Tesla, the leading electric vehicle manufacturer, has recently unveiled its first official API documentation to support the integration of third-party applications with its vehicles. The new APIs, which are primarily designed for fleet management, have sparked the interest of developers who see them as a potential starting point for creating a rich app ecosystem for Tesla owners and users.
What are the Tesla APIs and how do they work?
The Tesla APIs are a set of endpoints that allow an application to request vehicle owners’ permission to view account information, get vehicle status, and issue remote commands. Vehicle owners can control which applications they grant access to, and can change these settings at any time. The APIs use OAuth 2.0 for authentication and authorization, and support JSON and XML formats for data exchange.
The following API endpoints are currently documented:
- Charging endpoints: These endpoints allow an application to get information about the vehicle’s charging state, start or stop charging, set the charge limit, and open or close the charge port.
- Partner endpoints: These endpoints allow an application to get information about the partner account, such as the name, email, phone number, and address of the account holder.
- User endpoints: These endpoints allow an application to get information about the user account, such as the name, email, phone number, and vehicles associated with the account.
- Vehicle endpoints: These endpoints allow an application to get information about the vehicle, such as the VIN, display name, state, software version, odometer, location, climate settings, and sentry mode status.
- Vehicle commands: These endpoints allow an application to send commands to the vehicle, such as wake up, lock or unlock doors, honk horn, flash lights, set temperature, start or stop HVAC system, vent or close windows, open or close trunk or frunk, remote start, and navigation.
