Tesla Starts Cracking Down On Owners Who Hack Their Cars For Paid Performance Boosts

For the past few years, electric vehicles by Tesla come with more capabilities than what is promised. These enhanced performance variants are locked through software and Tesla sells them as add-ons on its cars. Some Tesla owners have been found to bypass these locks by hacking the systems themselves. Tesla is now cracking down on them.

A recent software update by the US EV maker is now targeting such aftermarket hacks employed in Tesla vehicles. An in-car notification after the latest update highlights an error message to car owners who have employed such hacks.

Representative Image: Tesla

Through the notification, the Tesla system says that it detected ¡°incompatible vehicle modification.¡± It further warns the user that they run a ¡°potential risk of damage or shutdown.¡± The notification stays on the screen even though the owners are able to drive their cars without any trouble.

What is the warning about?

One of the ¡°hacks¡± mentioned above comes through a firm called Ingenext in the form of a device that lets the owners of Tesla Model 3 Dual Motor unlock 50 hp on it. The device costs half the amount set by Tesla for the performance boost - $2,000.

The recent warning that comes with the Tesla software update is targeting the vehicles that have this particular device installed.

Warning on Tesla system after latest update (image: Reddit)

A report by Electrek cites the founder of Ingenext, Guillaume Andr¨¦, saying ¡°Tesla patched their update of the driver inverter software, unlocking the capacity in the software update 2020.32.1.¡±

As per Andr¨¦, Ingenext sent a notification to clients warning them not to update to the latest Tesla software. Three customers, however, had updated their cars before seeing the warning and hence got the error message from Tesla.

Now Ingenext is working on their own patch to allow their customers to update without issues.