Video: Man Hacks Amazon’s Alexa So It Can Drive His Tesla

5/6/2016
Updated:
5/6/2016

Developer Jason Goecke found a way for his Amazon Echo to pull his car in and out of the garage. 

By generating a code that requires the Tesla to respond when keyword triggers are spoken to the Echo’s voice service, Alexa, Goecke can have his car ready and waiting for him without ever leaving his bed. 

Goecke set up the command “Ask KITT” to pull the car out of the garage. “KITT” is a nod to the 1980s TV show “Knight Rider“, which starred David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight and featured an artificially intelligent supercar named KITT.

Calling his accomplishment a “fun weekend project,“ Goecke imagines a day when: ”The car pulls out of the garage and adjusts its settings to my preferences based on the weather, opening my sunroof and windows on a nice sunny day.”

“All the technologies are already here,” Goecke remarks—it’s just a matter of “stringing them together just right.”