[HN Gopher] Tesla ransoms car owner remotely by cutting 1/3 of t... ___________________________________________________________________ Tesla ransoms car owner remotely by cutting 1/3 of their range Author : noasaservice Score : 780 points Date : 2022-07-26 17:09 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (twitter.com) (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com) | madrox wrote: | I'm pretty short on Tesla. I'm hearing too many real customer | frustrations and no customer success stories. That company has | serious problems. | | If I had to guess, Musk is too distracted. Take your pick of | distractions, but the guy has been riding a rocket ship for so | long he hasn't yet noticed that it's run out of fuel. | 015a wrote: | I'm increasingly short on TSLA. Not directly due to the ethical | concerns surrounding this, but more importantly: as they fix | their supply chain & excellent competition enters the market, the | price of their used cars won't be so driven by lack of | supply+competition, and confusion about what exactly you're | getting when you buy a used Tesla will depress their values. | Depressed aftermarket values means more buyers who want a Tesla | will buy used, which will hurt new sales. | | Its a really scary kind of resonance at their scale. Most | companies who sell goods like these recognize that the | aftermarket value of their product _is_ a feature of new | products; its a factor in the buying matrix. Apple is a great | example; tons of people know and factor into the decision to buy | their products that they hold value better than the competition; | so a higher upfront cost can be worth it. But if Tesla is | scraping by and looking to move more and more of their | functionality into cloud-connected-feature-flags & | subscriptions, they're going to get eaten alive by competition | who can just say "our car is the same price but that's built in". | psi75 wrote: | xwdv wrote: | I'm wondering what the "ransom" aspect was? At first I thought | the car owner had driven somewhere suitably far, and then when | Tesla detected it, cut their range so they would never make it | back to any kind of charging location in time and basically be | left stranded? | bgirard wrote: | > Car is sold twice since, and now has a new owner (my customer). | It says 90, badged 90, has 90-type range. | | When they bought the car from the 3rd party, did they buy it as a | P60 or a P90? Did someone mis-represent the car when sold? Was it | Tesla or the previous owner? | | Was the badge on the back changed to P90? That doesn't sound like | a 'mistake' Tesla would make when making a warranty repair. | | Curial information here is missing. If the car was clearly a P60 | that was accidentally unlocked P90 then I would consider that | when buying the car that Tesla would lock it again when they | noticed. If the previous owner misrepresented the car as a P90 | and modified the badge then it's on them. | jsight wrote: | I wondered that too. It'd be extremely unusual for Tesla to go | as far as changing the badge. | | OTOH, a car dealer along the way might do that if they noticed | the discrepancy between the badge and what the software | reported. It'd be hard to blame them too, since people do | sometimes downgrade the badging on cars (eg, this "218i", lol: | https://carsandbids.com/auctions/Kmm4AgbK/2016-bmw-m2 ). | | It still leaves Tesla as the bad guy. The current owner bears | no relation to the ones who did it, and there's really no | reasonable process that could have allowed him to know that | this might happen. | Gunnerhead wrote: | Mind explaining the 218i joke? | huffmsa wrote: | It's a top of the class M2 model with cartoonishly big | wing, but has been badged as the bare bones entry level | 218i model as a joke. | clintonb wrote: | "M" is the highest trim level for BMW. 218i would be the | lowest trim for the BMW 2 series. The owner is passing an | M2 as a 218i. | bgirard wrote: | > It still leaves Tesla as the bad guy. | | I mostly agree. I think good customer service norms do | dictate a reasonable statute of limitation here. | | I think where it becomes interesting is if someone acted | negligently in the chain when they bought a P60 and sold it | off as a P90. If someone wasn't paying too much attention, | they might not have noticed at all. I for instance had no | idea which engine variant my car had (1.5L vs 2.0L) until I | realized my mpg was poor. So maybe it's a legit mistake. The | changing of the physical badge is very suspicious however. | But if Tesla changed the software badge then yes, I think | they deserve the blame. | jsight wrote: | Yeah, I think we are thinking similarly here. I've seen | some cases where FSD was lost where it was absolutely | dealer negligence. | | The bad thing is that Tesla sometimes takes a really long | time with these "audits". Its hard when the customer only | finds out what the dealer did after months of ownership. | adrianmonk wrote: | > _Was the badge on the back changed to P90? That doesn 't | sound like a 'mistake' Tesla would make when making a warranty | repair._ | | It's conceivable. As far as I can tell, Tesla seems to offer | battery replacement as a paid, after-the-fact upgrade. | Presumably/hopefully that comes with a new badge since it | affects the resale value. | | The mechanics could have, through lack of communication or | coordination, performed that same procedure for this warranty | repair. | | (But that's speculation, and really we just need more info.) | sjm-lbm wrote: | > If the previous owner misrepresented the car as a P90 and | modified the badge then it's on them. | | I'm not entirely sure if I agree with this - they didn't just | modify the badge, they also provided the additional rage from a | P90. | | As a thought experiment: if I sell you a BMW 328i as a 340i but | I also swap the engine and sell it with the additional power | that comes with that change, have I misled you? Perhaps - I'm | honestly not sure - but I don't think selling a car with a P90 | badge _that also includes the modifications needed to have that | car act as a P90_ is automatically wrong. | bradleysmith wrote: | > if I sell you a BMW 328i as a 340i but I also swap the | engine and sell it with the additional power that comes with | that change, have I misled you? | | Amongst car people, I think you have. Motor swaps come with | all sorts of other risks. Hell, it's good manners to disclose | if you swapped a motor for equivalent power, for helping the | next owner diagnose any problems or be aware of mileage | discrepancies. | | It'd be good manners at the very least to disclose something | was purchased as one model, but made to be equal to a | different model by whatever means. It could have future | implications to the buyer, just like the ones in this story. | bgirard wrote: | The key of this issue here is that there's a software lock | that's been incorrectly unlocked. So it's a reasonable | assumption that it might become locked again in the future. | Regardless of the product, I believe that morally it needs to | be disclosed to the buyer so that they can be aware of the | risk and factor that into their buying decision and pricing. | | > I don't think selling a car with a P90 badge that also | includes the modifications needed to have that car act as a | P90 is automatically wrong. | | Neither do I. I'm okay with 'Here's my P60, that Tesla | accidentally unlocked.' but not 'Here's my P90'. | dagss wrote: | I disagree with "it's a reasonable assumption that it might | become locked again in the future". Unless this was very | explicitly explained by Tesla to first customer. | | The default assumption is going to be "they were out of | 60kWH batteries so they gave me a 90kwh battery" end of | story. And gifts cannot in general be taken back. Certainly | not from later owners. | | It is not like Tesla will give you lots of information. I | know that my own replacement battery in my own Model S was | a refurbished one, not a new one, because of the letters | "RFRB" or something on my receipt. At no points in their | process do they provide more details than the very minimum | or let you talk to humans that can meaningfully answer | questions (in my own experience). | | If this info (that it was not supposed to be a gift) it was | given to the customer probably in the form of | "99kwhlckdwn60" on the receipt and no further info or | something equivalently obscure. | | If it looks like a gift, why not assume it was a gift? It | is entirely reasonably they would gift 30kwh more if 60kwh | was out of stock? | ClumsyPilot wrote: | > it's a reasonable assumption that it might become locked | again in the future | | it is absolutely not reasonable that someone will mess with | your car, whether they do it by software or by breaking | into yuour garage. Both should be treated as crimes. | | If they want to touch the car, they need concent of it's | legal owner or they can go to court, and make their case to | the judge. I wonder if they can convince a Judge that Joe | Bloggs should let them mess with his car, because they made | a mistake while servicing Jamed Smith 10 years ago. Most | likely the judge would tell them to get lost, it's their | mistake after all. | humanwhosits wrote: | Sounds like this should be a lawsuit instead | 1970-01-01 wrote: | Very yes. Litigate in small claims, win, and move on with life. | pid_0 wrote: | The big brands like ford who actually know how to make a car are | going to swallow Tesla. Tesla had a jump on them for sure, and | sold a cool brand, but their cars have major qc issues, the | company is a mess, and I do not trust them long term. Bet on the | real auto makers. | zcw100 wrote: | So the way I'm reading the post is Tesla swapped out a battery | pack for a 60 with a 90 and enabled the 90. Tesla, years later, | discovers that even though the hardware for a 90 was installed it | should have been software limited to be a 60. (I'm assuming that | Tesla only made the owner pay the cost of the 60 battery swap | even though they replaced it with a 90). They go and "fix the | glitch" and set it back to the 60. Since the new owner bought it | thinking it was a 90, because it was enabled to be a 90, | presumably paid for it assuming this was the case and is now | upset because they don't have what they thought they bought. | | Sounds like all around bad decisions. The previous owner | shouldn't have sold it as a 90 or at least disclosed that, "It's | a 60 but Tesla swapped out the batter with a 90 and left it | configured as a 90". Tesla, being notified, should have just | enabled the 90 and made the customer happy. How exactly are | people supposed to abuse this? Tesla put the 90 in there and | they're the only ones who are going to be doing that. Presumably | this cost them a fortune to do it in the first place. Why not get | some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about your battery. We only | had a 90 so we threw that in there. Enjoy. Tell everyone you know | about how awesome Tesla was about fixing the problem and remember | that next time you go to buy your next car" | thayne wrote: | Just the fact that they can do this makes me not want to own a | tesla. | kube-system wrote: | I find it less concerning that they can do it, and more | concerning that they _do_ do it. If a company treats their | customers like crap, they have more avenues to do so than | OTAs. | MichaelCollins wrote: | Not only will Tesla do something like this, but it seems | half their customers will defend Tesla for doing it. So | there isn't even consumer pressure for reform. Tesla is | going to keep doing shit like this because their fanboys | will continue to defend it. | simion314 wrote: | And on top of that you will always have extra stuff to worry | about when buy a Tesla, on top of all the risks of buying a | used car you have the extra risks that Tesla will push an | update and cripple your stuff , so in the end you don't own a | functional car , you own some useless material stuff and a | license to use it, Tesla pushes an software update and you are | screwed. No wonder people prefer to buy very old cars that are | simpler to own and fix. | Lazare wrote: | > The previous owner shouldn't have sold it as a 90 or at least | disclosed that, "It's a 60 but Tesla swapped out the batter | with a 90 and left it configured as a 90". | | I mean, it's actually is a 90, and it was configured as a 90 | when sold, and we have no idea why that happened, nor what the | original owner knew or (crucially) was told by Tesla. | | > Why not get some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about your | battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. Enjoy. | Tell everyone you know about how awesome Tesla was about fixing | the problem and remember that next time you go to buy your next | car" | | We have _zero_ reason to think that 's not a literal transcript | of what the original owner was told when their car was repaired | under warranty. | | Even if it wasn't, if you take a product in for a repair under | warranty, you expect it to be returned in same or better | configuration (that's actually a legal requirement), so if you | drop off a broken Widget 500X, and then you pick it up and it's | now a newer Widget 600X, the absolutely inevitable conclusion | is "oh, I bet they were out of stock of the 500Xs, so they gave | me a 600X, score", and then you think nothing of it, and years | later you sell the 600X on Ebay when you upgrade to the latest | Widget 800Z. That's just _how it works_ , and I suspect most | people here will have experienced that exact sequence of | events. | | (There's also a non-zero chance, given Tesla's general level of | customer service, that it _was_ locked to be a 60, a previous | owner already paid to unlock it to a 90, and then they lost the | records.) | | The only way I can see we can blame the original owner is if | they were told during the warranty process "hey, we're | installing a 90, but we'll be locking it to a 60", then Tesla | accidentally failed to do it. Which sure, _could_ happen, but | it really seems like the least likely result. | | I certainly agree that Tesla today is handling this in the | worst way possible. | gonzo41 wrote: | This one of those really easy, Bank error in your favour, sorts | of problems where all Telsa had to do is just leave the 90 | alone and essentially tighten up it's internal processes. I | have a hard time with tech that has software kill switches. | Like all those farm tractors out there, it just invites a | culture of hacking and stealing and probably doing unsafe and | risking things. This is a space where we totally need to see | proper regulation. | unixbane wrote: | What the fuck, if I RMA something and they replace a component | in it with a better one, and I happen to be informed of which | one they replaced, I need to resell it as if it doesn't have | the better component, because I just assume the worst case | possible which I would have only imagined if I read this | thread? (I don't think it was resold "as a 90", unless that was | the sole differentiator, yeah I'm not an expert in meme cars) | | inb4: Yes, I'm an expert at cucking myself to vaguely | justifiable corporate laws and behavior. | lwhi wrote: | I agree it's a rat's nest of bad decisons. | | But ultimately, all it reinforces to me is that there is no | chance in hell I will ever give money to a company that can | remotely perform this type of sanction on a product I own. | | I will never buy a Tesla. | cyanydeez wrote: | Welcome to DRM hell. | | Basically you're always going to want flexibility in hardware, | but infinite limits in usage. | | Tesla is in the wrong here. If your hardware allows greater | range because it allows flexibility in warranty repairs, they | need to eat it. | gambiting wrote: | >> (I'm assuming that Tesla only made the owner pay the cost of | the 60 battery swap even though they replaced it with a 90) | | It says right there that it was done under warranty. | | If my RTX3080 breaks, and Nvidia sends me a 3080Ti as a | replacement(because maybe they don't have any 3080 in stock) | then no, they can't lock it down to 3080 level 3 years later | with a software update. And yes, I'm allowed to sell it on as a | 3080Ti, because....that's what it is. | | >>The previous owner shouldn't have sold it as a 90 or at least | disclosed that, "It's a 60 but Tesla swapped out the batter | with a 90 and left it configured as a 90". | | Maybe, but again, I don't see why that should be necessary. | Tesla should not have been able to do this, period. | teawrecks wrote: | The customers enforce this. IANAL, but afaik there's no law | (in the US) that enforces this. | | The only place I know of that may have a relevant law to | enforce this is Norway and their Norwegian Marketing Control | Act that prohibits withdrawing a key feature after sale. | Accidental upgrade after a repair under warranty may or may | not be included in this. | Robotbeat wrote: | I agree with the parent poster that the seller carries some | of the blame, here, but that sounds like a good law. | danudey wrote: | Imagine Apple replacing your broken Macbook Pro M1 base model | with the upgraded model because they didn't have any exact | replacements in stock, and then years later deciding to | disable two of the CPU cores, two of the GPU cores, and half | the SSD space (1 TB to 512 GB). People, especially on HN, | would lose their freaking minds. | | They would also lose their minds if Apple only sold the | highest-end model but firmware-locked CPU cores and SSD space | unless you paid extra for it, or, even better, paid a | subscription for it. | | Refresh rates up to 120 Hz, available for $4.99 per month! | isametry wrote: | We've come a full circle where rather than using the "Car | Analogy" to picture the consumer realities of personal | electronics ("imagine if they locked the performance of | your car like they do with your phone"), it's now the other | way around ("imagine if they locked down your laptop like | they do with your car"). | htrp wrote: | And welcome to the dystopian nightmare that is a | subscription based service for features like heated | seats. | rsynnott wrote: | Intel has occasionally done this: | https://www.zdnet.com/article/facepalm-of-the-day-intel- | char... | | It tends not to go down well. | [deleted] | elzbardico wrote: | Please, don't give them ideas. | vkk8 wrote: | > Maybe, but again, I don't see why that should be necessary. | Tesla should not have been able to do this, period. | | Maybe you're right. However, much of the modern hardware | business operates this way. At least Nvidia and Intel have | been known to sell the same chips as different models, but | just some part of the chip disabled via firmware. | throw_nbvc1234 wrote: | A decade or so ago you used to be able to unlock cores on | certain AMD CPU's; there was no guarantee that the core would | be stable though. The core could be fine without heavy load | and have errors when pushed closer to 100%. | | If there was a similar level of binning done for Tesla | batteries they should be able to limit the battery especially | if there are safety concerns; sounds like that's not the case | here though. | masklinn wrote: | > A decade or so ago you used to be able to unlock cores on | certain AMD CPU's; there was no guarantee that the core | would be stable though. The core could be fine without | heavy load and have errors when pushed closer to 100%. | | That also used to happen a lot with Intel CPUs, especially | late in a product cycle: after refining fab their yields | would be so good there wasn't any "bad" part to bin down, | so they'd just soft-disable cores on high-end parts (I | think after a while manufacturers started fusing the | cores). | beebeepka wrote: | More than a decade ago. ATi 9800SE could also be modded to | 9800pro which was probably the best card at the time. | corrral wrote: | At least as early as the late 