Yamaha PW-X Ebike motor hacking
Mario wrote 07/11/2020 at 11:42 • 1 pointHello folks,
half a year ago I bought myself a nice ebike and while I was thinking about how cool it would to hack it. I just recently learned that since my 2019 model the control unit is connected to the motor via CAN bus.
Now it would be cool to read out data like speed, current support level and range. Then connect a small microcontroller to my bike with an acceleromenter or something like that and just have fun in collecting data to see what I can learn about my riding style. And maybe some battery drainage profile? I don't know.
So the question is:
How hard is it to hack into an unknown CAN bus?
Is the data usually encrypted?
Can I make it explode? (Without joking: I am really afraid of damaging this precious bike)
Where would I start?
Has anyone here done something like that already? I can't find anything on the internet.
Since there are lots of "tuning kits" available to unlock the speed, I assume it somehow has to be possible just to scrape the data, right? Any help is appreciated.
Discussions
Become a Hackaday.io Member
Create an account to leave a comment. Already have an account? Log In.
There are CANBus loggers, that just plug into the Bus and log everything. You can then dump the data to a computer and analyze it. In your post, you don't specifically mention wanting to monitor the various outputs in real time, so this might be helpful.
Encryption is extremely unlikely; CANBus security relies on being physically isolated within the vehicle.
I'll post a link if I can find one quickly, for a logger.
Good luck.
Are you sure? yes | no
https://www.csselectronics.com/screen/product/can-bus-logger-canlogger1000
Are you sure? yes | no
Thanks, I'll look into such a logger.
Yes reading that in realtime would be great in the end. My imagination would be to reverse the CAN data and if I know what I am looking for then just read it with a µC and log it/display it.
Are you sure? yes | no