explicit location data is not collected. Security policies should be set accordingly.
• Tesla strongly encourages providers to only collect data they need, limited to the frequency they need.
• Providers agree to take full responsibility for privacy risks, as soon as data leave the devices (for more info read our privacy policies).