90s, servers were sometimes | sold with parts--disks, controller cards, CPUs (in the days | when multi-socket was more common), et c--disabled in | software, unlockable if you paid for an upgrade. | bb88 wrote: | This is true of test bench equipment today. They use this | for vertical marketing. I'm fine with it since it's | mostly just software anyway. | | Yes you can hack it, and people do, but if you're going | to use it for proper validation and certification, you're | going to pay for those features anyway. | Mountain_Skies wrote: | That sort of thing has been going on for a long time. The | 32K TRS-80 Color Computer often had 64K RAM chips | installed. Early on they were populated with "half bad" 64k | RAM chips, with a jumper set to which half contained the | bad memory. Later in the product cycle, half bad chips | really didn't exist anymore, but Radio Shack still wanted | to be able to charge more for 64K models, so they still | jumper disabled one of the banks of memory on models sold | as 32K. Lots of people figured out they could remove the | jumper to get a free upgrade of double the memory. | metacritic12 wrote: | What if the story above is the same but they locked it down | as 3080 on return? | jabbany wrote: | > no, they can't lock it down to 3080 level 3 years later | with a software update | | I think the problem is that there are 2 different types of | "can't": can't as in technologically impossible, and can't as | in legally disallowed. | | In the past, the former was usually the case. Vendors | literally could not technologically take away features | because things either were not controlled by software or | software could not tell the hardware apart because there were | no unique identifiers. Because of this nobody really pushed | for the legal protections, and as such they do not exist | today (at best you _might_ be able to claim misrepresentation | by the previous owner and get a return or refund, like if | someone sells a LHR card as if it were non-LHR. But with a | large purchase like a car, that would be costly time and | money wise). | | > Tesla should not have been able to do this, period. | | Yeah, morally, but we need to start working to make this | guaranteed legally. As it is now, "Nvidia sends me a 3080Ti | as a replacement (because maybe they don't have any 3080 in | stock) then no, they can't lock it down to 3080 level 3 years | later with a software update" is totally allowed. | | Heck, they could even cut down all legitimate 3080Tis to what | would be 3080 or even 1060 performance via drivers after 3 | years and you'd be able to do nothing besides complain on | social media -- you still have exactly the amount of hardware | sold, and they never promised any performance levels (just | check their site, you only get things like compute units, | clock speed, ram etc. not performance guarantees like FLOPs | or FPS) | shadowgovt wrote: | Indeed. This is recapitulation of the old fight Intel got | themselves into trying to implement market discrimination | via selling chips that could be overclocked but setting | them to underclock because it was cheaper to sell all the | same chip and then underclock the ones that didn't pass | their performance tests in the warehouse (or even that did, | but they didn't have enough low-end chips in the pipeline) | then it was to physically make multiple different dies of | high and low clock chips. | | Tesla installed a 90 battery because it was easier and | faster to do that than wait around for a 60 battery to show | up in the distribution pipeline. They then let the customer | take advantage of the fact that they had given them an | "overclocked" battery. Trying to force price discrimination | at this point is at the very least a bad look and may | actually be a violation of the law regarding principle of | second sale. | jabbany wrote: | Yeah. It does remind me of things like heated seat | subscriptions for some other brands. | | IIRC there you had 2 models, both with the same heated | seat hardware, but if you paid for the feature outright | during purchase, it will be enabled perpetually even | after any resale. But the subscription model would | require the subscription be re-applied by the new buyer. | And, possibly, if you resold the remaining subscription | time would not transfer (?). | thereddaikon wrote: | >Heck, they could even cut down all legitimate 3080Tis to | what would be 3080 or even 1060 performance via drivers | after 3 years and you'd be able to do nothing besides | complain on social media -- you still have exactly the | amount of hardware sold, and they never promised any | performance levels (just check their site, you only get | things like compute units, clock speed, ram etc. not | performance guarantees like FLOPs or FPS) | | They can't legally do that now either. Apple was challenged | in court for doing something similar and lost. There's | already legal precedent. The problem is while that can't do | that legally, they can do it technically and the path to | recourse for the individual is difficult and often not | worth it. Which means they can usually get away with it. | | We need a way for the legal system do deal with these kinds | of things that don't involve actually going to the over | worked and too expensive courts to settle it. | [deleted] | jabbany wrote: | Assuming this refers to Batterygate, the loss was only in | the EU where they do have better consumer protections. | | They actually settled in the US to avoid setting | precedent... | thrown_22 wrote: | It's called small claims court. | dimitrios1 wrote: | > We need a way for the legal system do deal with these | kinds of things that don't involve actually going to the | over worked and too expensive courts to settle it. | | Arbitration? | | Could also gather a class. Unless if we are saying the | argument is we shouldn't _have_ to do these things. I | agree, this is true. We also don 't have to purchase | Teslas if they indeed do these types of things on the | regular. | MetaWhirledPeas wrote: | > Yeah, morally, but we need to start working to make this | guaranteed legally. | | I'm not sure I disagree with you, but the invocation of the | word "morally" here really reminds me of the software | licensing debates from twenty-something years ago. Twenty | years later most people seem resigned on the software | licensing issue (although I doubt their opinion has | changed), and they seemed resigned on limiting their | ability to run custom software on hardware they paid for | (jailbreaking an Apple phone), but there is still plenty of | grumbling for software that limits access to hardware | _features_. Tesla limiting the battery capacity is not | really different from Apple limiting which OS 's you can | install on their hardware. Unless I'm missing something? | jabbany wrote: | Yeah, there's no logical distinction, only a moral one. | | Imagine 3 scenarios: | | Company A rolls out a new mandatory update to a phone | that addresses a CPU vulnerability, and to compensate for | the reduced performance, overclocks the CPU so now your | battery life is 20% shorter. | | Company B rolls out a new mandatory update to a phone | that improves the battery management so phones do not | shut down unexpectedly. However, due to lack of hardware | battery reporting when the device was built, they could | only estimate the capacity based on the phone's age and | natural battery degradation. This causes older phones to | have 20% shorter battery life, even though some batteries | that were not used as hard could have supported longer. | | Company C rolls out a new mandatory update to a phone | that detects the phones age and reserves 20% battery | capacity on older phones, forcing them to have 20% | shorter battery life so users are incentivized to | upgrade. | | The end result is the same, a phone with worse battery | life, but we don't see all of them to be morally the | same. The only real difference is the human intent behind | it, which is why we probably eventually need regulations | that make sure companies should justify that they have a | reasonably good intent if challenged. Getting this right | is very hard -- you don't want to overburden companies | from frivolous cases, but you also want regulations to be | effective so they can't just handwave them away. | datavirtue wrote: | Too much pedantry. If it doesn't benefit the consumer | unequivocally, don't fucking do it. | CamperBob2 wrote: | Better still, _tell me_ what the update does, then offer | me the choice. | | Obviously that's easier said than done for a complex | product, but don't expect sympathy when you screw up. | Moving away from monolithic all-or-nothing OS updates | would certainly help. | extropy wrote: | Offering a choice is tricky here. Since failures are | significantly affected by the software ability to | properly manage the device (and needs to be updated | periodically to keep that up to date). | | So yeah you can choose to keep the old version and loose | warranty, cheers! | | Im not sure what the legal side of warranty conditions | is. But outdated software is potentially a very real cost | to the manufacturer in therms of extra warranty work. | runnerup wrote: | Three types: | | The person you're responding to meant "can't" as is | "socially disallowed". | jabbany wrote: | "Socially disallowed" is not a thing that can be implied | through "can't" though, as that's just a convention and | courtesy. | | OP probably would like to have the legal guarantee, but | it's a fight that's still in-progress. | JadeNB wrote: | > "Socially disallowed" is not a thing that can be | implied through "can't" though .... | | You are actually implicitly doing it right there! A | slight re-wording of your post is "'Socially disallowed' | can't be implied through 'can't'" ... meaning that it is | socially/linguistically unable to be so implied (though I | disagree), not legally or technically so. | | And of course there are tons of other examples--when I | say that "you can't just [do that thing]", I very often | mean it is socially unacceptable to do it, not that it is | illegal or technically impossible to do it. | jabbany wrote: | I mean if the goal is "Socially disallowed" it should be | "shouldn't". | | "Can't" implies some kind of enforcement/compelling force | preventing that, either from nature, or some authority (a | nation state, a workplace superior, a parent of a child | etc.). As much as we might want it, society doesn't act | as an authority for this kind of stuff... | dragonwriter wrote: | Social sanction is an enforcement mechanism. | zozbot234 wrote: | > I think the problem is that there are 2 different types | of "can't": can't as in technologically impossible, and | can't as in legally disallowed. | | Exactly. Bait and switch is legally disallowed, even when | technically possible. | jabbany wrote: | Actually, it isn't bait and switch at all. Unless Tesla | advertised the upgraded capacity explicitly after the | service, you are not entitled to anything. | | This is why things like consumer CPUs and GPUs do not | advertise a guaranteed level of performance (they only | state things like clock speeds, core counts, memory etc.) | -- they are not liable if performance gets better or | worse down the line. There is no distinction between, | say, "games moved to a new API and now old cards are | slow" and "we made our new drivers make old cards slow on | purpose because we want to sell more new cards". | Companies don't do this because it's bad press if found | out (which is why there's this whole Twitter thread), not | because they are legally required to (at least in the | US). | jtbayly wrote: | Did you read the post? It said it was a 90. | jabbany wrote: | Actually it didn't. The post said the battery had a 90 | badge and the car reported capacity as if it were 90. | | Neither of these are direct claims by Tesla that an | "upgrade" happened. | | Some 2060s also have dies marked for 2080s that are then | fused (re: badging doesn't imply performance). Similarly, | you could potentially overclock a GPU and end up having | measured performance that matched a higher model (re: car | reported capacity). In order for the upgrade to have | legally applied, they'd actually need to have stated that | it was indeed intended as an upgrade and came with new | guarantees that matched the higher performing model. | Based on reading the post, this never happened thus the | whole problem. | | If this did happen, the new owned could just produce the | documentation for the upgrade and it would be open-and- | shut resolved. | gambiting wrote: | No I don't think I agree. | | To use a different example someone brought up - imagine | your CPU breaks in your laptop. You send it to the | manufacturer, and they replace it with a higher model CPU | because <reasons> - cool, right? You sell it advertised | with that better CPU, then the next owner has to send it | in for another, completely unrelated repair, and the | manufacturer then says "oh we noticed the last repair | fitted more powerful CPU than intended, so we removed it | and fitted the original spec CPU". | | That wouldn't be just immoral, that would be actual | theft. | | The matter of fact is, after the warranty repair the guy | was given a car with a bigger battery and the bigger | capacity enabled in software. Whether Tesla intended to | do this or not, is completely and utterly irrelevant - it | was his to keep and sell. Now Tesla taking this away | _should_ be(but probably isn 't) illegal. You have a | product with a feature X, Tesla removed that feature and | in fact holds it ransom for payment - the fact that they | never intended to install it is irrelevant. | | To use a different example again - imagine you buy a new | car and the factory made a mistake and fitted an extra | option that you didn't order. Is the manufacturer in the | right to remove that part during your next service? | cynix wrote: | > the factory made a mistake and fitted an extra option | that you didn't order. Is the manufacturer in the right | to remove that part during your next service? | | Your bank makes a mistake and adds a million dollars to | your account balance when you tried to deposit $100. Is | the bank in the right to remove that when they discover | the mistake? | jabbany wrote: | I think there is a difference with Tesla though, because | they do segment based on software. So some of their | actual 60 level cars are sold with 90 batteries limited | in software. | | This is more akin motherboard manufacturers who would | unofficially unlock overclocking on unsupported chipsets | in first version firmware. If someone bought such a | board, overclocked the CPU, sold it, and then the next | owner sent the board back to the manufacturer for | unrelated repairs, and as part of fixing the other | problem the board manufacturer needed to do a BIOS | update, resulting in the overclocking feature being lost. | jtbayly wrote: | I'm sorry, in what world is having an actual 90 | physically installed by Tesla, and enabled physically by | Tesla, able to be used and reported as such in the Tesla | UI less relevant than some row in the Tesla sales db? | Tesla _did_ put in the 90 and enable it! | | The fact that there isn't a receipt proving that anybody | paid for it is irrelevant. It could have been a gift, a | reward, a thank you, a bribe, a reasonable business | decision given the parts on hand, or an accident. | Regardless, that's on Tesla. | | Am I required to ask the manufacturer if they will take | back the Chrome wheels when I buy a used car just to make | sure they didn't put them on accidentally? | jabbany wrote: | > in what world | | In our world? Based on the thread, Tesla did a battery | service on a model of car with a 60 battery. Unless it | was stated as upgraded, after the service it is still a | 60 car to the manufacturer. A 60 car that just happened | to be able to run at the performance level of a 90 | version. They then state this is a bug and fixed it. | | It's immoral on Tesla's side, for sure, but the previous | owner selling it as an "upgraded" car without | documentation is the real problem. We all know that Tesla | does this market segmentation using software, so this | should mean that just because the hardware's badge states | something does not mean the thing will be guaranteed | available. | | > Am I required to ask the manufacturer if they will take | back the Chrome wheels when I buy a used car just to make | sure they didn't put them on accidentally? | | No, but if it turns out you mistook plastic for Chrome, | it's on you (or on the seller if they misrepresented it | knowingly). Just because you can't see lack of software | license, doesn't mean it's there. | | If you buy a laptop with a pirated copy of Windows, and | later after a couple of updates the OS detects this asks | for activation, do you go to Microsoft to ask them to | enable your pirated software or do you go to the seller | of the laptop? | lovecg wrote: | Who installed the pirated copy in this hypothetical? If | it was Microsoft itself for whatever reason, then yeah - | it's on them to make the customer whole. | thfuran wrote: | >If you buy a laptop with a pirated copy of Windows, and | later after a couple of updates the OS detects this asks | for activation, do you go to Microsoft to ask them to | enable your pirated software or do you go to the seller | of the laptop? | | Except in this scenario, it wasn't pirated by the owner, | _it was literally installed by Microsoft_ | cycomanic wrote: | > > in what world | | > In our world? Based on the thread, Tesla did a battery | service on a model of car with a 60 battery. Unless it | was stated as upgraded, after the service it is still a | 60 car to the manufacturer. A 60 car that just happened | to be able to run at the performance level of a 90 | version. They then state this is a bug and fixed it. | | It is completely irrelevant what type of car it is, they | installed a 90 battery and enabled it. This is not a | software licence. Are you saying it would also have been | OK for Tesla at the next service to take out the battery | and reinstall a 60 because they made a mistake 3 years | ago? That's exactly what they did here. I also doubt that | it is legal, there are implicit contracts in the warranty | service and when they put in the 90 battery, you can't | just renegade on those things. I have the suspicion that | way too many people here have been working for too long | in software, which has always been in a grey zone between | purchase and licence and thus got away with things that | hardware people never did. | jabbany wrote: | > and enabled it | | Did they though...? If they did you'd think there'd be | documentation of that provided as a part of the service. | | The problem with this is that there is no direct | comparable parallel. Physical removal is not allowed, and | that most agree with. But this is not the same, there was | no physical change, only a software lock. You and I would | maybe like it to be treated the same, but it isn't yet. | | Software licenses are revoked quite frequently. Game | console vendors can blacklist serials bricking essential | features of a game console, Steam blacklists stolen | activation keys, storage providers can "expire" free | space from promos that never included a time limit. | Porting the law naively would mean all of these are not | allowed either. | hgomersall wrote: | The problem is it's not just a software tweak, you're | also lugging around 30kWh of batteries. They are useful | when they add range; less so when they're just dead mass. | | The response to this would be, fine reduce my range, but | also swap out the battery for the proper size. | asvitkine wrote: | Unless they use different types of batteries for 60kWh | that don't have the same energy density. | | And assuming the software change didn't account for that | by giving a bit more capacity. | jabbany wrote: | IIRC some (?) of their