Pair a Tesla Fleet API application's virtual key and OAuth scopes before it can send charging commands
domain: developer.tesla.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Register the developer application in the Tesla developer dashboard, configure the allowed redirect URI, and complete third-party/domain verification hosting the required public key file.
Take the vehicle owner through the OAuth authorization flow requesting the vehicle_charging_cmds (and related vehicle_cmds) scopes so the resulting token is authorized for charging control, not just telemetry read scopes.
Generate a command-signing key pair using Tesla's vehicle-command tooling and have the vehicle owner add the application's virtual key to their vehicle via the Tesla mobile app's add-key flow, which requires the vehicle to be physically nearby (BLE) for pairing.
Confirm the virtual key was accepted by checking the vehicle's key list or by issuing a low-risk signed command and validating a success response before relying on it for production charging control.
Store the OAuth refresh token and the signing private key separately with different rotation/handling policies, since losing the signing key requires re-pairing the virtual key on every vehicle, while a refresh token can simply be reissued.
Known gotchas
A valid OAuth token with the right scopes is not sufficient by itself for command endpoints on many vehicle firmware versions — without the paired virtual key and correctly signed request, commands are rejected even though telemetry/read endpoints work fine.
Virtual key pairing requires BLE proximity to the vehicle at pairing time, a real operational hurdle for fleet-management integrations onboarding vehicles that aren't physically accessible to the integrator.
Scopes are granted per OAuth consent — an app that only requested read scopes originally must take the owner through consent again to add charging-command scopes; there's no silent scope upgrade.
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