Tesla Motors Inc.’s Model S, which will be launched soon, is seemed to be most ‘riskless’ and secure car among all smart cars. It also contains a function to release rapid and wireless software updates. The new model is updated and modern but according to expert researchers, this model can also be hacked.
To discuss the matter “how to hack the smart car” Defcon invited 23 hackers in a conference in Paris last week, this year. Among them, two hackers, Marc Rogers and Kevin Mahaffey, accepted the challenge to hack the Tesla Model S, which is going to be launched in near future.
They elaborated in the conference that in the beginning, they opened the dashboard and remove two of the SD cards and then searched into the system. Nevertheless, they experienced various challenging situations. Around 90% of the time, their presentation was just about these risky situations regarding death. The expert hackers sustained their enthusiastic approach to crack the company’s software until they reach to the file named as “carkeys.tar”, with the help of this file, hackers will be able to start the car.
Finally, both of them got an ethernet port that allows a user to use Tesla car on-board network. They connected the car to the network switch, with the help of Virtual Private Network (VPN), connected to the internet, and then installed the firmware software, which gives the information about the passwords contained in the internal memory.
Afterwards, the security breakers established the Wi-Fi connection, to connect the vehicle with the Tesla Service Centers. Now it was just simple to cheat the company’s service network and bring a wireless network into the car. The software was founded by the hackers known as Qtvehicle, which gave access to all the functions present in most of the vehicles. They are able to control the locks, doors, windows and stop the vehicle at slow speed.
The acknowledgement came from the company during a press conference soon, “Our security group works intently with the security analysis group to make sure that we proceed to guard our methods towards vulnerabilities by continuously stress-testing, validating, and updating our safeguards,” an official statement, televised by the company regarding the hot issue.
Giant automobile companies, such as Fiat Chrysler and General Motors, are far behind, if compared to Tesla motors. The electric automotive producer is looking forward to be the most secure automobile organization among all and apart from the supposed development in “automotive trade” all over the world, the company is keen to raise its lead in this market with more potential additions and launching new models with master securities protected and kept away from the approach of hackers.
The hack in Tesla’s cars raised concerns and question marks among its management and customers. The company should adopt strategies to address the concerns.
Fords Motors has recently reported a massive growth in the short interest shares of the company as recorded in the last week of April, 2015. Taking in the consideration the short interest shares of the firm as on the records on April 30 2015, a trade with around 86,671,085 shares was witnessed that showed a significant growth as compared the short interest shares noted down by analysts on April 15, when the trade showed shares at around 80,232,745.
According to a report by American Banking News, around 2.2 percent of the short interest shares from the stock of the car models company have been sold. The average volume of shares, on the other hand, has been recorded to be 28,665,668 while the days to cover ratio has been noted down by the stock index at 3 days.
On the other hand, it was recently seen that Ford Motors’ director, John C. Lichleiter has carried out a huge transaction inside the firm in which he was seen buying around 3,000 shares, increasing his stake in the company by a huge difference. This transaction was done on May, 14 2014 and each share was sold at a price of $15.22.
The whole transaction was recorded to have cost Lichleiter an amount of $45,660.00. This trade of shares between the company and the director of the auto making firm has been recorded in filing by the Securities Exchange Commission as all the trade information of shareholders and investors who have a stake in the company of more than 10% are to report to the SEC if they go through any kind of transaction or trade of their shares.
Quite a lot of analytical firms have covered the Fords stock and granted the firm different ratings in accordance with their analysis. Sterne Agee CRT has analysts that gave the auto company’s stock a ‘buy’ rating along with a target on the share price recorded at $20.00, mentioned in a research report presented on May 3 2015. As for the analysts at Stifel Nicolaus, a ‘hold’ rating has been suggested for the shares of the firm after close inspection. The same analysts have granted a $19.00 price target to the smart car company in the same research analysis. TheStreet analysts have given a ‘buy’ rating to the classic car producers. Moreover, Goldman Sachs has given a ‘hold’ to shares of Fords.
Fords Motors Company was recently seen to announce its quarter earnings on April 28 in which the firm reported EPS that was lower than expectations, coming around at $0.23.
The auto making company has many plans lined up for the upcoming quarters in which the launch of Model X car and Gigafactory has gone to take place.
In the most recent quarterly report announcement, Tesla Motors was seen to discuss quite a lot of plans for the coming quarters that the firm is looking forward to carrying out. These plans are deemed to be quite important for the company’s performance, as it will determine where and how the firm is headed forward.
The automakers are looking forward for plans such as the launch of the Model X car that is expected to launch in a few months along with the battery making business that the firm has only recently announced to step into. The Gigafactory, which is being established for the purpose of manufacturing batteries for cars as well as home based usage, is in the process of being launched too.
The Model X car, which is the first electric sports utility car that Tesla (TSLA) is currently working on is almost ready for orders and Elon Musk, the CEO of the smart car making firm, expects the customers to be able to place an order for their Model X Cars by July.
However, the electric car will actually be made available in September of the current year when the deliveries will be taking pace. The CEO of the auto making firm has previously been positive about this new venture of his company in the form of the sports car that is to launch soon and he still seems to be quite excited about it. According to him, this sports vehicle is going to prove as a great car in the SUV industry.
As for the Gigafactory that is being worked upon by Tesla, this other venture of the auto giants is to bring about a huge change in the way things are done in the firm. The battery making plant is expected to produce lithium-ion batteries in a massive number, so much as to break all the records of production in the past years. As per the initial plans of the company regarding the launch of the actual battery cell, it was decided that the first cell will be introduced to the industry in 2017.
However, the hybrid car makers have decided to speed up the process as the management mentioned in the earnings call recently made that now the first battery cell will be launched in 2016, one year before.
On the other hand, the demand for the Model S cars has been constantly increasing as discussed by Elon Musk in the earnings call. Tesla is now looking towards selling around 55,000 Model S and Model X cars by the end of the current quarter.
