Photo: Aiways U5, Geneva 2019 by Alexander Migl — CC BY-SA 4.0.

Aiways, a Chinese car company with a strong focus on the European market, disappeared with a weird message on their website. It is legally not bankrupt but does not answer mails, at the “headquarter” in Munich nobody is there anymore, the simcards in the cars and the servers seem to be offline and the app does not function anymore. All the former contractors (at least in Germany) deny warranty-based service and do not even have devices for analysis to do so. But the cars are usually still driving well, impossibly be older then six years and they are a bunch of computers and microcontrollers on wheels we all did pay a lot of money for. So let's play around a bit with those microcontrollers and computers we own. The one and only benefit of that situation: The car is very privacy friendly and does not send any telemetry data to China anymore.

OpenAiways.net is a place to collect and share information and insights about the electronics of that car (and maybe the mechanics as well? Not my expertise, but you are welcome to do so), to document all the findings and to discuss ideas and strategies to reclaim the Aiways U5 and U6.

The goal is to keep the car running, to reactivate or to regain or reinvent the missing features, to enhance the functionality and to fix bugs. It shall be an open documentation of the car — so the car keeps rolling long after the manufacturer walked away.

Remote Control A device with a low-power microcontroller and LTE modem will connect with the TBox and OBD2. An app for Android and a server will be created so U5 users get the remote preconditioning feature back.

Workshop manual A server will be created where we collect all information about repair procedures and replacement parts with links to alterntative sources.

3-Phase charging In the newest model of the U5 is a 3-phase charger. We want to investigate the settings, configuration and firmware of that charger to find a replacement routine for the legacy 1-phase charger. A real (even defect) car with 3-phase charging would be gold…

Parts calibration Some workshop procedures need calibration. We want to understand the processes and procedures and build tools to replace the server-based and encrypted procedure entirely. This is a high sensitive task which interfere with some very safety-relevant elements (steering, ESP, braking system etc.). For that task it would be best to get in touch wit

Place your donation here: Paypal Pool "Aiways Zerforschen"
Your donation helps to buy tools, damaged cars to investigate the components, spare-parts to teardown, gadgets to analyse the components at the deepest hardware level and tools and parts which could help to learn how to enhance the cars functionality. The money will not be used to pay for our time and work and you will not get any rights or guarantees from it.

• Architecture — The modules (head unit, MCU, TBox, CAN…) and how they connect.
• Hardware & OS — the i.MX6 head unit, a full board teardown, and the TBox gateway.
• Get in — root access to the entertainment-system and ADB over Wi-Fi; the foundation for everything else.
• CAN bus and the signal reference — how to read and command the vehicle bus.
• Connectivity — where the SIM lives and how the car reaches the outside world.
• TBox is understood, communication via Bluetooth is established, RSA key replacement over FTP works.
• OBD2 connection via bluetooth is established. Diagnostic information can be queried and gives proper results.

Additional modules the lane- and speed-limit-detection module, the interior cameras module, the charger, … Understanding the internal CAN bus Most features require a profound understanding of the messages at the internal CanBus. ⚠ WARNING Reading and writing to a vehicle's CAN bus and overriding driver displays carry real safety implications. Understand each step before. See the disclaimer. Preconditioning and remote Monitoring: Replacing the Aiways-Cloud, reusing or replacing the TBox for remote access and waking the high-voltage system for remote preconditioning and monitoring while parked. See roadmap.