lower capacity cars come out of | the factory with higher capacity batteries + a software | lock and you can pay to enable the extra capacity ($4500 | according to this post apparently). | | So, the dead mass is there even in brand new cars. I'm | guessing the 60 -> 90 swap is because they're not making | 60 anymore and it's just all 90 with a software cap... | The OP thread even mentions that essentially Tesla forgot | to lock the capacity and just left it with the full 90. | | Basically it's the whole issue about takebacks of | physical features via digital un-licensing. There is no | direct parallel in the past. A dealership removing | accidentally installed physical components after an | unrelated service is unacceptable. A digital provider | revoking accidentally provided licenses seems pretty | common (I still remember Dropbox giving free storage in | very early on promos and later going "oops, that actually | expires!"). So this is kind of in the middle. A digital | license that controls access to a physical good. | nicoburns wrote: | I feel like digital licenses that control access to | physical goods should just be banned. Putting a 90kwh | battery in a car and not letting people use it is | incredibly wasteful in a world where battery supply is a | key limiting factor on EV production. | Accujack wrote: | >Yeah, morally, but we need to start working to make this | guaranteed legally. | | Good luck with that. The main reason it isn't illegal is | the people who have been in charge of the Federal | government are too old to understand computers. They've | never updated most laws for the computer age, which is why | it's legal to eavesdrop on someone's e-mail but not their | paper mail, why corporations aggregating huge amounts of | data together to know more about their customers than the | customers know is legal, and why it's legal for Tesla to do | what they did here. | | Get the money, geriatrics and religion out of the US | government and make it functional again, then we can fix | things like this. Until then, lotsa luck. | jabbany wrote: | > The main reason it isn't illegal is the people who have | been in charge of the Federal government are too old to | understand computers. | | But this is a self-resolving problem. Eventually the | older generation will just... you know... die off... | | The more problematic thing is the whole lobbying | situation where money is doing the talking. Consumers in | general don't have nearly enough money to be viable as | political pressure. | | What really needs to happen is for consumers to be on | comparable footing with industry lobbies in terms of | political say, and clearly just relying on voting is not | cutting it, since you often have cases where all the | candidates are different kinds of bad just backed by | different lobbies... | winternett wrote: | Even still, who in their right mind is going to pay a | lawyer $10k+ to present a case over a $2k GFX card? Or | even do a class action suit just to be mailed a $3 check | after the legal fees are worked out... It's all | impossibly far from functional. | winternett wrote: | A TON of hardware related things are hobbled and even retired | by manufacturers in driver updates and the lack thereof now. | Entire pre built computers can easily be rendered obsolete by | dropping support for network cards, peripherals, video | drivers, almost anything when OS updates, software upgrades, | or other dependencies are issued... | | Non-Technical people suffer the most from this game... The | person who doesn't know how to look up and install drivers | (Your Dad or Grandma) usually then needs to go out an buy a | brand new computer every 2-3 years, simply because the device | stops working.. A relatively easy fix to us generates | billions of dollars for companies that know the system is | broken, and they conveniently don't want to fix that system | because it would cut their revenue. | | As software permeates the car making industry, they actually | wouldn't mind making all cars leased and/or disposable like | computer devices, they run online campaigns on reddit against | car ownership, and brigade endlessly about the environmental | benefits of EVs, which still to this day use tons of toxic | materials in batteries and non-bio-degradable plastics as | well. | | Even the madness over each new minorly adjusted variation of | video card that comes out is driven by this drive to maximize | company profit is quite harmful to the environment and our | health, without any sense of responsibility held by the | companies that drive this consumerism. | | We pay a lor for these products, we need to all be better at | demanding proper product support and quality, and we need to | stop continually and carelessly renewing everything tech that | we buy, even if we have the extra money burning a hole in our | pocket... Because ultimately it's destroying us all. | gigatexal wrote: | This is my understanding as well. | mgdlbp wrote: | The general concept of software and hardware impaired by the | maker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippleware | | Relevantly, | | > ==Automobiles== | | > Tesla limits the range on lower-end versions of the Model S | in software, as well as disabling Autopilot functions if | those functions weren't purchased. | | > Some high-end BMW cars in [list of countries] have the | option to pay a subscription fee for features such as heated | seats, advanced cruise control, and automatic beam switching. | The components and functionality already exist within the | vehicle, but BMW has a software block that prevent them from | being used without paying. | | (#2 was recently on HN) | walrus01 wrote: | > If my RTX3080 breaks, and Nvidia sends me a 3080Ti as a | replacement(because maybe they don't have any 3080 in stock) | then no, they can't lock it down to 3080 | | You underestimate the potential for straight up evil in | $BIGCORP, nvidia treating video cards like HP treats consumer | inkjet printers in the future is something I would be totally | unsurprised by. | wang_li wrote: | Intel literally did this last month. Seems that some | motherboard manufacturers were selling systems that allowed | the Alder Lake CPUs to user AVX512, which is not a feature | advertised on those CPUs. Intel released a new microcode that | disables it. | tomohawk wrote: | Except that with something like a Tesla, you are not buying | the car. You are buying a piece of paper that grants you | specific use of a car. | | This means that in the future, everyone will need to retain a | lawyer conversant in contract law when making any sort of | purchase, as what is being purchased may have little to do | with the thing you think you have bought, and everything to | do with the abstract contract that the lawyer can understand. | | The World Economic Forum thinks this is a great idea. I can't | wait til those guys are run out of town. | hef19898 wrote: | So kind of a NFT for a car then? | 7thaccount wrote: | Again...I don't know why people willingly buy from companies | like Tesla or BMW when they treat customers so poorly. | saynay wrote: | We are going to be seeing this more frequently in cars, and | probably hardware overall. Having a single hardware spec that | is license-limited to various levels is just cheaper for the | manufacturer in how it simplifies their logistics. It also | provides additional revenue options from existing customers | that might want to "upgrade" at a later date. | | On the plus side, if you can figure out how to sideload your | car you get a free range extension on your battery. | tj-teej wrote: | "because....that's what it is" | | I think this is the key problem here. Tesla is asserting the | right to decide for the owner what the car "is". Kinda brings | into question who the "owner" "is"... | hef19898 wrote: | If something runs software that either isn't air gapped, | eg. cars, or that can recwived forced updates, e.g. OTA | updates, obviously the person buying the device is _not_ | the owner. Legally for sure you are the owner, in oractical | terms less so. And in case of cars, even if the embedded | software is air-gaped, if you cannot choose your garage | (liscensed garages may perform software uodates wothout you | knowing) you kind of loose some "ownership" as well. | jdgoesmarching wrote: | Exactly this. Warranty replacements aren't a new concept, and | I have a feeling if this were any other brand HN wouldn't be | so insistent on taking a step back and thinking about who | else besides Tesla can be blamed when customers get the short | end of the stick. | x86_64Ubuntu wrote: | Yep, if it were John Deere or god-forbid, Google, HN would | be up in arms. | MichaelCollins wrote: | With most brands, if I get screwed as a consumer I can | generally expect other consumers to at least sympathize | with my plight. With Tesla and Apple, I fully expect for | other Tesla or Apple consumers to blame me for everything | wrong and defend the company blindly against all common | reason. | | Good brands to avoid for this reason, even if they do | make enviable hardware sometimes. | balls187 wrote: | > If my RTX3080 breaks, and Nvidia sends me a 3080Ti as a | replacement(because maybe they don't have any 3080 in stock) | then no, they can't lock it down to 3080 level 3 years later | with a software update. And yes, I'm allowed to sell it on as | a 3080Ti, because....that's what it is. | | What if it's a 3080Ti PCB but inside a RTX3080 card? Is it | ethical to sell it as a 3080Ti? | | What about an RTX3080 Card that Nvidia drivers mistakenly | identify as a 3080Ti and enable additional 3080Ti cores | (ignore how technically innaccurate that may be)? | | Reminds me of this video from LTT: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZ32mqmsrg | Phrodo_00 wrote: | This is not relevant, but this statement is all kinds of | weird: | | > What if it's a 3080Ti PCB but inside a RTX3080 card? Is | it ethical to sell it as a 3080Ti? | | The PCB (with the components on it) IS the card, what do | you mean they would swap? The cooler? The plastic bit in | front? Do you mean a 3080 card with a 3080TI Chip? | landryraccoon wrote: | I think the main issue as a consumer is, do I trust Tesla | to try to provide me with the best experience? Or are they | going to squeeze me and hit me with "aha, gotcha! you | should have read the fine print!" every time there's an | issue? | | As a consumer, it's extremely expensive to remain well | informed. I want to purchase from brands where I feel that | the company wants me to be happy, ESPECIALLY with such a | premium brand as Tesla. I certainly don't want to need a | lawyer on hand to figure out if I'm going to buy a lemon or | not. | | If Tesla makes an error, it should be resolved in the | Customer's favor, period. Why would anyone buy a Premium | (read: highly expensive) product if they know the company | is going to try to hit them with monkeys-paw customer | service terms? | datavirtue wrote: | Premium brand? Tesla build quality is right up there with | a 1940s hand built one-off car from any of the | manufacturers of the time (no down-voters, I'm not | exaggerating). | | Shit doesn't line up so they push on it real hard while | the glue dries. | sssilver wrote: | As a 2021 Model 3 owner who is mechanically inclined, | this resonates :( | sandworm101 wrote: | Then stick to buying Hondas and BMWs. There is a great ad | about a farmer bringing in his 100 year-old Porsche | tractor to a current Porsche car dealer for service. That | is true to life. Those who want a multi-decade | relationship with a manufacturer don't buy from the likes | of Tesla. They have not yet earned access to that | customer base. Ask Tesla to fix your classic Tesla from | decades past and they would probably laugh in your face. | | https://youtu.be/R8-9oIq1hxw | | Note how the dealer shows the customer the new part | _before it is installed_. Note how the customer doesn 't | hand over the keys until _fully knowing what is going to | be done_. Note that this old customer then decided to | double down by buying a new car from the company fixing | his tractor. Tesla has no respect for such concepts. | chiefalchemist wrote: | > Then stick to buying Hondas and BMWs... | | > Tesla has no respect for such concepts. | | Agreed. But it doesn't help that consumers have accepted | faux-trust (i.e., marketing) for real Trust. | | The key to real Trust is simple: It's earn. It can't be | ordered. Demanded. Come from nothing. Be bought. Etc. | | The irony here is, trust for Tesla is based on trust for | other like (read: premium) auto brands. But in the end, | it hasn't been earned. And it shows. | david_acm wrote: | > BMW | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32224378 | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32219870 | undersuit wrote: | There were some very powerful software upgrades you could | preform on GPUs... https://verrytechnical.info/safely- | unlocking-extra-shaders-i... | | Would AMD have been in the right to force a bios downgrade | in the next driver release? | | Also that LTT and a related Gamers Nexus video convinced me | to buy an obviously counterfeit "Nvidia GTX 970" from ebay, | report the seller for the sale, I got to keep it, I got | refunded, and then with the money I bought a bios writer | and flashed the card back to a "Nvidia GTX 550 Ti". | tomatotomato37 wrote: | While it doesn't apply to the Tesla case, this does bring | up an interesting question: if both cards share the same | PCB with differing QA standards, the card you got failed | those standards but was accidentally given a TI bios | anyway, and doesn't seem to crash in everyday workloads, is | it ethical to still sell it on as a TI, not knowing how | stable it is at extreme workloads? | HWR_14 wrote: | The proper analogy is that your Alienware breaks, and | Alienware replaces your RTX3080 with a 3080Ti. When you | resell it, you can and should identify it as an Alienware | with a 3080Ti. | balls187 wrote: | Upon closer analysis, all analogies will break down. I'd | argue the car in the sumtotal of all the parts in it. | | So rather your analogy about Alienware is: You own a dell | gaming pc. Under warranty repair, Dell replaces some of | the parts with parts from an Alienware build. | | Are you allowed to put on Alienware decals on your Dell | desktop and re-sell it as an Alienware? | avar wrote: | Upon closer analysis, all analogies will break down. | | I don't know if this has happened, but e.g. BMW will sell | you different types of maps to load into your car | navigation. What you paid for is centrally licensed | through authorized dealers. | | Let's say a technician loaded a more recent map of Europe | than the one you bought by mistake. Now you your | navigation computer breaks, and you have it replaced by | another technician at another authorized service center. | | They load the map they had on record for you into the new | car nav computer, which to you is the "older" version, | but the "newer" one was never one you had a license for. | | I'm pretty sure things like this have been happening for | at least a couple of decades with some manufacturers, | it's just that the "features" have become more major as | more things are software-driven, in this case the battery | capacity. | thaumasiotes wrote: | Well, I own a Dell gaming PC. It came with the "Alienware | Command Center" installed. | | I suspect it may _be_ an Alienware PC. If so, why wouldn | 't we call it that? | balls187 wrote: | > I suspect it may be an Alienware PC. If so, why | wouldn't we call it that? | | You could call it an Alienware PC. | | My question: Would it be ethical for you to represent it | as an Alienware PC, and sell it as an Alienware PC by | purposefully attempt pass it off by changing the | appearance to make it look like an Alienware PC? | | To add to the gray area: | | Say DELL XPS 1000 and Alienware 90210 are essentially the | same machine, save for custom tuning, drivers, and | cosmetics. Alienware gets a 25% markup. | | You have the XPS 1000, apply the custom tuning and | drivers to get the performance of the XPS to that of it's | Alienware's counterpart. | | Could you sell it for more than the market rate for a use | XPS1000? Yes. I'd argue you have added value by custom | tuning the PC. But I believe responsible to disclose that | it was an XPS that had been modified. | | Taking this back to cars. If an when I sell my Golf R, I | will disclose it has received a Stage 1 Turbo upgrade | (and hopefully use that to increase the resale value-- | though it typically does not except to other | enthusiasts). | datavirtue wrote: | Good idea. Tesla should make the badges out of little | screens. | mynameisvlad wrote: | > Taking this back to cars. If an when I sell my Golf R, | I will disclose it has received a Stage 1 Turbo upgrade | (and hopefully use that to increase the resale value-- | though it typically does not except to other | enthusiasts). | | But you're only doing this because it benefits you. If | the upgrade reduced your resale value, would you still | disclose it? Did you disclose it to insurance companies | when you had it done, since it could impact your rates? | | When I traded in my GTI for my Tesla I didn't mention the | aftermarket headlights I had installed nor the Stage 1. I | don't lose sleep over my decision, not that it would have | changed the number either way. | balls187 wrote: | > If the upgrade reduced your resale value, would you | still disclose it? Did you disclose it to insurance | companies when you had it done, since it could impact | your rates? | | Yes and No. | | Yes--simply because I'd rather cover my ass from a | lawsuit down the line if the new owner discovered the | aftermarket tune. | | No, as to my knowledge the insurance company doesn't care | about street legal aftermarket upgrades. | chris_wot wrote: | If it has Alienware parts, then: yes. | | Do you think that Dell should remotely access you | computer and artificially nobble it? | balls187 wrote: | > Do you think that Dell should remotely access you | computer and artificially nobble it? | | No. Just like I disagreed when Sony disabled Linux | support in the PS3 via Firmware update (they were hit | with a Class-Action for that). | | To my knowledge, on of the features of Tesla is that it | supports upgrades via OTA software updates. As another | commenter pointed it, by treating a Tesla vehicle as a | software platform, it allows Tesla to engage in behavior | which is quasi normal for say a smartphone, but causes | cognitive dissonance when you think of it as a car. | | E.g. Apple mistakenly allowing an unsupported feature on | an iphone SE, then removing that ability in a future IOS | update vs Toyota disabling AWD support on what should | have been a FWD vehicle SKU. | skyyler wrote: | Why use analogies at all? | | Tesla replaced a 60 with a 90, the owner now has a 90. | | They list it as a 90 when selling it. | | The new owner gets hit with the update to turn it back | into a 60. | | New owner is pissed at old owner, when they should be | pissed at tesla. | judge2020 wrote: | Tesla replaces a 60 with a 90, HQ says 'set this to be | 60', service center doesn't do it. Years later another | center looks at the config and fixes the mistake, | probably because there's a big warning and the | technicians before them ignored it out of goodwill. | | The OP is right in that Tesla should codify in the | goodwill of free upgrades when logistics doesn't allow | it, but they didn't, so the car being rebadged by the | owner as a 90 is an issue. | | This is the same argument as the Tesla heated seats | microtransaction: Tesla actually loses money on cars | without rear heated seats if they have to separate | "heated rear seats" and "non-heated rear seats" into a | new configuration, as it increases manufacturing | complexity and logistics (ie. the ability to reassign | same-spec cars to new owners if the existing owner backs | out of their