Information about power train CAN communications?

If you are serious about CAN, contact your friends in Stuttgart Vector Group Contact Info

They probably educated the engineers who developed that CAN system that dropped into the Model S.

I would be surprised if the CAN bus is not encrypted. I work with CAN every day, but we don't bother with encryption and our systems don't support it. If it's not encrypted, I would think it would be possible to use a can bus sniffer and decipher the traffic. I hope you succeed and share your results.

It'd be surprised if they used CAN Bus at all. It's a pretty limiting bus in a lot of ways. I could have sworn I saw a teardown where the majority of the interconnect was actually CAT5 based.

Check out this guy;

Stretchla Blog | Stretched Vanagon Westfalia shell on a Tesla platform

HH007 said:

The Model S definitely uses at least four different CAN networks.


If we read the CAN communication, how can we recognize encrypted traffic? Will the frames be completly different to the ordinary structure or are just the identifier or data fields modified somehow for example?

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There may be some helpful info here, but it is not about the Powertrain CAN network:

VisibleTesla

Also, here is some info on the Ethernet network:

Successful connection on the Model S internal Ethernet network


GSP

HH007 said:

we are facing an exciting duty: We are trying to run the drive unit of a Model S stand-alone outside the car.

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May I ask what you are trying to do by doing this? Will you put it in another car? For testing purposes? For other applications than running a car?

HH007 said:

The Model S definitely uses at least four different CAN networks.


If we read the CAN communication, how can we recognize encrypted traffic? Will the frames be completly different to the ordinary structure or are just the identifier or data fields modified somehow for example?

Click to expand...

If you are at least able to see the CAN frames and their respective IDs, that is a important start. At that point it takes a bit of study to analyze the messages as you change certain conditions (go from park to drive or reverse, etc.). Obviously it would be very important and helpful to get a lot of data logged for analysis with a complete and working vehicle. Things like pre-charging the capacitors are very important to keep from frying components.

The hardware I work with is not capable of encryption (at the hardware level), so other tricks must be used on the software side. I have no idea what Tesla's hardware is capable of. If it is anything like what I work with then it should be possible to figure this out. I know where Tesla was using a LIN bus (suspension position sensors, radiator flap position sensors and controllers, etc.), there was no special encryption going on (see Otmar's work on the Vanagon).