- I've been saying it for a while now,
but we finally have some signals that Tesla's future
is gonna be based in apps, not just the cars.
Hi, I'm Ben Sullins with Teslanomics
and today we're gonna take a look
at how one company developed an app
on the Tesla platform using their built-in browser.
In technology, a platform generally refers to a service
that you can use to build other apps on top of.
Think of an iPhone, you're phone comes with all
of the basic software you need for it to operate
and it would be strange if it didn't.
Apple was clever enough though,
and realized that they couldn't possibly think
of every way in which you can use an iPhone,
so they developed the operating system for the iPhone,
known as iOS, in a way that would allow others
to build apps on top of it.
At that time, people couldn't really grasp what other kinds
of apps or things you would want in your phone.
It already could make calls, send text messages,
and browse the Internet.
What more could you possibly want?
Well, as of March 2017,
developers selling their apps on the app store
have earned over $70 billion since its launch in 2008,
with nearly 3 million apps available to customers.
So, needless to say, the pivot from a singular product
like a cell phone, to a platform
changed how we think about devices such as smartphones.
This has also led to significant revenue for both Apple
and the developers using their platform.
This begs the question then, how is Tesla a platform?
What apps could we possibly need or want in our cars?
Here's Ben from Tezlab, the company that made the first app
for your Tesla, even before
they officially launched their app store.
- Well I think its...
I mean, when you actually use the car
and you look at the settings of the car,
it's very clear that when they were designing
and engineering the system,
when you go actually in the settings
you can see where they would actually
have put the apps had they finished.
Sort of what their thought process was.
So, I think actually in the near future
what you're gonna find is that
there are actually gonna be apps.
They definitely are thinking about it as a platform.
I just think from an engineering priority perspective,
they haven't gotten there.
So they have a fairly substantial API
that for a fairly long time,
our hypothesis was that they built all these end points
for the car because they wanted people
to actually build things because...
To your point, they were gonna offer
like an actual app store.
So we reverse engineered,
pretty much the entire API,
pulled it all apart and looked
to see exactly what you could do...
You know, everything from climate control,
to opening up the sunroof, to honking the horn,
to like, much more complicated things,
driving efficiency and through that, enabling...
A fairly...
Building a fairly robust system.
And so, the more we got into the API,
the more we realized both,
kind of what their thinking was when they built it,
and then continuing to extrapolate from there
what we could build from that.
And so, we could get all that data from the API
and then the challenge became building a UI to support
the way in which we knew drivers
would wanna engage with that data.
We're using the same system that Tesla uses.
So, you download the app from the app store,
and you authenticate using your Tesla credentials.
And from there, you can either login via Facebook,
you can login via Twitter,
or you can create an account using your e-mail address.
And that's pretty much all you do.
From there we sync it over from your Tesla account
and your kinda off and running.
So the same way you would create any account online
is the same way that you would authenticate using Tezlab,
you're really just using the credentials
that are already given to you.
So, we look at your phone,
privacy is really really important to us.
So, we look at your phone
and we sort of gently notice that your phone is moving
and if we notice that your phone is moving,
this system that we've built looks at the car
and will look at the drive-state of your car.
If we notice the drive-state of the car
is something other than a P state, which is a Park-state,
then we initiate the system to say follow this car.
Once that car is quote, being followed,
we watch that car for about an hour
and we hit that car at a fairly frequent basis
without giving too much information away
and from that we can derive a trip.
And, once we're looking at your car
and kind of tracking your car as you drive,
we can start making sense of your efficiency.
We've got some interesting logic to both,
be very sensitive to the car battery
so we're not hitting the car directly,
and we've also got...
We're also very sensitive to your telephone
to make sure we're not draining your battery.
We sort of make the comparison
of the learnings from what Fitbit did
and we bring that over into the car
and how to build a system to enable you
to get the most out of your car.
We came up with this idea of giving you
a visual representation while you drive
to enable you to start making subtle changes
in how you're driving to, say for instance,
get more, sort of more distance from your battery
that you wouldn't otherwise know.