reservation at the last minute). It makes | everything simpler to not make a M3 SR+ customer pay for | the heated rear sets and allow them to opt for it later. | kelnos wrote: | > _Tesla actually loses money..._ | | Tough shit? Why are we responsible for the success of | Tesla's business model? | | The bottom line here is that Tesla screwed up. If you | accidentally give a customer a feature, you don't take it | back years later (especially if, as in this case, the | product has changed hands to a new customer). You eat | your mistake, and consider it a goodwill expense. | | I guarantee you this Twitter thread has cost Tesla more | than the $4500 they charge for someone to click a couple | times in a UI to turn a 60 into a 90. | hgomersall wrote: | Except that 30kWh of batteries cost several thousand $ | wholesale, whereas heated seats cost pennies. | ianai wrote: | I think they could sue both, but any lawyer would go | after the entity with the larger resources aka Tesla. | (IANAL) | TillE wrote: | It is endlessly baffling to me that people love making | analogies (and arguing about analogies!) when the | situation is fairly simple to explain. | | Like another comment suggested, this is a small error in | the customer's favor, and companies who care about | customer satisfaction should really just eat the minimal | cost when stuff like this happens instead of getting | bogged down in technicalities. | skyyler wrote: | I understand it entirely (analogy is the core of | cognition, after all) but I do find it very troublesome | when simple concepts are mystified into religious debates | because someone or a small group of people feel the need | to flex how ULTIMATELY UNDERSTANDING they are. | | Like, no, if you can't use simple words to explain things | and you have to rely on extended metaphors to explain | things, you probably don't have the holistic | understanding you believe you have. | balls187 wrote: | If you take your previous comment, you wrote: | | > New owner is pissed at old owner, when they should be | pissed at tesla. | | The analogies are trying to explain why or why not the | owner should be pissed at Tesla, which if I understand | your argument is because it was Tesla who made the | change. | HWR_14 wrote: | > I'd argue the car in the sumtotal of all the parts in | it. | | It seems like you're agreeing with me and creating a less | appropriate analogy at the same time. | powerhour wrote: | Ironically, most analogies that I've seen compare other | things to cars. This is one of those cases where it's the | other way around. | colpabar wrote: | > Upon closer analysis, all analogies will break down | | so how about you just explain your position so that other | people who don't know the difference between an RTX3080 | and a 3080ti can also participate | balls187 wrote: | > so how about you just explain your position so that | other people who don't know the difference between an | RTX3080 and a 3080ti can also participate | | GP used RTX3080 and 8080Ti, my reply furthers that | discussion. | HWR_14 wrote: | The difference is irrelevant. It could be any part | replaced under warranty. The point is they both fulfill | the same function (graphics card), take the same slot on | the motherboard and the 3080Ti is better. | [deleted] | Zenst wrote: | Interesting comparision given didn't Nvidia sell people some | 30xx series graphics cards and then limit their has rate with | a driver update! Giving a situation were some people brought | a card for X ability of the card for an update to | artificially limit it? | enragedcacti wrote: | They started selling LHR cards with a nerfed hash rate but | it was clear up front that that is what you were buying. | Consultant32452 wrote: | Yep, as soon as the car leaves the shop configured as 90, if | Tesla discovers the error they should just laugh it off and | move on. The most they should do is inform the customer of | their error and be like "Bank error in your favor, keep your | 90." | 015a wrote: | > The previous owner shouldn't have sold it as a 90 or at least | disclosed that, "It's a 60 but Tesla swapped out the batter | with a 90 and left it configured as a 90" | | I'm not as sure about this take. Imagine if this were something | not connected to The Cloud; the seller sells the car they have, | its not their responsibility, nor should it be, nor has it ever | been, to know that this is a component that's Cloud Connected | and Tesla can just take it away with no notice. No other car | operates like that; even the new BMW shit isn't like that, its | pretty clear "this is a subscription which is bound to your | account, not the car". | | Very few consumer physical goods operate like that. Here's a | correlate: Intel bins chips. Imagine you buy a computer, you | get an i5, years later its upgraded to an i7, years later Intel | rolls around a software update and says "your desktop only | shipped with an i5, we're disabling two of the cores". That's | theoretically totally possible with Intel & partners control | over microcode & chipset updates; but it would be wild to | happen. | | Now, put yourself in the shoes of someone selling that desktop: | you sell the computer you have, it has an i7, "two years ago | the chip was upgraded", that's it. Let's say the price | difference between these two chips is, like, 20% of the total | cost of the machine. Would you, the seller, accept 20% less; in | other words, selling the laptop Intel may or may not create for | the buyer, in the unknowable future? Would you, the buyer, be | willing to pay 20% more, even knowing (or, more likely, not | knowing) that Intel could nerf the performance at any time? | sverhagen wrote: | Isn't it a bit akin to disclosing hidden defects for a house? | If you have known about those defects, or they were properly | disclosed to you when you bought the house, in many | jurisdictions you're responsible to disclose them to the next | buyer, are you not? | | I'm not on Tesla's side here: I have an expectation of | reasonability that they're not meeting, and I feel that | they've forfeited their "rights" to locking this | configuration down, a long time ago. | | But in parallel, it seems that strictly speaking the new | owner may also have some reasonable expectation that the | history of the care is relayed to them upon purchase. I say | "strictly" because I also understand that's not how it goes | in the real world. But since were hypothesizing here... | powerhour wrote: | The thing is this isn't a defect. Say my brand new house | came with a 40 gallon water tank and it failed (didn't | flood, just stopped heating). The home warranty company | provided a 45 gallon replacement. Nobody would expect that | to be disclosed years down the line. | edude03 wrote: | I think the difference is more in how you (or in this | case the previous owner) sells it. | | To stay with the water heater analogy - what if when the | water heater needs to be replaced under warranty and the | company says oh hey we have 40s in stock again so we're | sending you what you should have had? | powerhour wrote: | Whether or not they get the smaller units in stock, I | don't have to let them into my house to install it, nor | will a new owner of the home be expected to pay the | difference between the 40 and 45. It's a permanent | fixture. As is a battery in an electric car. | simondotau wrote: | The previous owner could have signed a rental agreement | for the interim tank. If so, it wasn't legally sold to | the new house owner. | | (And with that comment I get voted down. Odd.) | jabbany wrote: | Yep! If the buyer really wanted to go for someone, and | assuming Tesla didn't cave re-enable the upgrade, their | best bet is to go after the previous seller for | misrepresentation of a 60 model for a 90. This also happens | for cars sold as-is but where the dealer knows of defects | and does not disclose. To quote someone else, "as-is does | not cover fraud". | | All in all, it probably wouldn't be worth the time and | effort to actually do that though. And because the current | buyer is two steps removed from the actual person who was | around for the swap, they probably wouldn't actually get | anything back for that effort since the middle person is | also protected as they bought and sold in good faith. | jjulius wrote: | >Isn't it a bit akin to disclosing hidden defects for a | house? If you have known about those defects, or they were | properly disclosed to you when you bought the house, in | many jurisdictions you're responsible to disclose them to | the next buyer, are you not? | | "If" is the operative word there. The first tweet says that | this is the "~3rd owner of a 2013 Model S 60. At some point | years ago the battery pack was swapped under warranty with | a 90 pack." If the change occurred with the first owner, | it's possible that the second owner didn't realize the | magnitude of what they were told, or weren't even told at | all, before they sold it to the next person. | | It's also entirely possible that whoever had the battery | replaced just had absolutely no idea what had been done to | it. | 015a wrote: | Well, I think the issue is, no reasonable person would | consider "Tesla upgraded something under warranty" as a | defect. | | Here's another example: many car brands sell larger tires | as a feature of upper trim models. Hypothetically, I take | my car to the dealer to get new 17" wheels, but they're | out; so they do the _insane_ thing of saying "but we've | got 19" wheels here, we'll throw those on free of charge". | Four years later the next owner gets a knock on their door: | "we got a crew out in the driveway swapping your wheels, | you didn't pay for those". | | This sounds insane, but I think it only sounds insane | because we're talking about software vs hardware. Since its | invention, humanity has had a weird stance with software; | we tolerate a lot more shit, and that toleration has | allowed companies to basically get away with highway | robbery. Whether that's Amazon selling eBooks then revoking | them years later, game companies releasing unfinished games | then promising patches months later, or Tesla issuing OTA | updates, it all factors down to a really similar issue in | that: software has enabled companies project greed in | previously impossible ways. | | Maybe the previous owner misrepresented the car; or maybe | they didn't, because what reasonable person would have | guessed that Tesla would do this? The statement "you didn't | pay for those wheels" isn't even accurate; the new buyer | probably did pay for them; maybe not in this case, but | hypothetically: if it looks like a P90 and quacks like a | P90, its a P90, and that's the resale value. If it looks | like its got 19" wheels, and it quacks like its got 19" | wheels, its priced like its got 19" wheels. The buyer just | didn't pay the right person. | root_axis wrote: | It should not be legal for any car company to remotely stymie | the mobility of a vehicle without the consent of the owner. I'm | not saying Tesla shouldn't be allowed to gate range via | software, but they should not be allowed to remotely hamstring | a vehicle in such a manner, potentially stranding or | endangering someone. | FireBeyond wrote: | > The previous owner shouldn't have sold it as a 90 or at least | disclosed that, "It's a 60 but Tesla swapped out the batter | with a 90 and left it configured as a 90". | | Why not? Tesla not only replaced the battery, but REBADGED the | car for him. | | Putting this on the customer is asinine. | buffington wrote: | The rebadging is what I find most confusing. | | I tried getting a Tesla logo/badge replaced since mine had | broken, and Tesla made it clear that getting one was going to | be a much greater pain in the ass than just finding one made | by a third party. | | They claimed it was a supply chain thing, but it clearly had | a lot less to do with that and a lot more to do with their | techs not giving a damn. | lewisgodowski wrote: | Doesn't really help the situation, but it's not clear who | rebadged the car. It could have been the first owner, or the | second owner, or Tesla. | Retric wrote: | Not quite, a software limited 90kWh battery is worse than a | 60kWh battery pack due to weight. So, Tesla can't fulfill their | warranty obligations with a software locked higher capacity | battery. | | A full capacity battery on the other hand could reasonably | qualify as an as good or better replacement which is fine. | Therefore whoever did this change at Tesla is exposing them to | liability. | | Technically if car identified as having a 90kWh battery then | Tesla also befitted from that deception by being able to claim | higher resale value. Thus making this arguably fraud on their | part, though that's unlikely to stick. | andruby wrote: | It's worse because you carry more weight, but it's also | better because you can charge to 100% without risking much | degradation. And you also have less/no degradation. | | Not sure if that balances out. | yreg wrote: | 90kWh pack is not _strictly_ better, so they should have | asked for customers blessing to install a heavier, | software-locked battery. Which they perhaps did, who knows. | simondotau wrote: | One would hope that Tesla's software lock gives users the | middle 60 kWh of battery capacity by locking off both | extremes. If so, you'd be correct and this would be a lot | better than a "real" 60 kWh battery. Especially if the | software limiter continues to guarantee 60 kWh as the | battery ages/degrades. | rocqua wrote: | Otoh a software limited battery will last longer. | infogulch wrote: | > "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw | that in there. Enjoy. Tell everyone you know about how awesome | Tesla was about fixing the problem and remember that next time | you go to buy your next car" | | That would be such a great solution | 1shooner wrote: | Any rational marketer or PR officer would gladly give up that | $4,500 to avoid this HN post. | rurp wrote: | They didn't even trade the bad PR for $4,500, they traded | it for a _chance_ at $4,500 since they don 't know if the | customer will pay it. This decision-making boggles my mind. | | Either there are a ton of Tesla fanatics out there who will | put up with a lot of dubious behavior, or Tesla is severely | limiting its upside with all of their anti-customer service | antics. | kelnos wrote: | > _Either there are a ton of Tesla fanatics out there who | will put up with a lot of dubious behavior, or Tesla is | severely limiting its upside with all of their anti- | customer service antics._ | | I think it's both. There _are_ a ton of Tesla fanatics | who think Tesla can do no wrong. Some of them are | commenting on this article here, others in the Twitter | thread. | | But there are also people like myself, who will probably | never buy a Tesla due to current and past behavior like | this. And there are probably at least a few people | reading this who were on the fence, but for whom this | battery kerfuffle pushed them over the edge. | hef19898 wrote: | Well, that's the downside of getting rid of said PR | department... | selimthegrim wrote: | Tesla saved $4,500 by firing their PR people, they're one | step ahead. | dan_quixote wrote: | And it was already a sunk cost for Tesla long before this | became a story. Trying to recoup a few $thousand with such | anti-consumer sentiment is bizarre. | rrdharan wrote: | Tesla doesn't believe in having such folks (they famously | eliminated their PR department). | cortesoft wrote: | They actually did this with my tires on my Model X. I ordered | mine with the standard tires, then they called me to say they | had my exact order that someone cancelled, except it had the | upgraded tire package. They originally said they were going | to remove them when I picked it up, but they ended up just | leaving them on and saying it was a free upgrade. | spiznnx wrote: | Good thing you don't have to worry about tires being | remotely crippled :) | powerhour wrote: | The TPMs on the other hand... | rootusrootus wrote: | In other words, the Apple Solution, most of the time. Many | things they do I don't agree with, but customer service is | one of their stronger points. Friend of mine had a laptop go | in for repair, they couldn't repair it, sent him a brand new | current equivalent of his nearly three year old laptop. Now | that's customer service. For the remainder of his life he's | going to sing happy Apple praises to anyone who asks. | [deleted] | nathancahill wrote: | Reminds me of Office Space "We fixed the glitch". | | > We, uh, we fixed the glitch. So he won't be receiving a | paycheck anymore, so it'll just work itself out naturally. We | always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem | is solved from your end. | zcw100 wrote: | The Bobs appreciate you noticing the reference ;) | phkahler wrote: | >> Sounds like all around bad decisions. | | Disagree. | | >> The previous owner shouldn't have sold it as a 90 or at | least disclosed that, "It's a 60 but Tesla swapped out the | batter with a 90 and left it configured as a 90". | | Yes, they should have said that and did. You agree with this | decision when you say 'Why not get some good will out of it? | "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw | that in there. Enjoy.' | | Tesla, being notified, should have just enabled the 90 and made | the customer happy. | | Tbey did. Not a bad decision. | | The only "bad" decision was to revert it from a 60 to a 90 and | stick to that. Hardly "all around bad decisions" but a very bad | one at the end. | tomrod wrote: | The first bad decision is allowing a manufacturer to control | how elements of a car are used after its gone on the market. | yreg wrote: | The manufacturer has that control only if you want to use | their services. If you are fine cutting the cord, 3rd parties | can change the configuration for you. | masswerk wrote: | I think, the decisive point is really in the warranty | regulations, like "equal or better". You chose one (which may | have been the most convenient to you at that time) and went | with it. Anyways, this is how you chose to fulfil the contract. | Are you really going to "fix" this years later by a withdrawal? | Who has ownership of the car? | giarc wrote: | The odd part is the OP said it was "badged as a 90" which to me | implies Tesla also removed the physical badges on the car and | replaced them to indicate it was a P90. That, to me, really | implies they wanted to make this a P90 car. | zippergz wrote: | Or one of the previous owners did it. I have known people who | have modified the badges on their car. | donalhunt wrote: | I believe they are referring to the battery and not the car. | squirtle24 wrote: | There's no way Tesla themselves changed the badge to a 90, | especially since the 90 appears to be some kind of mistake, | given that they fixed the mistake years later. | | It was probably one of the previous owners, and them changing | the badge without disclosing that it's actually a 60 seems to | put the bad-faith blame on them. | | Having said that, if I was going to drop $40k on a used car, | I would certainly have inspected everything... the carfax, | title, stickers on the car, maintenance history, with Tesla | themselves, etc. Surely one of those would've hinted to the | current owner that it's actually a 60!? | [deleted] | HWR_14 wrote: | > Presumably this cost them a fortune to do it in the first | place. Why not get some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about | your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. | | As I understand it, all batteries are the same size. They are | just software locked. So no additional costs. | | It's the same as how Tesla remote unlocked the battery life of | people fleeing natural disasters. Which means not only is it | there, it's charged. | Retric wrote: | The batteries weigh different amounts so it isn't just | software locking at the