It clearly seems people have different meanings to the word, then.

For example, if I am able to gain root access to a WiFi access point I own, even though the vendor has tried to prevent it, then yes, I would call it a hack. To me, it doesn't matter why or who is doing the steps.

In fact, I believe I have never before heard someone combine the meaning of the word to be related to the ownership of the device being hacked.

I suspect the number of people understanding the word in your way is a minority. Redefining terms doesn't help build mutual understanding: here we are taking a word some think has negative connotations and then remove the thing they think should be cool and ok, and then suggest that this is actually the real meaning of the word. Personally I don't think this is how words should be wielded.

This exploit is delivered through the charging cable to the wall box. These wall boxes are sometimes intentionally located in public spaces with the intent of allowing public charging, and Tesla has features specifically for that use case, so that cable is absolutely expected to be plugged in to untrusted vehicles.

It's a car the charging port is a viable physical perimeter, letting people inject code at the pump is a risk of design, not user error.

I thought the same thing. How white hat do you have to be to consider ineffective DRM a vulnerability?

Eh, that’s a bad generalization. defense in depth is a thing and there are many cases where you’d want to protect against attackers with physical access

They shouldn’t be able to do it through the charging cable though lol

Arguably it’s a crack. A good one, though.

I mean its still technically hacking, but not all hacking is bad/illegal.