Tesla has finally officially released its API

After nearly a decade of existence and use by thousands of people in a curious gray area, Tesla is finally officially releasing its API. The company has published documents and guides to allow third parties to develop applications and communicate with vehicles.

This is one of hundreds of examples that show that Tesla This is not a car company. This is a company where software and hardware are equally important. And, in fact, this is the only major manufacturer whose literally every machine has its own API for accessing third-party applications.

For nearly a decade, a relatively small group of people and startups have been developing apps that let you better control your Tesla car or get data from the car, including rides, and aggregate it. The latter is the most common use, creating popular services such as TeslaPhi or Tezlab. This way you can get information about the car’s efficiency, battery degradation and much more.

However, although the API exists and is accessible from third-party applications, Tesla has never released documentation or an SDK. Finally, they took the first step by publishing documents that officially state what can and cannot be done with their vehicles.

The official Tesla API will initially be focused on fleet management. They baptized her Fleet API and they created a registration point to generate public and private keys and the ability to make calls without having to tell the vehicle owner their username or password.

Future Tesla App Ecosystem Powered by APIs

The official Tesla API is the first step towards creating a healthy and much more professional third-party app ecosystem. The next step will be the liberalization of the complete software development kit (SDK), which will allow the creation of new applications that run inside and outside the car.

This is an inevitable step because Tesla software is getting more complex. For years, the company has mentioned the possibility of launching App Store it allows apps to be installed in the car, but Elon Musk once mentioned that this would only make sense when there are about ten million cars on the road.

With the brand’s car sales constantly growing – they plan to sell 1.8 million units in 2023 alone – this figure is getting closer, and an app store for a car makes more and more sense.

Tesla’s API will not only work for creating third-party applications aimed at vehicle owners. This will start a large B2B software ecosystem around the brand. The first and most obvious will be the development of fleet management systems for car rental companies, taxis, military transport companies, freight transport and many others.

It can also be used by car buying and selling services to analyze the actual condition of a car’s batteries at the time of purchase. The uses, both consumer and business oriented, can be very wide.

Tesla’s API also legitimizes the current app ecosystem that already exists and operates in this gray area. All these startups lived in constant uncertainty, since the company could take away their access at any moment and kill their business.