Tesla Charge Port Latch Unlock

Unlock the Tesla charge port latch by pushing a doorbell button on the wall. The doorbell push button is wired to a Raspberry Pi Zero W, which has some JavaScript code to send a request to the Tesla API in the cloud.

This video shows how it works:

Note: the Windows specific steps have not been tested!

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HARDWARE

You need the following hardware components and equipments. The links are examples where you can buy the parts. You may find similar products elsewhere for lower price.

• Raspberry Pi Zero W with headers

• Raspberry Pi Zero case

• PIN header connectors

• Singlecore wire (1m)

• Micro-USB cable

• USB charger (min 2.5A/13W)

• Honeywell Home D680 QUADRA (low voltage 1-24V doorbell push)

• MicroSD memory card (min 16GB, class 10)

• USB MicroSD memory card reader

Connect wires

Connect wires from the doorbell push connectors to Pi GPIO 8 (pin 24) and GROUND (pin 20). See Raspberry Pi Pinout. If the pin header connectors are too bulky, just leave the black plastic part out, bend the metal part and cover it with a heat shrinking tube.

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SOFTWARE

Connect the memory card to your PC.

Install operating system

Install and start Raspberry Pi Imager

Make the following selections:

Operating System: 
  Raspberry Pi (other)
    Raspberry Pi OS Lite (32-bit)

Storage:
  Memory card

Write

Enable Secure Shell (SSH) login

Remove and reinsert the memory card to the reader.

Windows

1. Open Notepad
2. Save an empty file to the memory card (a drive called boot). Name the file as "ssh" (including the quotes to prevent Notepad from adding the .txt extension).

Mac

1. Open Terminal
2. touch /Volumes/boot/ssh

Setup Wi-Fi

Create a text file named "wpa_supplicant.conf" to the memory card with the following content. Replace wifiName and wifiPassword with the name and password of you Wi-Fi. Mac: nano /Volumnes/boot/wpa_supplicant.conf.

country=FI
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
  scan_ssid=1
  key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
  ssid="wifiName"
  psk="wifiPassword"
}

Open the file config.txt in the memory card, and add the following line to the very bottom of the file and save:

dtoverlay=dwc2

Open cmdline.txt and add the text modules-load=dwc2,g_ether after the word rootwait, and save the file. There are no linebreaks in this file.

console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=PARTUUID=e8af6eb2-02 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline fsck.repair=yes rootwait modules-load=dwc2,g_ether quiet init=/usr/lib/raspi-config/init_resize.sh

Login to Pi

1. Eject the card from your PC and insert it to the Pi.
2. Connect the power adapter to the port labeled PWR IN on the Pi.
3. Wait about 90 seconds until the green led in Pi stops flashing and stays solid green.
4. Mac: Open Terminal app. Windows: Press Windows+X and click Command Prompt (Admin)
5. arp -na
6. Find a line with address b8:27:eb. Something like this:

? (192.168.1.230) at b8:27:eb:14:69:78 on en0 ifscope [ethernet]

1. Copy the IP address (it probably is something else than 192.168.1.230)

Windows

• Install Putty SSH client

  • Enter raspberrypi 192.168.1.230 as the host name you wish to connect to in Putty, and click Open.

  • Click Ok if you get a security warning alert.

Mac

• Terminal: ssh pi@192.168.1.230
• Answer yes to the following question, if you see one

The authenticity of host '192.168.1.230 (192.168.1.230)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:Y6j2MbiAsPFb1Tvg2ilUbcokq4Y3Cd23IoeGYRn+W1o.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes

Enter password raspberry:

pi@192.168.1.230's password: raspberry

Change password

1. sudo passwd pi
2. Enter a new password
3. su - pi
4. The new password again

Install Git version control system:

1. sudo apt update
2. sudo apt full-upgrade
3. Answer Y if you see this question:

After this operation, 7,435 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y

4. Wait for several minutes...

5. sudo apt install git

6. git --version, should print something like

git version 2.20.1

Fetch source code

git clone https://github.com/tapz/teslapizero.git

Install Node.js

1. curl -o install-node.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdesalas/node-pi-zero/master/install-node-v14.16.0.sh

2. sudo chmod +x install-node.sh

3. ./install-node.sh

4. node -v, should print:

v14.16.0

5. npm install -g npm@latest
6. npm -v, should print something like:

7.7.4

Login to Tesla API

1. cd teslapizero
2. npm install --only=prod
3. npm rebuild
4. npm run login
5. Enter your Tesla e-mail, password and MFA code
6. Select your vehicle (VIN code and name displayed)

Test

1. node index
2. Push the doorbell button
3. Control-C to exit

Install PM2 process manager to start the app when Raspberry Pi is started

1. sudo npm install pm2 -g
2. nano ~/.profile
3. Add this as the last line of the file:

PATH="/opt/nodejs/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin:$PATH"

4. Save file: Control-X, y
5. source ~/.profile
6. pm2 start index.js --name teslapizero
7. pm2 startup systemd
8. Copy-paste and run the printed line. It should be like this:

sudo env PATH=$PATH:/opt/nodejs/bin /opt/nodejs/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2 startup systemd -u pi --hp /home/pi

9. pm2 save
10. pm2 list, should print:

┌─────┬────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ id  │ name           │ namespace   │ version │ mode    │ pid      │ uptime │ ↺    │ status    │ cpu      │ mem      │ user     │ watching │
├─────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ 0   │ teslapizero    │ default     │ 0.0.1   │ fork    │ 735      │ 7m     │ 0    │ online    │ 0%       │ 40.1mb   │ pi       │ disabled │
└─────┴────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

Restart Pi

sudo reboot

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Check logs (in case the button does not work)

Login with SSH to the Pi

tail -1000 teslapizero/teslapizero.log

and for unhandled errors:

pm2 logs --lines 1000

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If your password changes or the login expires

Login with SSH to the Pi

1. cd teslapizero
2. npm run login

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Update to the most recent version

Login with SSH to the Pi

1. cd teslapizero
2. git pull
3. npm update
4. npm rebuild
5. pm2 restart teslapizero

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Copyright (c) 2021 Tapani Saarinen