So you can engage on the phone,
you can engage through the car.
We've build a great dashboard.
We're starting to do more stuff with ways
and I think that, for the dashboard specifically,
we're probably gonna build more things with calendars.
We're gonna try to do some interesting integration
with your phone.
I think when Tesla gets to the point where
they're gonna actually support apps
through their actual onboard computers,
then we'll be able to quickly move everything
into a more integrated approach,
not have to rely on the browser quite as much.
- [Ben Sullins] Native. - Yeah, a more native feel.
Sort of a difference of having an app on your phone
versus having it through the web browser.
I would imagine as they get more and more cars on the road,
especially with the Model 3,
there's gonna be a big opportunity to support apps.
And it's like a no brainer.
I think Spotify could build a great app.
I think Pandora...
Like, I think that there's a much bigger play around music.
I think that there's a lot more you could do around traffic.
Obviously, carpooling, car sharing could be deeply...
And I mean, and Tesla's talked about that,
but that could obviously be deeply integrated
into the UI, into the actual system.
It's very uncharted territory.
I think that there's a whole suite of verticals
that haven't even really been defined yet,
but the obvious ones are kind of
music and weather and car sharing.
Yeah, and I think if you look at the Model 3
and certainly a lot the chatter,
like, that car was probably one of the first cars,
if not the first car, designed to really not be driven.
So in the future, thinking about it as fully autonomous.
I think what you'll find is,
as Tesla builds out the platform the apps
are gonna become potentially more dynamic
because you're not gonna be driving
and so, you'll be able to stream video
and you'll be able to interact with it.
Maybe instead of doing the lion's share of the inner...
The communication from your phone,
you know, a lot of that could be built
on to the actual display in the car.
It's bigger, it's more interactive
so there would be a whole concept
of a living room experience, but for the car.
Where people could engage with a whole,
sort of suite of media that have really...
Haven't been discovered yet.
And who doesn't want Chatroulette for the car?
- [Ben Sullins] Laughing
What's so interesting about the Tesla API is that,
if you use the Tesla app,
there is really very little communication you get
from your car in terms of your driving history.
What they built was this way for you
to interact with your car to, like,
turn the air conditioner or the heat on, and that's cool,
or like open the sunroof, right?
And those are all really cool things
and their certainly one of the first cars to do it
and now kind of, other cars are catching up.
What they did not push at all from the app was,
this notion of trips, efficiency,
supercharging related information;
and again, if you look at what Fitbit has done for,
sort of the human being.
When you look at what is supported from the API,
from the Tesla API,
Tesla's really only taking advantage of a fraction of it.
When you really look at it you realize
that there is so much information coming out of the car
and that is what we saw as the real opportunity.
So, clearly, Tesla had grand visions
for what their app was going to be
and my suspicion is that over time,
they just sort of ratchet that down
to something more simple knowing in the future
that they'll probably do something bigger.
Without getting overly technical,
the areas in which you can communicate with the car
are much deeper than what the
native Tesla app actually pushes out.
You can get your drive-state,
you can get your odometer reading.
If you're a little bit clever,
you can end up building some really fascinating things.
And, Tesla, while they don't actively say
that you should do that,
they certainly behind the scenes encourage it.
While it's not a supported API,
they're making people aware of what it can do.
So, there's a lot of interesting things that you can do
and there's a lot of interesting things
that will continue to come out from it.
- I don't know about you,
but that is an exciting future for us Tesla owners
and for the company itself,
especially as cars become more autonomous.
So, if you already own a Tesla,
go use the link in the description down below
to install Tezlab and you'll get a taste
of what I'm talking about when it comes
to the future of Tesla being app based.
And, if you're already a Tezlab user,
I'd love to know what you think.
Leave a comment down below
and tell me what your favorite feature is
and I can relay that back to the team
to try to make it even better for you.
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Thanks for watching.