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Running TeslaMate
on the Raspberry Pi
by Emmet

 Published May 15, 2023

 Beginner  IoT  Servers

   

In this tutorial, we will show you how to run

TeslaMate on your Raspberry Pi.

TeslaMate is a data logger that allows you to

track numerous details about a Tesla car. It
achieves this by polling the Tesla API and
logging the data it returns to a PostgreSQL
database running on your Raspberry Pi.

This software is excellent for those who own a

Tesla and are interested in keeping track of
data returned by it. You can even integrate this
data with software like Home Automation to
automate various features of your car.

The Raspberry Pi makes a perfect companion

with TeslaMate as it is a low-powered device
that isn’t expensive to run 24/7.

To make the process of running Teslamate on

your Raspberry Pi significantly simpler, we will
be running it through a Docker container. This
saves us from having to install and configure
several different pieces of software.

Equipment

Below is a list of the equipment we used when

setting up our Raspberry Pi to run TeslaMate.

Recommended

 Raspberry Pi

 Micro SD Card

 Power Supply

 Ethernet Cable or Wi-Fi

Optional
 Raspberry Pi Case

 USB Mouse

 USB Keyboard

 HDMI Cable

 Monitor

This tutorial was last tested on a Raspberry Pi

400 using the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS
Bullseye 64-bit.

Preparing the Raspberry Pi

to Run TeslaMate

Before we can install and run TeslaMate on our

Raspberry Pi, we need to go through some
initial set-up steps.

Over the next few steps, we will update the

Raspberry Pi and ensure that you have Docker
compose installed.

1. Before continuing any further, we should

update the available list of packages and
upgrade any out-of-date packages.

We can perform both tasks by using the

following command within the terminal.

Terminal $  Copy

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

2. Next, we must ensure that Docker Compose

installed on your Raspberry Pi by running the
command below.

Docker will make running TeslaMate on your

Raspberry Pi significantly more
straightforward.

Terminal $  Copy

sudo apt install docker-compose

3. For our current user to interact with Docker,

we must add it to the “ docker ” group using the
command below.

Add this user to the group by running the

following command. This line uses the usermod
command to modify your user’s properties.

Terminal $  Copy

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

4. For changes to your current user to take

effect, you must log out of your system and
then log back in.

You can log out from the terminal by using the

command below.

Terminal $  Copy

logout

After logging out, you can immediately log

back into your account.

Installing TeslaMate to your

Raspberry Pi

Now that we are prepared, it is safe to install

TeslaMate to your Raspberry Pi.

For these steps, we will be creating a “docker-

compose” script that will set up all the services
we require to run TeslaMate.

5. Before installing TeslaMate to our Raspberry

Pi, we need to create a directory within our
home directory called “ teslamate “.

You can use the mkdir command to create this

folder by running the command below.

Terminal $  Copy

mkdir ~/teslamate

6. Now that we have created our new

directory, we need to use the cd command to
move change to it.

Terminal $  Copy

cd ~/teslamate

7. We can begin writing our “ docker-compose ”

file by using the following command within the
terminal.

This compose file will set up four different

services on our Raspberry Pi.

1. The first app it sets up is TeslaMate itself.

2. Next is the database service that

TeslaMate needs to store its data. In this
case, it will be PostgreSQL.

3. Additionally, Grafana will be set up within

a Docker container as well. Grafana is how
you will view all the data that TeslaMate
gathers on your Raspberry Pi.

4. The final Docker container that will be

installed to the system is the Mosquitto
broker. This broker is what allows other
services like HomeAssistant to interact
with TeslaMate.

Terminal $  Copy

nano docker-compose.yml

8. Within this file, you will want to enter the

following lines into the file.

While entering these configuration files into the

file, you must replace the following two
elements.

[REPLACEWITHENCRYPTKEY] – This key is

essential as it is used to encrypt the Tesla
API keys while they sit on your Raspberry
Pi.

Ensure you set a long random key for this

key.

[REPLACEWITHDBPASSWORD] – Next, you

must specify a password for the
PostgreSQL database. There are three
occurrences of this within the file.

This database is where TeslaMate will

store all of its data while it runs on your
Raspberry Pi.

Add >  Copy

version: "3"

services:
teslamate:
image: teslamate/teslamate:lates
restart: always
environment:
- ENCRYPTION_KEY=[REPLACEWITHE
- DATABASE_USER=teslamate
- DATABASE_PASS=[REPLACEWITHDB
- DATABASE_NAME=teslamate
- DATABASE_HOST=database
- MQTT_HOST=mosquitto
ports:
- 4000:4000
volumes:
- ./import:/opt/app/import
cap_drop:
- all

database:
image: postgres:14
restart: always
environment:
- POSTGRES_USER=teslamate
- POSTGRES_PASSWORD=[REPLACEWI
- POSTGRES_DB=teslamate
volumes:
- teslamate-db:/var/lib/postgr

grafana:
image: teslamate/grafana:latest
restart: always
environment:
- DATABASE_USER=teslamate
- DATABASE_PASS=[REPLACEWITHDB
- DATABASE_NAME=teslamate
- DATABASE_HOST=database
ports:
- 3000:3000
volumes:
- teslamate-grafana-data:/var/

mosquitto:
image: eclipse-mosquitto:2
restart: always
command: mosquitto -c /mosquitto
# ports:
# - 1883:1883
volumes:
- mosquitto-conf:/mosquitto/co
- mosquitto-data:/mosquitto/da

volumes:
teslamate-db:
teslamate-grafana-data:
mosquitto-conf:
mosquitto-data:

9. With this done, you can save and quit by

pressing CTRL + X , followed by Y , and then
the ENTER key.

10. At this point, we can finally start

TeslaMate on your Raspberry Pi by using the
command within the terminal.

During the first start-up, Docker will download

the latest version of the TeslaMate container
alongside other software such as Grafana,
Postgres and Mosquitto.

Terminal $  Copy