factory. | https://themotordigest.com/how-much-do-tesla-batteries- | weigh... | | It's more likely they didn't have a 60kWh battery at the time | pack to do the replacement. Which brings up an interesting | point, a 90kWh battery software locked to 60kWh is a | defective part as the added weight takes more energy to move | around, has worse acceleration, more tire and break ware etc. | | It's therefore likely Tesla failed to provide an equivalent | replacement part and thus broke their warranty contract. | HWR_14 wrote: | That might be a new change that happened in the past few | years ago. But it certainly was the way Tesla made cars in | 2019: | | https://insideevs.com/news/342746/more-on-the-return-of- | tesl... | [deleted] | _fat_santa wrote: | The problem I have is Tesla even having the ability to do | something like that. The idea of car manufacturers having | remote access to my car to enable and disable features is a | very scary proposition. | | It's adds another point of failure to something your life can | sometimes depend on, imagine if you're in a cyber truck on a | backroad trail and Tesla finds out the last owner didn't pay | for 4WD, you could easily get stranded. | | And I feel like with all this connectivity to the manufacturer, | we will start to see "acceptable use cases" for your cars. For | the vast majority of people they won't notice but a gearhead | will get in and head to the track to find out he can't drive | there because he doesn't have the "track package subscription" | or an off-roader realizing he can't take his jeep off road | because if didn't come with an "off pavement subscription". | Your truck won't be able to move when hooked up to a trailer | because it doesn't have a "tow package". Eventually you're | going to be doing something and want to do something with your | car and realize you can't, not because it's incapable, but | because it was told not to by someone else. | | I promise you there will be scams abound with hackers selling | base model cars as fully loaded ones then reverting everything | after the fact. A few are going to die in off-roading | situations where the car just refused to move or had critical | features disabled through software, and we're going to relish | the days where the only subscription was to your heated seats. | And all these subscriptions are going to make Adobe look like a | saint with their subscriptions. | kvetching wrote: | > The idea of car manufacturers having remote access to my | car to enable and disable features is a very scary | proposition. | | "BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a | month" "The auto industry is racing towards a future full of | microtransactions" | | Source: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw- | subscription... | vkk8 wrote: | > Sounds like all around bad decisions. The previous owner | shouldn't have sold it as a 90 or at least disclosed that, | "It's a 60 but Tesla swapped out the batter with a 90 and left | it configured as a 90". | | To be fair, for people not intimately familiar with the | craziness of modern tech business, it's reasonable to assume | that whatever capabilities the car has at the moment of | purchase, are going to be there indefinitely. On the face of | it, cutting car battery remotely via software patch sounds | about as reasonable as remotely removing a room from a house | you purchased. | simondotau wrote: | Imagine you purchased a home and it wasn't disclosed that the | shed out the back was actually on your neighbor's land. | causi wrote: | Don't forget the fact that he has to pay for the electricity | cost of hauling around what is probably a hundred pounds of | battery he can't use. | NullPrefix wrote: | >It says 90, badged 90, has 90-type range. | | Tweet author said it's badged 90 | simondotau wrote: | Not sure how that matters if Tesla installed a 60 badge at | the factory and a customer replaced it with an aftermarket 90 | badge. | | I'm not saying Tesla are in the right overall, but the | question of the badge appears to be one of misrepresentation | by a previous owner. | kelnos wrote: | > _The previous owner shouldn 't have sold it as a 90 or at | least disclosed that, "It's a 60 but Tesla swapped out the | batter with a 90 and left it configured as a 90"._ | | This is a couple new owners downstream, though. The most recent | owner to sell the car might not have known about this, or may | not have remembered it or understood the implications of it. | | And, regardless, while I think many of us here are very | familiar with the idea of more-capable hardware being software- | locked to be less capable, with monetary upgrade options, I | think it's reasonable to assume that the average consumer would | be very surprised that it would be even possible that they | could drive a car into a service station for a completely | unrelated issue, and then drive it out with a software-enforced | "smaller" battery. | faeriechangling wrote: | I honestly want to see this taken to court, it would be an | interesting case. | | I mean I'm not convinced at all what Tesla did is even lawful. | To me, it seems like Tesla and the owner came to a mutual | agreement repairing warranty service years earlier, and Tesla's | only real arguments is that that either the customer agreed to | the downgrade happening eventually (probably not true) or that | they didn't understand they were giving the customer all this | capacity (maybe?), but I don't think that in turn gives them | the right to sabotage a car arbitrarily without notice to | remediate this. I think they have an obligation to restore the | status quo before the sabotage. | sacrosancty wrote: | I wonder who the parties would be. Perhaps the current | owner's claim should be against the person who sold it to | them as a 90, and that person against their seller, and that | original owner against Tesla? | chad_strategic wrote: | Would it kill the twitter author to write a simple post and not | some 10 part twitter explanation. | | Please be kind to those that suffer from Attention Surplus | Disorder. (ASD) | thinkingemote wrote: | Basically, it would kill the author to write a blog post. | | Death as in the death of sympathy, attention, notice, | psychological affirmation, pride, sharing, hype, superficial | outrage and the death of this comment thread of hundreds of | comments after only a handful of hours. | | There's a reason why people use Twitter, because it really | would be their (superficial) death not to. | jimt1234 wrote: | Are there any new EVs that _aren 't_ 4-wheel iPhones? Heck, it | feels like _all_ new cars are like this (vehicle is "managed" by | the car company). | | I'd love to buy an EV that was basically like the original Tesla | Roadster: four wheels, a bunch of batteries, and that's it. The | only way I know to get this is to do your own EV conversion. Not | 100% sure, though. ??? | rootusrootus wrote: | I'd wager that most EVs are pretty similar to the ICE | equivalent from the same manufacturer. Teslas are relatively | unique with the smartphone-on-wheels concept. My wife drives a | Bolt, and it's just a car which happens to use electric motors. | Infotainment and everything else is normal. | thrownaway561 wrote: | it's so scary that at any point Tesla can do whatever they want | to your car and you are basically powerless to do anything about | it. this is why i will never own a Tesla no matter if it was | given to me. the horror stories i have heard and this is just | another drop in the bucket. | qweqwerwerwerwr wrote: | you vill own nothing, und you vill be happy | SavageBeast wrote: | A friend had one of these for a day recently and gave me a | ride/let me drive it. | | https://www.caranddriver.com/audi/e-tron-gt | | The E-Tron GT RS or whatever gobbledygook name its got is simply | not of this world. We're not going to be talking about Tesla too | much longer I think. | drcongo wrote: | Tesla is just a cult at this point. Boggles the mind how gaslit | their fans are. | hinkley wrote: | There was a twitter message that made it to Reddit front page | yesterday about being a black man driving an electric car in the | rural south and trying to find a recharging station being the | plot for Jordan Peele's next movie. Interesting synchronicity. | Also would watch that movie. | ksec wrote: | Slightly Off Topic. I have had this feeling or opinion for quite | some time. | | I dont like the world being dominated by Software which could be | remotely updated. Whether that is a Car or IoT. | unixbane wrote: | What the absolute hell is wrong with consumers that they put up | with this kind of shit? | | 1. I would never want any kind of software in my car, because | this is precisely the kind of bullshit I would expect to happen, | given being a person who knows the state of the software | industry. That and death due to uConnect etc. | | 2. I even less would want any kind of remote access | | 3. I also don't want UN*X crap in my car like sh scripts or C | code, you have billions of dollars, make a real language or use | assembly since the software should be small anyway | | 4. The fact that someone will bring up GNU+Car just proves even | more how dipshit you consumers are; you can't even understand how | simple things are to fix (just stop putting software in things) | and just reason about the major players of the tech industry in | an abstract, dilettante way. | | > I don't post this stuff because I hate Tesla or anything. In | fact, it's just the opposite. I hate seeing Tesla derail | themselves with this kind of nonsense. | | Uhh no, I hate Tesla after seeing this post and hope they | actually get cancer and die (admittedly, the same probably | applies to every tech company). | | What if you put a "90 pack" in yourself, do they also downgrade | it for you? | vonwoodson wrote: | Ah, the IoT in it's full glory | sandworm101 wrote: | Tesla is acting like Ferrari. They have not earned that right | yet. They should aim to act like BMW: milk your wealthy | customers, but never hand over a product that isn't your best | work. | recursivedoubts wrote: | "You'll own nothing and you'll like it." | Spivak wrote: | The irony is that I would love to not actually own a car, | please let me pay a flat monthly/yearly fee for "having a car | of a specific model or better in good working order" available | to me at all times and let the manufacturer figure out how best | to do that. | | Car breaks down, who cares, call the seller, they swap you out, | repair it and keep it ready for the next person. It's the only | business model that aligns the incentives right. Car | manufacturers and I benefit from better reliability and lower | maintenance costs. | | This shitty world we live in is the worst of both worlds. | api wrote: | We'd get pretty far by just putting that guy's face and that | quote on billboards everywhere. It's an idea so odious that no | commentary is needed. | marmada wrote: | This seems good. Yes, good. No one complains when Tesla gives | free software upgrades to car owners. So to be consistent, Tesla | should have the ability to also enforce software limitations. | treesknees wrote: | Who says that nobody complains about this? I for one hate when | a software update comes along and completely changes the UI | layout, even if may come with additional new features. I don't | want anything I didn't ask for or confirm, regardless of | whether it's in good faith. | eschneider wrote: | It's shit like this which is going to destroy resale values for | Teslas over time. | EricE wrote: | lol - once the true costs of battery replacements start to | become more widely known/understood by "normals", there won't | be any significant resale of electrics in general. | | Enjoy it while it lasts.... | dislikedtom wrote: | It sounds like a broader problem: you buy something digital and | manufacturer changes it (most of the people may even like the | update but you hate it). Maybe subscription payment model would | make more sense (but tbh the whole economy needs some | rethinking). | rascul wrote: | I've seen very few articles that make me want to get a Tesla. | Most of them make me want to stay far away from that company. | rhacker wrote: | How is this different from all of the companies that we all work | at where there's a UI or a backend process, that which turned on | would cost an additional $0.12 per month, per customer, but | allows our companies to charge an additional $5000 per month, per | customer. I get that some processes are much more intense, but | we're all still upcharging 1000x or more. | idontpost wrote: | Another reason I will never buy a Tesla. | | What a shitty company. | MobileVet wrote: | My first thought was back to the Celeron 300A CPU [1]. I had | heard at the time that Intel had packaged Pentium 2 - 450s as | Celeron 300As because they had too many but were not meeting the | demand for the Celeron. It was cheaper to repackage already | fabricated 450s than increase the 300A line throughput for an | unknown demand curve. | | The Wikipedia article says it was more of an efficiency | improvement with the new Mendocino core with on board L2-cache. | They really did mean for it to be a 300Mhz processor but it would | easily run at 450. | | Ah the days when if you got a fun product upgrade it couldn't be | retracted years later... | | Further, amazing that whomever made the decision to lock it down | didn't consider the blow back versus the good will that was | already established. ROI & Risk vs Reward... never forget them. | | -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeron | GiorgioG wrote: | I don't want a car that's this connected. Fuck Tesla. | zekica wrote: | I saw first hand a situation where a local municipality did a | public procurement for printer ink, and since there are no | software patents in law, the best offer that won was for a | compatible (non-oem) ink. This ink worked fine at the time of | purchase, but after a software update to the printers (a few | weeks later) stopped working. | lettergram wrote: | People ask why I insist on having a car without over air updates | - this is why. | lizardactivist wrote: | I had no idea they could even do something like this remotely. | | What else can they do? Shut the engine off? Lock the steering? | What intelligence agencies have access? What if a side-channel | can be created and (other) malicious actors obtain access? | | This kind of remote access to a car is genuinely terrifying. | EricE wrote: | They aren't the only ones - Toyota was toying with | retroactively charging for *keyfob* remote start access until | the outcry caused them to double back. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLlzAv2GTdc | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfDoc6wegss | | But other manufacturers have to be looking at what Tesla and | BMW are pulling and thinking about ways they could follow suit. | A pox on all their houses; if I never buy another new car I'll | be more than happy. | account-5 wrote: | Ignoring the arguments about morality, and who is(n't) in the | right, this is a prime example of why I don't trust electric | cars! If the manufacturer can do this then you don't own the car, | even if you paid for it in full. | rootusrootus wrote: | What does this have to do with electric cars? Do you think this | kind of thing can't happen to ICE vehicles? | selimnairb wrote: | If more companies keep doing these sorts of things, like making | you pay a monthly fee to access hardware that is already in the | car, I will just have to buy an old VW Beetle or Bus and convert | them to EV. | rootusrootus wrote: | There's a happy medium somewhere in between, I think. Like | almost all non-Tesla EVs you could buy today. This whole idea | of retroactive changes or subscription features is limited | mostly to Tesla, with BMW dipping it's toes in the water. No | need to go back to stone age car. | throwaway1777 wrote: | Time to jailbreak your tesla. | thumbsup-_- wrote: | This is the problem with over the air updates. It gives car | companies the ability to disable features at their own will. | Another aspect is that software has bugs and an update can | potentially also introduce problems in your car, especially when | your 10yr model is receiving updates that the software engineer | didn't care to test for such old model. I always liked software | that runs stable software and keeps running that way forever. | rootusrootus wrote: | Exactly. Everyone loves those OTA updates right now because | they bring new features. Let's revisit in ten years and see how | happy everyone is. | buffington wrote: | I bought my Tesla used, and when I went to pull up the digital | user manual (a PDF) the entire screen went black and the car | rebooted. | | After rebooting, I tried it again, and it did it again. | | I've since learned to avoid software updates as long as | possible unless the description of changes explicitly describes | fixing a bug. Even then, I weigh the benefits of fixing the | bug, or leaving it as is, knowing an update could make other | things worse. | Enginerrrd wrote: | I'll spare the moral judgements against Tesla for this: | | The real moral of the story here is that if your business plan | and practices is creating occasional weird issues and huge | cognitive dissonance in your customers, it's the wrong business | plan. Also... the number of people this applies to is likely so | low that Tesla really screwed up by not erring on the side of the | customer. (They didn't buy from Tesla, but they're still a | customer buying servicing from them.) If the bad publicity alone | causes even a tiny fraction of the population to choose another | manufacturer, the've lost their $4,500 and then some. | | Harmony is a really underrated concept. When things are | harmonious, you don't have problems like this, and you can still | make money. | v0idzer0 wrote: | Agree with all of this, but if I wrote a thread about all the | times Ford screwed me, it would never go viral. There's no | market for that. Tesla has extremely high customer satisfaction | rates. And switching to them has been significantly more | harmonious for me. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | A year ago, I would have chosen a new Tesla, hands down | (disclosure: I am probably not gonna actually _buy_ an EV for | as many years as I can eke out of my trusty Subie). | | Nowadays, I have chatted with _numerous_ folks that have | purchased alternative EVs. | | The Tesla owners still seem the giddiest (There's a lot of 'em | around here), but I have not heard one ounce of buyer's remorse | from any of the other brands. | | The one that brought the Rivian, is every bit as giddy as any | Tesla owner I know. | | I think that Tesla has managed to establish itself, and will | last, but the free ride is over. | panopticon wrote: | I bought an EV earlier this year. I ended up with a LR Model | 3 because the dealership model really sucks still. I called | Hyundai and VW dealerships in the tri-state area around me, | and none of them could say when I'd be able to actually get a | car. Instead I went to Tesla's website, placed an order, and | got an ETA. Super simple; loved that experience. | | If it weren't for the crappy dealership model I probably | would have bought the Hyundai Ioniq instead. | crooked-v wrote: | > If it weren't for the crappy dealership model I probably | would have bought the Hyundai Ioniq instead. | | I went looking for a Bolt EUV recently (that price point | for Super Cruise is really attractive), but they were | marked up everywhere by upwards of $6K and it's impossible | to reserve one from the manufacturer and actually get any | guarantee that it will be purchasable at the listed price. | mcguire wrote: | What's your ETA? | | I remember when everyone was excited to pre-order Teslas | when their actual production was several years out... | panopticon wrote: | Ordered late March, delivered first week of June. It | ended up being about in the middle of the ETA range I was | originally given. