News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Tesla’s charging stations left other manufacturers in the... by mschuster91 on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @05:35PM (#25935068)
> Were I them, I would worry a lot about battery wear-and-tear, undeclared damage, and even internal component substitution.

A car battery can definitely carry its own anti tamper mechanism and an LTE modem to report issues. Besides... a car battery isn't actually worth 15k$ to a thief. Not much to part out (PCBs are custom, casing ain't gonna fetch much in terms of scrap metal, and there's not much of a market for used li-ion 18650's with the exception of ecig hobbyists so swapping them out for lower quality isn't worth the effort), if it's an exclusively rent model there is no market for a stolen pack.

Wear and tear also isn't that much of an issue as Tesla proved.

Re:Tesla’s charging stations left other manufacturers in the... by cronix on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @08:13PM (#25936789)
Have you seen how much they go for on ebay? Buying tesla battery packs is pretty big in the off-grid solar market since they're 24v and store a lot of juice.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=tesla+battery

Re:Tesla’s charging stations left other manufacturers in the... by belval on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @07:38PM (#25936459)
People steal manhole covers for the scrap value of 40$ and you think a battery pack that can be disassembled and turned into an off-grid system would be safe? I give it a year before people start swapping cells for bricks of equal weights in part of the pack or sell firmware flashing kits on AliExpress.
Re:Tesla’s charging stations left other manufacturers in the... by theshrike79 on Thursday January 28, 2021 @02:03AM (#25939037)
This always fascinates me. The fact that a manhole cover has a scrap value means that there is someone actually buying manhole covers and melting them for metal.

Who? Why?

Re:Tesla’s charging stations left other manufacturers in the... by Symbiote on Thursday January 28, 2021 @03:54AM (#25939722)
Scrap metal merchants. They buy scrap cars, girders from old buildings, household metal waste, manufacturing offcuts, and any other waste metal. They sell it on to a steelworks.

They usually weigh your truck, unload it, weigh it again and pay you the difference. They often won't see what they're buying, as long as it's magnetic.