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | I have seen quite a few Ioniq's around. They seem to have | just hit the streets. | | I have also been seeing various flavors of BMW electrics, | for some time. | | A chap around here, owns one of those BMW electric | "supercar" looking things (i8?). I don't know him, | personally. | gzer0 wrote: | One thing to note about BMW is that they are heading in a | direction that is not going to be good for anyone if the | entire industry adopts it. | | An $18/month subscription for heated seats. This is quite | frankly absurd. And I know, Tesla is the one that started | it (partially), but for things such as heated seats, this | is taking it completely to the next level. | | Soon enough we will start seeing microtransactions to | even turn the car on? Not a good look for the automotive | industry as a whole and shame on BMW for this. | | https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/business/bmw- | subscription/ind... | r00fus wrote: | Ubik here we come. | | The door refused to open. It said, "Five cents, please." | He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. "I'll | pay you tomorrow," he told the door. Again he tried the | knob. Again it remained locked tight. "What I pay you," | he informed it, "is in the nature of a gratuity; I don't | have to pay you." "I think otherwise," the door said. | "Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought | this conapt." In his desk drawer he found the contract; | since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to | the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door | for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not | a tip. "You discover I'm right," the door said. It | sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip | got a stainless steel knife; with it he began | systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt's | money-gulping door. "I'll sue you," the door said as the | first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, "I've never been | sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it. | effingwewt wrote: | Not just that they are cracking down on their parts as | well. I can no longer get brake pads or rotors at | OReillys or AutoZone. I was forced to use crappy knock | offs for the same price as I couldn't wait on ordered | parts. | | Went through the same thing with a recent starter | replacement. They no longer offer OEM bosch (this was | oreilly not sure about AZ) and they no longer sell Bosch | OEM even remanufactures. | | Again they explained to me this was due to BMW | themselves. | | I'm going to ride my 328i into the ground, but once its | repairs outweigh the value of the car (doing the repairs | myself now, had to become my own mechanic to avoid a | $1700 bill and 2 week wait for a starter replacement),I | am never touching one of their vehicles again. | | When in the dealership in Seattle 2 years ago for an oil | change and fluid top off/inspection it was a horror show. | | They only added about 3 quarts of oil to my car out of | the almost 7 needed after a change (light came on | immediately as leaving and oil level was - null-). They | never did their whatever-point inspection, never did the | fluid top off, and left my oil filter cap loose! My | 'account manager' was supposed to go over some stuff with | me- never saw him. Was told he'd left notes on my file- | did not. | | While waiting I saw three different people come in with | problems with their EV batteries no longer charging. The | 1st two were told they'd be covered under warranty. I | heard the reps talking amongst themselves about how bad | it was getting and whether there would be a recall. 3d | person was a lady who was pissed as she'd just had her | battery replaced under warranty, it'd happened again and | this time they wanted her to pay for a new one. She | threatened to sue and they comped everything they could | think of for her. | | Now with this heated seats fiasco BMW has officially | nuked the fridge. | | Edit to add- if anyone is interested check out the | starter replacement [1], absolutely fucking ridiculous | the way cars are now engineered to stop the layman from | affecting their own repairs. | | Used to be starter replacement was something anyone could | do and was all of two to four bolts and a wire and took | ten minutes of time. You could even just replace the | solenoid half the time for a few bucks. | | I've now replaced brakes, rotors, control arms, shocks, | struts, starter, window actuators, headlights, radiator, | mass airflow sensor, ECM, spark plugs and ignition coils, | cleaned the O2 sensors etc. Some of the steps are insane | especially the radiator which was 600 just because | California ones have a stupid sensor on them that cant be | used on an off-brand radiator. | | So much blood and sweat because why leave room to work on | anything. | | Seriously fuck BMW. | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwwARNcUBWE | ben7799 wrote: | I guess it's just in which inconvenience you pick. | | It seems like there is no EV that is free of something | stupid that the car manufacturer is making you put up with. | | Maybe Tesla it's these general annoyances. Or collision | repair or out of warranty service annoyances. | | I test drove a VW ID.4. It sounds like if I bought one I | might deal with annoyances (markups, delays) trying to buy | the car because dealers are annoying. The flip side is if I | bought one and it needs service I can walk home from the | local VW dealer to my house pretty quickly. Hyper Local | service is rather nice. | alexmr wrote: | Tesla buying experience is way better but the ETAs are | famously off. Mine has been pushed back 4-5 times and | always about 3-4 weeks before it's due to get delivered, so | it's impossible to plan around. | andrepew wrote: | Also, the strange thing is it is off in both directions. | I had a family member order a Model X with a 5 month | delivery timeline. He was super surprised to get the call | to arrange delivery 3 weeks later. | panopticon wrote: | Yeah, the ETA wasn't incredibly important to me for | planning purposes. It was just nice to know that I was | getting <exactly this car> in <roughly this timeframe>. | As opposed to "keep calling and maybe we'll have a | Hyundai Ioniq allocated to us that'll arrive a month or | two after, oh an enjoy your $10k 'market rate adjustment' | to the MSRP." | | Fwiw my car was delivered in the middle half of the | original ETA, but I know that others have had lots of | issues with their ETAs. | dangrossman wrote: | You can order a new car, configured as you like, with | almost any brand. You'll get an ETA and a tracker that | shows when it's going into production, when it's leaving | the factory, when it's on a ship/boat/truck to your | dealer, and when it's ready for pickup. You can get most | dealers to agree in writing not to add any markups if you | reserve a car with their dealership as the delivery | point. That's how most people are buying EVs of any make | right now, not just with Tesla. | oangemangut wrote: | It's not just the ETAs that are pushing me away, but just | the entire dealership process generally is annoying. I | wanted to order a vehicle from GM and I have tried close at | least 10 dealerships at this point in the PNW. No one is | straight up on the process of either getting an order in or | what pricing will look like or when they might get an | allocation. Some just say "sure, you're on the list" but | who knows what that even means. One dealership (Bellingham, | WA) wanted 25K deposit to even take an order. | | I basically gave up on that vehicle not because I can't | wait or am not willing to play the price, but the BS | process of going through one of these dealerships is too | infuriating. Rivian I put my order in and at least I have | an order date and understand that I'm in the queue and | should be sometime MY24. If Cadillac came out with the | exact same process as Rivian and it said I could get my | vehicle ordered and enqueued for 12month deliver I would do | it. | smsm42 wrote: | I think some companies just distribute cars between | dealerships and let them sort it out, others allow people | to actually order a car they like. I tried with Toyota, | and they weren't able to get me the car I wanted or even | tell me where one could be around, for months - and looks | like different dealership don't talk to each other so | unless I make deposit with every dealership around, I | won't be able to get what I want. Subaru, OTOH, allowed | me to place order for exactly the vehicle I liked and get | ETA (though not a definite date, just approximate) - even | though lead times are still pretty long. | codazoda wrote: | I think this is why Ford has said it's going to do | electric vehicles direct. I can't remember if they'll use | a different brand or not. | | In Utah, where I am, it's going to be a bit of a hill. I | hear we have some laws to protect the local dealerships. | Tesla dealers are just showrooms here and I don't think | they sell anything on-site. Could be wrong about all | this. | jfim wrote: | I believe it should be the same brand, but they've split | the business into Ford Blue (ICE vehicles) and Ford Model | e (electric vehicles) in March of this year: https://medi | a.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2022... | | The Ford CEO has mentioned earlier this year that they're | less than pleased at the various markups applied by | dealerships, and would want to do set price, online sales | (eg. https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/02/ford-wants-to- | sell-evs-onl...). | HWR_14 wrote: | I don't think Ford's doing them direct. They did tell | dealerships they couldn't raise their prices. | JamesSwift wrote: | > Rivian I put my order in and at least I have an order | date and understand that I'm in the queue and should be | sometime MY24 | | Is that "Model Year 24"? So they gave you an estimate of | a year-long window, but also did not guarantee the date? | How is that much different than "Youre on the list" with | a traditional dealership? | frumper wrote: | Dealership lists are more like we'll call you if one | comes in, and we'll call everyone else on the list right | after. First one here gets to buy it. Also, if we have a | buddy that wants it, we'll give him a heads up before we | call you. | mercutio2 wrote: | My family really, really dislikes our Bolt. | | My wife loves the Model Y she replaced it with. They're | vastly different vehicles, but I can say with confidence I | will never again buy a GM vehicle. | snark42 wrote: | > but I have not heard one ounce of buyer's remorse from any | of the other brands. | | The only solid reason I've heard to buy Tesla over others is | for the Supercharger network if you travel a lot or can't | charge at home. Everything else comes down to preference. | skykooler wrote: | Bit of buyer's remorse from a Nissan Leaf now that most fast- | charging stations don't support CHAdeMO. | madengr wrote: | None here. I bought a 2015 Leaf in 2017 with 19k miles for | $8,500. At 75k mile now with zero issues. Just plug it in | at night and drive it around town. It's a glorified golf | cart, but it works great. | acomjean wrote: | We got the leaf too. Its great for day trips, around town. | | The charging situation for electric cars for road trips is | still a thing... It seems to have found a standard in CSS. | I expected there to be adapters, but apparently making | adapters is slightly non trivial as there is a lot of | chatting between the car and charger. | dangrossman wrote: | > now that most fast-charging stations don't support | CHAdeMO | | According to the US DOE, we have 4450 CHAdeMO stations and | 4583 CCS stations in the US at the moment. No major | charging network has started building CCS-only stations | yet, though EA plans to in the future. I don't see why | you're feeling that remorse, your charging network is large | and continues to grow, despite your car being discontinued | in the next 2-3 years. | | I've owned two Nissan LEAFs (2012, 2018). The things that | would give me buyers' remorse are faults of the car, not | anything external. Like, not charging any faster than 40-50 | kW, charging at half that speed once the battery gets hot, | losing 10% of its range to battery degradation after just 3 | years, and offering no upgrade path to keep the | connectivity features working after AT&T shut down its 2G | then 3G networks. | | I drive a VW ID.4 now. | sokoloff wrote: | In 7 years and 7 months, my 2015 Nissan LEAF has been | CHAdeMO charged exactly twice: once before delivery and | once while I owned it. CHAdeMO has been practically useless | since day 1. | | Even with that and the limited range, I bought the right | car for our usage pattern and have been overall extremely | happy with the car. It's been relatively trouble-free (one | visit to the dealer for some combined warranty work on the | battery, Takata air bag recall, and some other recall or | other, all of which were taken care of for $0 and included | a free loaner car while it was being done), otherwise | requiring two sets of wiper blades, some washer fluid, and | one tire to have a nail hole plugged. | | When I say we bought the right car for our usage pattern, | we paid around $21K (net of government credits) for a car | that will still do 75 miles on a charge. Before COVID, my | commute was 16 miles round-trip and had chargers at work. | After working remotely, I drive the car much less and our | two-driver family has a traditional ICE car for any longer | trips. We both prefer the LEAF for around-town errands and | it gets more drives than the ICE car does. I think once in | 7.5 years we had a conflict where we both had more than 100 | miles to drive in a day and I worked it out by charging the | LEAF during my day. It's been a non-issue and getting a car | that's given us >7.5 years of drama-free service for $21K | has been great. | mikestew wrote: | OG Leaf owner here, and like sibling, we might have fast | charged it twice. To me, fast charging is something useful | for road trips. But if you take an OG (or even later model) | Leaf on a road trip, that's your own fault. Eleven years of | ownership, our upscale golf cart gets us to work, shopping, | and everything else we thought we'd use it for when we | bought it. And when we bought ours, it had 100 mile range | (if you babied it), and no real charging infrastructure to | speak of. We knew what we were getting into, and we'd do it | again. | outworlder wrote: | > Bit of buyer's remorse from a Nissan Leaf now that most | fast-charging stations don't support CHAdeMO. | | Yeah, that's a bit annoying. In the US, many(most) still | do, but there aren't going to be many (if any) new CHAdeMO | installations. Even more so now that Nissan itself dropped | CHAdeMO in the US. The Ariya will be CCS. | | That said, if you are in a city, L2 should continue to | expand and hopefully you'll be able to top off during your | normal activities. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | I don't know any Leaf or Volt owners. | | I know a Bolt owner though, and they seem pleased. | | I also know someone that has a Fusion plug-in hybrid. He | loves it. | | I have seen the F-150 Lightnings around, but don't know | anyone that got one (yet). | js2 wrote: | Hi, I'm a Volt owner. We purchased it almost 6 years ago | and are still thrilled with it. The 50'ish miles of EV | range covers 95% of my wife's driving, but she can also | take it on road trips w/o having to find a place to plug | it in. | Lazare wrote: | Two of my acquaintances have EVs. One owns a Tesla and | is....not thrilled. The other has a BMW and is pretty | thrilled. | | One of them has had what I would describe as a luxury car | experience - fit and finish is perfect, and every detail of | the car has been clearly thought about carefully and | engineered to work precisely, _and_ it was the cheaper of the | two cars. | | The other person got the Tesla. It's an acceptable car, but | is wasn't cheap, nor is it luxurious. The quality just isn't | there. | colordrops wrote: | I've heard people complain about buying the Bolt, and also | about low range of certain other models. | Zigurd wrote: | I hear this a lot about Tesla: "I would have chosen a Tesla, | but now..." | | But now, your choices are among legacy car makers and their | dealer networks, which were never a joy to interact with most | of whom, Hyundai and maybe Nissan excepted, are just bringing | out their first serious EVs. | | Yeah, Tesla is overhyped. But their competition mostly, | still, sucks. Nobody has, and nobody will for at least | another year or two, make even a slight dent is demand for | Tesla cars. Yes, Cybertruck is dumb. Yes, there is no | roadster. But VW has apparently completely screwed their | software stack. That is a much bigger failure. | | The same can be said about SpaceX. SpaceX's value is highly | dependent on a kind of telecom network that was a failure | several times before when tried by Motorola, Microsoft, etc. | Starship could fly soon, or next year, or in 5 years and it | would still revolutionize access to space. Cost overruns? | <cough>Boeing</cough> | | It's all relative. Hype and image polishing is everywhere. | HWR_14 wrote: | In Ford's case, a dealer network with no ability to | negotiate (Ford told them the pricing was fixed) so there | goes the biggest complaint. Other than that, I get a local | business I can sue if something goes wrong and regulated by | local authorities. Sounds better to me! | onethought wrote: | Dealer isn't responsible for the product itself, you | could only sue them for servicing and delivery failures. | mcguire wrote: | It kinda sounds like the Tesla after-purchase support is | less than a joy, though. | mikestew wrote: | _But now, your choices are among legacy car makers and | their dealer networks..._ | | Are you assuming that this is news to the naysayers? Or | maybe the naysayers are fully-informed, and they still say, | "I'd rather deal with a traditional dealer than buy a | Tesla"? Because that's what _this_ naysayer is saying: | better to deal with the devil I know... | onethought wrote: | But for instance, most people aren't familiar with the | outright corruption the Hyundai leadership/owners enjoy | in Korea. Because they don't tweet about it, and actively | cover it up. Their owners embezzle money, bribe | officials... makes Elon look like a saint. | | So i'd posit, you actually don't know that particular | devil. | misiti3780 wrote: | What business, running at scale in 2022 doesnt fall into this | category - LOL | [deleted] | rendall wrote: | > _If the bad publicity alone causes even a tiny fraction of | the population to choose another manufacturer_ | | Yeah, that's me. With all of the nonsense with Tesla, why would | anyone do that to themselves? Just buy another car. It's not | like there aren't plenty of other EV options in the world. | crooked-v wrote: | > They didn't buy from Tesla, but they're still a customer | buying servicing from them. | | This strikes me as a result of Tesla's whole "ignore everything | known by car companies and act like software companies" | approach. So far the software industry is young enough that | _most_ companies can expect that anyone approaching them for | support is the same person who bought the software... but that | 's not at all the case for cars, what with resales, | inheritances, etc being standard practice. | | I think a lot of software companies are going to be in for a | rude awakening over the next 25 years or so, as hand-me-down | devices and accounts become increasingly common. I wonder how | many lawsuits it's going to take before companies purporting to | "sell" software actually take wills into account. | babypuncher wrote: | What consumer software actually sells with that kind of long- | term support commitment? I doubt Microsoft will ever lose a | lawsuit from someone seeking security updates for a copy of | Windows 95 they inherited from their grandfather. | crooked-v wrote: | None, sure, right now. But what happens when a judge | eventually rules that putting 'actually, this is just a | temporary license' in the fine print isn't sufficient? It's | likely to happen eventually. | babypuncher wrote: | I think it is a stretch to go from "EULAs that declare | software licenses to be temporary are invalid" to | "software products must be actively supported with | patches indefinitely". | enragedcacti wrote: | > This strikes me as a result of Tesla's whole "ignore | everything known by car companies and act like software | companies" approach | | Yup, the Silicon Valley strategy "letting the fires burn". As | long as you can acquire new customers with less effort than | servicing existing ones, why bother? It worked at Paypal and | it has worked so far at Tesla. We see year after year of 50%+ | sales growth but nowhere near 50% increases in service | capacity. It's the reason we see people waiting months for | replacement parts (those parts can go into a new car, for a | new customer!) and its the reason they pressure you into | accepting bad workmanship so that the problems with the car | become yours and not theirs and its now on you to convince | them that it is not, in fact, "in spec". | | This is a 4 year old thread but Tesla still makes the same | service mistakes (like the OP) today: | https://twitter.com/grainsurgeon/status/1054732768465305600 | ajross wrote: | > I'll spare the moral judgements against Tesla for this [...] | [Tesla's] business plan and practices is creating [...] huge | cognitive dissonance in your customers | | I think you forgot to spare anything. | | Meh. This is a software configuration issue like we've seen | before. Like lots of devices in the modern world, the cars can | be configured with common hardware but disjoint behavior. You | might have the hardware for FSD, but you didn't buy it so you | can't use it. You might have the same motor as the performance | car, but the current limit is set to long range. You might have | the mobile radio, but if you don't pay for the service you | won't get satellite pictures. | | Or you might have a large battery, but be configured to use | only a fraction. And in this case they messed up and | accidentally granted a customer access to a feature they hadn't | paid for. And the mistake wasn't discovered until the car got | reconfigured when it was sold. | | I just don't see the "ransom" here. It's a messup. No one ever | paid for that extra battery capacity they enabled. Should they | honor the mistake? Maybe. But we _really_ need to turn down the | rhetoric in this community. | Enginerrrd wrote: | Oh I did. I'm not calling it "ransom" or other rhetoric. You | did a fantastic job of justifying what they did though. | | The fact that you can do so was actually my whole point: You | can totally justify this! ...and yet... someone still feels | like they got fucked. ...and people on the internet agree. | That is the antithesis of harmony. Some amount of dissonance | is unavoidable, but there are many brands and businesses out | there that make sure if a mistake was made, customers leave | feeling good. The point is that there are better ways to do | business and maintain more harmony between you and your | customers, and I've seen many companies be deeply rewarded | for that as a whole. It does however often come at the | expense of degraded metrics middle managers are commonly | evaluated by. Penny-wise pound-foolish is very old wisdom. I | think the real key is to evaluate from a systems perspective | how that kind of dissonance can be avoided. | nr2x wrote: | Well said, I'm potentially in the market for a car and this is | like reason #5 I'm ruling out Tesla. | chitowneats wrote: | Care to share the others? I'm weighing my options as well. | | Anything you are leaning towards buying? | jen20 wrote: | Quite - I'm absolutely in the market for an EV, and 5 years | ago it would have been a Tesla no questions asked, but Musk's | behaviour and Tesla's general inability to do quality control | mean I instead placed an order for a BMW i4. | duncan_idaho wrote: | I'd say this is a great reason to not a used one. Which Tesla | doesn't care about at all and probably want to discourage. | AlexandrB wrote: | That seems short-sighted. Having a healthy secondary market | makes purchasing a new one more appealing since you can | recover some of the purchase price later. It also allows | the superfans to buy the latest and greatest model more | often. | failTide wrote: | Agreed. They're giving the middle finger to people who | can't afford a new one but were still interested in | Tesla. Could have been a good opportunity to create loyal | customers who are on a budget now, but could afford to | spend more later in life. | tqi wrote: | Also if TSLA actually cares about "saving the planet" | then they probably need to support a used car market... | raisin_churn wrote: | You don't think car makers have a vested interest in there | being a robust secondary market for their cars? If I have a | choice between a $50k car that will have a $25k resale | value after 5 years, and one that will have a $10k resale | value, that's a strong incentive to buy the former. That's | another $15k in my budget for my next car, and if I liked | the last one, there's a good chance that money is going | right back to that same manufacturer. | pkulak wrote: | Same, though there were about a dozen previous reasons, | starting with "pedo guy". This won't help, but I was pretty | much long gone as a customer. | nr2x wrote: | My big red flag is "self driving mode that may kill your | family". | ajconway wrote: | Tesla is also thousands of brilliant engineers that | transformed the industry, and not just one guy who tweets a | lot. | timmytokyo wrote: | In other words, Musk isn't doing his engineers any favors | either. | izzydata wrote: | Exactly, so they should do the only logical thing and | vote out Elon as Tesla's CEO so he stops destroying | whatever public image they have left. Elon doesn't "do" | anything besides be a double edged hype machine. | enragedcacti wrote: | It would be amazing if Tesla were a worker cooperative | where that were possible. | | Trying to hold Elon to a standard in his companies gets | you fired, not him: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl | es/2022-06-17/spacex-fi... | slingnow wrote: | It took "thousands of brilliant engineers" to replace the | engine of a vehicle with some large batteries? | | I think you're overstating the "brilliance" of the | engineers. I have no doubt the core of them working on | the battery tech could be in the brilliant category, but | the rest of those thousands of engineers are run-of-the- | mill automotive engineers. | | Would you describe Ford as being composed of thousands of | brilliant engineers? | ajconway wrote: | > Would you describe Ford as being composed of thousands | of brilliant engineers? | | Absolutely. | | I've seen people believe that creating a browser is no | big deal, can you imagine developing, manufacturing, | compliance certification, marketing and distribution of | actual vehicles, planet-scale? | nr2x wrote: | Also the "crash" outcome isn't lost tabs. | babypuncher wrote: | Is it my fault they hitched their wagon to a person who | turned out to be crazy? | | If Tesla somehow folded overnight I'm sure all the other | car companies making BEVs would be ecstatic to scoop up | that newly available talent. | nr2x wrote: | Yeah like the RTO mandate that turned into a Fire(d) Sale | of top talent. Lol. | nr2x wrote: | Which is why more and more auto companies are opening | offices in SV to poach them. | | Hell, when was the last time Tesla released a new car? | The Big Auto companies are rolling out new models every | other week. Fact is, Tesla blew a lead and aren't | impressing. | dwaite wrote: | That one guy who tweets a lot can overrule and/or fire | any one of those brilliant engineers. | | He can overpromise to the point of outright lying about | functionality and delivery schedule. | | The CEO is not 'just one guy' | ajconway wrote: | A CEO can do many things, but they generally don't | design, develop, test and fix products. I have no | personal affection for Elon Musk, just wanted to point | out that the actual things we all use are products of | genuine hard work by lots of different people. | kube-system wrote: | I occasionally do business with people who are probably | assholes to other people. | | I _don 't_ do business with people who are assholes to | their customers. | balls187 wrote: | Funny enough, it was test driving a Tesla that got me | interested in getting an EV as my next vehicle. | | And like many, Musk's behavior has dissuaded me from | purchasing one, and instead likely a Ford. | nr2x wrote: | The EV Mustang looks so dope. See a lot of them in SV. | chrisseaton wrote: | > Musk's behavior has dissuaded me from purchasing one, | and instead likely a Ford | | The former was a bit weird on Twitter, the latter was an | actual anti-Semite. | babypuncher wrote: | Henry Ford was a jerk, but he died decades before most of | us here were even born. Buying a Ford today does nothing | to further facilitate the gross things he did 90 years | ago. | | The elongated muskrat is out there today being an ass; | spreading misinformation during a pandemic, perpetuating | racist behavior in its factories, and a growing list of | sexual improprieties. I think it is fair for someone to | not want to give money to someone like that. | spookie wrote: | > actual anti-semite Who? Current Ford's great- | grandfather? Not the same person. | chrisseaton wrote: | > Not the same person. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford | spookie wrote: | Henry Ford is dead. | chrisseaton wrote: | Says that in the article I linked you to. | spookie wrote: | Yeah, but whoever's running the show for the past... 75 | years, isn't antisemitic. His successors probably didn't | align with such views, given that: 1. They're not the | same person 2. Post WWII wouldn't be kind to those types | gs17 wrote: | I think most people don't care about (whether out of | time-induced apathy or unfortunate agreement) who Ford | was much like how they don't care much about who founded | VW or why. Coming from Detroit, it was always frustrating | how whitewashed his history got. | neaden wrote: | Well he has also been dead for 75 years, so people are | less concerned with his personal beliefs and actions. | balls187 wrote: | Bill Burr speaks about this in his latest special, that | Coco Chanel slept with nazi officers during WW2, and that | she did what she felt she had to survive. | | He also goes on to talk about John Wayne and Sean Connery | in equally deliteful manner. | kps wrote: | Henry Ford II emphatically and substantively separated | the company from his grandfather's lunacy. | mikestew wrote: | One has been dead for about 75 years and has little | influence over the day-to-day operations of their | respective company. One is still running loose and still | acting like a jackass. | azernik wrote: | Yup - at two previous companies (one I ran, one I didn't) we | had as a design philosophy "we don't cause regressions". If we | gave a customer an extra feature by mistake and they've since | started using it and relying on it, that's on us. They don't | care that they weren't "supposed" to have that feature, they | see that it was taken away. | | Reputation and the customer relationship are worth more than | the company's sense of "fairness", especially when (as in this | case) you're not even deterring future customers from doing | anything, because the customer who's affected is not | responsible for the error. | Enginerrrd wrote: | >They don't care that they weren't "supposed" to have that | feature, they see that it was taken away. | | Bingo. | | One of the issues with conventional large corporations | (mostly outside of tech) is that middle management incentives | often align poorly with this type of philosophy. | | A few companies have gotten this right, at least at times. | | Costco comes to mind in the present. They go out of their way | to save their customers money, and to fix issues customers | have as easily as they can. Their returns policy is pretty | legendary. | | Amazon, somewhat ironically given recent issues, had a | philosophy early on that, if a customer was talking to them, | they probably didn't want to be! ...And it's probably because | something in Amazon's process went wrong. So while I think | their reputation has fallen greatly, they did spend a lot of | engineering effort into "harmonizing" their purchasing and | returns process. Mostly because Bezos saw the value in that. | And despite all the bad press, I think they still have that | not 'right' but 'decent'. Becuase, while I've had a few | issues with amazon, they resolved them really quickly and | easily for me as a customer. (I think you get screwed as a | vendor though...) | | Another example I can think of is Vortex optics. Most optics | companies had a pretty good guarantee, often lifetime. Vortex | just heavily marketed it and took away the edge cases. So | while leupold wouldn't replace your scope if you sent it in | along with a video of you driving over it with a truck, | vortex would. That allowed them to really rapidly acquire a | ton of market share. | | At the end of the day, customers are human and despite tech's | best efforts, they still try to interact with companies as | humans would each other. Fucking over your neighbor while | being technically correct still leaves you with a pissed off | neighbor who will not respond well to anything you bring to | them in the future. | mikestew wrote: | As one who bought TSLA when it was in the low double digits, I | thought for sure that we'd one day own a Tesla (we sure made | enough off TSLA to justify one). But this situation is but one | of many little duck bites that have now put us off the brand. | Sure, a duck doesn't bite all that hard, but enough of those | little nibbles can cause some harm. And so "pedo guy", "taking | TSLA private", "no, FSD does not transfer to the next owner" | (EDIT: bad example, apparently it does), "FSD for realsies this | year", yada, yada, yada, and eventually it adds up to "I'm not | validating that bullshit with a $75K purchase." | | At the end of the day, given that Hyundai/Kia, VW, Ford, et. | al, are all sold out of EVs for the year, we decided we'd just | rather do without a new car than buy a Tesla. Hang in there, | l'il 2011 Leaf; you've served us well so far. | outworlder wrote: | There are some places starting to provide upgraded battery | packs for old Nissan Leafs. I hope that gets more widespread. | | I'm on my second Leaf. Was eyeing an EV 6 but that's an | unnecessary expense. | ipqk wrote: | Also, _not_ buying a new car (EV or not) is the most | environmentally friendly choice you can make. | gridspy wrote: | That doesn't sound true. | | Every car I've had was used, I DO like that the ecological | "cost" of the car is paid by the previous owner. | | However if you buy a new car and drive it for its entire | life (15 years) that seems similar to buying a used car. | Especially if by doing so you put your old ICE car off the | road. | | Better of course if you can live with less cars and use | public transport instead. | wmeredith wrote: | My family is in the exact same boat. It's a very strange | decision by Tesla. | freerobby wrote: | FSD does transfer to next owner with any private sale. | | If you sell it to Tesla, they often remove FSD and resell | without it; but that's no different than anyone else | modifying a vehicle they own and then selling it in its new | state. | mikestew wrote: | My mistake, thanks for the correction; edited (leaving my | error for prosperity, and so the replies make sense). I | added another bullet point to make up for it. :-) | thomaslord wrote: | There are documented cases of Tesla selling a pre-owned | vehicle that was purchased with an optional feature, | listing that optional feature in the sale ad, and then | disabling the feature after the person they sold the car to | has taken possession. | freerobby wrote: | That sucks. Got a link by chance? | | That's definitely not a standard practice, but I can see | how that would happen by mistake (e.g. forget to remove | FSD from the spec sheet) and then be difficult to get | fixed. It's near-impossible to reach the right human at | Tesla, so when things fall through the cracks, it's a | nightmare. I suspect that's the issue OP is quoting, too | -- there's likely a reasonable person at Tesla who can | and would help if they knew about this story. | donarb wrote: | Link to one story is here: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32244975 | donarb wrote: | Yep, here's the article about it. | | https://electrek.co/2020/02/07/tesla-takes-away- | autopilot-us... | wheelie_boy wrote: | Tesla is such an odd company. They apparently have a great | product, hardware and software. But the rest of the company | is just an absolute shitshow | | Like, a friend recently received delivery of a Tesla. They | went to the dealer 4 times before they got the car. Each time | it was "Your car is available, come pick it up" and then when | they got there the car wasn't actually there. By the last | time they demanded that the person at the dealership actually | walked out to the car and physically touched it, verified it | was actually the correct vehicle, before they would go out | again | | It's not hard to find those kinds of stories. It is not a | luxury experience. | martindbp wrote: | Especially odd since Tesla doesn't have dealers and deliver | their cars to you in person. | wheelie_boy wrote: | Looks like I used the wrong word when I said dealer. | | It's apparently called Express Delivery where you "Take | delivery at a Tesla location" | | https://www.tesla.com/support/taking-delivery#express- | delive... | patothon wrote: | not everywhere. you have to pick it up in san francico | for example | Xorlev wrote: | You often have to pick them up at a service center. | csa wrote: | > no, FSD does not transfer to the next owner | | It does transfer to a new owner in private sales. | | I think you are referring to the point that you can buy it | for one Tesla, and it doesn't transfer if you upgrade to a | new Tesla. | | I have a model y, and I will say that all of the "little duck | bites" are vastly overrated for my use case. I can imagine | someone for whom these duck bites may be an issue, but I am | not one of them, and none of my friends who own teslas are | either. | | I imagine that you will enjoy your new Tesla immensely, and | you will wonder what all of the negativity was/is about. | Imho, it's just contrarian yipping against something trendy. | vel0city wrote: | > I imagine that you will enjoy your new Tesla immensely | | And it better be a _new_ Tesla, otherwise who knows what | will happen with the features that were sold as is second | hand. Tesla might just turn them off. | mabbo wrote: | > If the bad publicity alone causes even a tiny fraction of the | population to choose another manufacturer, the've lost their | $4,500 and then some | | This week, I begin shopping for an EV family car. On my list of | options are the Ioniq 5, EV6, and odel X. | | What a great time to see how Tesla treats customers. | anotheracctfo wrote: | This is an excellent business model! Its the complete rejection | of "Right of first sale" and the entire concept of ownership. | Its an inversion of communism where instead of the state owning | something and forcing you to rent it, a corporation does. | | Its incredibly profitable for the ruling class. Too bad you | aren't in it. | smsm42 wrote: | "You'll Own Nothing and Be Happy" | | Or maybe you won't be happy but your only option would be to | complain about it on social media and hope there's enough people | that matter in your follows to raise a stink and get your | particular case looked on. | kytazo wrote: | Whine on social media as long as your social score permits it | of course.. | noasaservice wrote: | --------Transcript of tweets, for those that don't want to go to | birdsite-------- | | Tesla really fires me up sometimes. | | I have a customer who's the ~3rd owner of a 2013 Model S 60. | | At some point years ago the battery pack was swapped under | warranty with a 90 pack. It wasn't software limited. It was | effectively made into a 90 by Tesla. | | Years went by. | | Car is sold twice since, and now has a new owner (my customer). | It says 90, badged 90, has 90-type range. | | He has the car for a few months, goes in and does a paid MCU2 | upgrade at Tesla after the 3G shutdown. | | All goes well. The upgrade is done, car is working fine. | | Later on, while the car is parked in his driveway, Tesla calls | him to tell him that they found and fixed a configuration mistake | with his car. | | They remotely software locked the car to be a 60 again, despite | having been a 90 for years. | | He now has ~80 miles less range. | | Furious, he demands they restore it back to the way it was, and | they refuse. "We can unlock it for $4,500." | | This guy bought a car, & years later Tesla reaches in remotely | with no warning and literally cuts his usable range by a third! | | (I confirmed story w/logs) | | Imagine walking out to your car to find it's now 1/3rd as good as | it was 15 minutes ago, and Tesla making it out like this is a | good thing! They fixed the problem! | | What do you do? | | He tried for a while with them with no progress. | | I try to help, but without completely disconnecting the car from | Tesla, when I change it back to a 90 their "teleforce" bot | reaches in remotely and flips it back to a 60 within moments. | There's hacky ways around this, but none are ideal. | | Tesla won't help him at all. | | Honestly, this is pretty f*cked up. | | Guy had no way to know that this was going to be done by Tesla. | They basically robbed him & are demanding a ransom to get back | what he had before. | | That's just wrong. | | @Tesla @elonmusk - Do better on this and make it right. DM for | VIN. | kytazo wrote: | https://notabird.site/wk057/status/1551713024171548672 | https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances for alternative | instances to the nitter frontend | nathanaldensr wrote: | Luckily I don't have to imagine because I will never, ever buy | a vehicle that allows for this sort of behavior. | | The person should hire a lawyer and sue Tesla. | mnd999 wrote: | Until all manufacturers do this. And they will because it | makes money. | hinkley wrote: | Which is why you sue to establish precedent. | heavenlyblue wrote: | Even for actual crimes there's statute of limitations... | adgjlsfhk1 wrote: | the clock starts when the crime was committed which is when | Tesla cut the range | heavenlyblue wrote: | Can you explain why it was committed when the Tesla cut | the range? | kderbyma wrote: | Why Tesla again? at least with an older car I own it and it's | problems....Tesla seems to passed the problems off to me and keep | the rest... | JustLurking2022 wrote: | The tweets indicate it was "badged a 90". Seems odd/unlikely | Tesla actually changed out the badging on a battery replacement, | in which case someone else committed fraud. | rootusrootus wrote: | Yes, someone may have committed fraud. That has no bearing | whatsoever on the basic problem here, however, which is a car | manufacturer retroactively changing the configuration profile | on a car sold nearly a decade ago. | rhplus wrote: | The wasted resource usage is my biggest concern. The pack uses | 50% more cells that are effectively unusable, meaning 50% more | precious metals were mined for a software option. | afrcnc wrote: | Since America really loves deregulation, that's what you get for | allowing corporate lobbies to dictate laws and prevent the | creation of an EU-like consumer protection agency. | | And please spare me with the "FTC exists" remarks. It's been | neutered for decades. | EricE wrote: | I hope I can be buried with my current "dumb" cars. I have ZERO | desire to have any vehicle with a built in modem or one that | won't run without it being active. | annoyingnoob wrote: | My car came with a modem and was calling home. Now whatever | wireless service it uses is no longer available. My car has | been telling me it couldn't connect and that it would stop | trying but it never stopped trying. Apparently, I have to take | the car to the dealer and pay them to disable the feature in | software. I'm not finding any value in this. | dreamcompiler wrote: | Yet another example of why we need open-source information about | how to find the LTE modem in cars and disable it. | | Longer term, we need firewalls and deep packet inspection devices | we can install inline with the LTE modem, so people can still get | maps and traffic info, but reject all software "upgrades." We | need ublock origin for cars. | rootusrootus wrote: | We need regulation from the government that flat out prevents | this kind of behavior to begin with. Customers shouldn't need | to keep up on the latest technological countermeasures just to | maintain ownership of a car they purchased. | threeseed wrote: | If there's one thing we should all agree on: stop using | analogies. | | This thread is full of the most tortured, confusing and poorly | used analogies I think I've ever seen. | unbalancedevh wrote: | I bought a used car that had satellite radio. I never paid for | the subscription, but it worked for 10 years! Then, suddenly one | day it was cancelled. I didn't really feel like I could call them | and complain.... I wonder if a previous owner was getting billed | the whole time, and just didn't notice it. | | Of course, this is different as a subscription service. But what | if I'd sold it to someone before it got cancelled, and told them | that it had free satellite radio? I don't think Sirius/XM should | then have to just give the service for free. Yet somehow I don't | think Tesla should have limited the battery either. I'm not | really sure what the difference is. | [deleted] | mesozoic wrote: | Sounds like someone found an easy revenue opportunity in the data | to upcharge current owners and implemented it. Probably up for | promotion for it. | agluszak wrote: | There should be a law forbidding software locking. Otherwise I'm | afraid it will keep getting more and more popular (like the "seat | heating subscription"[1]). If I buy a piece of hardware, I own | it. | | 1 - https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/14/business/bmw- | subscription... | seeekr wrote: | Last update on Twitter: | | "While I don't think it's ideal to need a huge social media push | to get things accomplished, thanks to the momentum this thread | has generated it seems like we've got a path forward with Tesla | towards getting this taken care of the right way." | | Tesla is a big company by now. Probably a lot more people working | there in Service Centers than in the core manufacturing & | engineering. Hard to get everything right. Lots of room for | improvement for sure. Rooting for Tesla to work these things out | over time! (Disclaimer: Owner + shareholder, both out of | conviction.) | Nextgrid wrote: | This just makes it worse - it basically means that the only way | to get adequate service for your car is to get lucky on social | media. | | > Tesla is a big company by now. Probably a lot more people | working there in Service Centers than in the core manufacturing | & engineering. Hard to get everything right | | Sorry but if you don't have the capacity to attend to every | single customer request, maybe don't fuck with their cars | remotely, and especially not a couple years after the original | mistake? | kreetx wrote: | The customers probably want the software updates. | rootusrootus wrote: | It doesn't seem like much to ask, though, to have a rule | that says "No software updates will alter the configuration | profile of the car. The end." | [deleted] | jeffwask wrote: | This is why I'll stick to dumb cars. | markus_zhang wrote: | Any recommendation for a solid SUV? Would Toyota cut it? I | remember the coronas are extremely solid but not sure about | their SUV such as Highlander. | grubbs wrote: | Honda Pilot! | markus_zhang wrote: | Thanks! Will look into it. | ls15 wrote: | Who pays for the energy that is needed to move the added weight? | galdosdi wrote: | I don't think this kind of behavior is going to impact their | sales, because frankly, they long ago passed the point where you | have to be willing to completely drink the koolaid and not care | about your privacy/independence and treat your car as just | another SaaS software product you essentially rent, even if you | did pay upfront. | | Much like how Lay's will not lose any customers if it's revealed | they actually are slightly fattier and unhealthier than everyone | already knows they are -- anyone who really would care already | stopped eating them, the customers left don't care. | teawrecks wrote: | I think it hurts the resale value of their vehicles IMO. How | much that hurts the _retail_ value is dependent on the customer | base. Like you said, if the base is like the classic apple user | who just wants the newest shiniest tech, then they already | expect the cost of the vehicle to be sunk. But Apple 's goal | isn't market penetration, exclusivity is part of their brand. | Tesla on the other hand seems to have a goal of replacing as | many gas cars with EVs as possible. I think marketing | exclusivity conflicts with the goal of market penetration, and | the only reason it hasn't become a problem yet is because | everyone assumes their car is losing value already. | | But if Tesla wants to sell a car to the other more frugal 90% | of the population, they're going to have to cut this shit out. | rootusrootus wrote: | I agree, I don't think in the near term this affects their | sales. They've cultivated a myth of technological superiority | that works with less sophisticated consumers, while at the same | time offering fewer features than all of the competition. I | mean, heck, even a Nissan Rogue has a 360* camera that Tesla | doesn't offer. Auto wipers that actually work. CarPlay, etc. | personjerry wrote: | A few examples come to mind, are they similar? | | 1. BMW accidentally enabled the heated seats in your car, then | later deactivates it? So you enjoyed a bonus for a while, seems | like they're entitled to remove it. | | 2. Bank accidentally gives you $1,000,000. A while later they | realize their mistake and ask for the money back / transfer it | out of your account. My understanding is that this is exactly | what would happen. | | What are the differences from this situation? Is it really a | problem? | TheLoafOfBread wrote: | Reason 547 why you should not connect your car to the internet. | Today it is limiting range because mistake several years ago, | tomorrow it will be mandatory ads every time when you start a | car. | techolic wrote: | Why stop at that? Why not a 5 second ad every 10 miles? | TheLoafOfBread wrote: | Oh yes. Roll down windows, full blasting stereo with an ad, | so you can "transfer the message" to as wide audience as | possible. Obviously it will lock audio controls so you can't | mute it. Employee of the month here. | speedgoose wrote: | It's convenient though. You get live traffic data, | international radio in high quality, maps with background | pictures, music and video streaming, the possibility to pre- | heat or pre-cool the car while walking to it and a few other | things. | rootusrootus wrote: | LMAO. My wife's Bolt has CarPlay and I can go in the app and | pre-condition the climate inside the car. And CarPlay has | many features Tesla does not offer. | TheLoafOfBread wrote: | Or... you can just use your phone + Android Auto / CarPlay. | You will achieve same effect without connecting your car to | the internet. And I will rather sacrifice preheating / | precooling if it means, that I will keep control over my car. | speedgoose wrote: | It's difficult to sacrifice that once you experience it. | jonathantf2 wrote: | My 2014 Toyota has a button on the keyfob for pre-A/Cing. | Never connected it to the net, it doesn't even know what | it is. | rootusrootus wrote: | You don't have to. Other cars have apps, too, that allow | you to turn on the air conditioning from afar. | Nextgrid wrote: | Most of these are possible with the smartphone you've already | got and using the car as a dumb display + sound system (via | CarPlay or equivalent), with the advantage that the | smartphone knows its place and the little amount of leverage | it has on you compared to a car. | crooked-v wrote: | On the other hand, with CarPlay/Android Auto I can get 95% of | that without needing to depend on the usually-shitty | infotainment software. | speedgoose wrote: | I'm not a fan of connectivity issues but I agree that the | concept is interesting. | Animats wrote: | The trouble is, the new buyer can't charge the thing from a | Tesla station until they have a "Tesla account", which means | accepting Tesla's EULA, which means giving them control of the | vehicle again. Muahahaha! | | Now, if someone bought the vehicle, and never signed up for a | Tesla account, they might have a good criminal case for | "exceeds authorized access" under the Computer Fraud and Abuse | Act. Because the original owner's obligations to the seller | don't bind the new owner. (This is called "privity" in law. If | A has an obligation to B, and B has an obligation to C, A does | not have an obligation to C.) | | This usually comes up in the other direction, where someone | bought a used Tesla, the relevant DMV recognizes the | transaction, but Tesla does not.[1] But it sometimes comes up | when someone moves a Tesla to another country, which apparently | causes Tesla to treat the vehicle as "unsupported". | | Expect this to become more of an issue as more used Teslas are | around, and there are more third party repair operations. | | [1] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/can-i-supercharge- | wi... | TheLoafOfBread wrote: | Interesting. Well they should fix this hole as they are | getting subsidies to do this: | https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/non-tesla-supercharging | ratg13 wrote: | You can literally just take the sim card out of the vehicle. | Verdex wrote: | Verdex presents: A Plausible Future | | Driver: Okay Car are you ready to go? | | Car: Sure thing driver, let's just hook up to the T-Network. | Okay, we're in! Where's our destination? | | D: Well, first thing is that I'm going to want a Mocha Frappe | from the local Starbucks. | | C: Sounds great! Off we go. | | D: Wait, Car what are we doing at McDonalds? | | C: McDonald's offers a wide variety of cafe style drinks at | competitive prices. This includes your Mocha Frappe. 9 out of | 10 baristas actually prefer the smooth taste of McDonald's | Mocha Frappe to that of Starbucks. Have you had your break | today? | | D: No, I wanted Starbucks. Oh well, I guess we're already in | line. | | Menu: Welcome to McDonalds! What can we make for you today? | | D: I would like a Mocha Frappe. | | M: Oh, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid out frappe machine is broken. | What else can we make for you? | | D: Really? I just wanted the Mocha. Okay Car, can you take me | to Starbucks now? | | C: Sounds great! Off we go. | | D: No, Car, you just left the McDonald's parking lot and then | came right back. They don't have any Mocha Frappe's here. They | said their machine is broken. | | C: McDonald's offers a wide variety of cafe style drinks at | competitive prices. This includes your Mocha Frappe. 9 out of | 10 baristas actually prefer the smooth taste of McDonald's | Mocha Frappe to that of Starbucks. Have you had your break | today? | | D: I guess their frappe machine isn't the only broken machine | here. | function_seven wrote: | My favorite part of this story is where the machine that | forced you to go to the Preferred Provider0 was stymied by | another machine that they couldn't repair because _their_ | preferred provider1 was sued by their overlord 's Preferred | Provider2 | | 0: McD, 1: Kytch, 2: Taylor | smsm42 wrote: | You forgot the part where it charges you for the Frappe | anyway because the charge is automatic (for your | convenience!) and you have to figure out which customer | service you need to call to reverse the charge. Spoiler: | you'd have to call all of them, wait half an hour on hold on | each and at the end you'd have to reverse the charge at CC | company because none of them know how to deal with it. | Reversing the charge would block your car account and you'd | have to spend next month with Uber while it is being sorted | out. | | And by being sorted out I mean you complain on Twitter and | one of the Silicon Valley founders notices it by chance and | mentions it in his feed, from where it reaches the support of | your car company because their support VP reads it, and it is | flagged as something to be handled by an actual human. | bambax wrote: | Very good. Not only will your car try to control you, it will | also fail to do it properly. | misiti3780 wrote: | As a tesla owner, this story does not make me want to unhook my | car from the internet (Tesla did what was legally in their | right to do, this is a nothing-burger.) I would imagine 99% of | other Tesla owners feel them same. | | You feeling nostalgia for the good old days with MapQuest? | rurp wrote: | Sounds like you are Tesla's ideal customer! Most people I | know don't want to have to worry about the manufacturer | suddenly crippling their car's functionality months after | they bought it from a private party. | rootusrootus wrote: | > Tesla did what was legally in their right to do, this is a | nothing-burger. | | Put me in the 1%. I won't buy another Tesla ever, until there | is an ironclad guarantee that what's mine is mine. I did not | license the car from them, I bought it outright. | | > You feeling nostalgia for the good old days with MapQuest? | | Everybody but Tesla has CarPlay. Most have 360* cameras, too, | and physical switches and knobs for certain commonly used | things, etc. | | The real joke is this idea that Tesla is leading | technologically. No, they aren't. They're behind everyone | else at this point. A touchscreen-for-everything only seems | futuristic to a certain niche demographic. | misiti3780 wrote: | sure they arn't .... let's revisit in 2025 | rootusrootus wrote: | Oh so that's when you think they'll finally release FSD? | Ha! | [deleted] | dqpb wrote: | Perhaps Elon Musk is trolling Vilfredo Pareto post-mortem. | balls187 wrote: | It's not clear of the 3rd owner purchased an S90 or knowingly | purchased an S60 that had been "faked" to be an S90. | | Tesla made a mistake, which benefited 1,2 or even all 3 owners. | They then fixed the mistake. | | I wonder if there are some regulations that prohibit the type of | upgrade Tesla did on accident, and the $4,500 fee goes to cover | the regulatory requirements necessary to upgrade a vehicle. | | Otherwise, yes it's kind of bad move from a customer service | point of view. | | As another commenter wrote, the first blame lies with who ever | rebadged the S60 as an S90 and then sold it as an S90. At | somepoint one owner realized they had benefited from something | without paying for it, and it's unclear if they ever tried to | rectify it with Tesla. | | Edit to Add Ethical Questions: | | If you're at a restaurant and you get the final bill and you | notice an item wasn't paid for. Do you speak up, or do you leave | knowing you ate food you didn't pay for? | | What if you order DoorDash, and you get extra food you didn't pay | for? Do you message Doordash to charge you? | | What if it's the opposite, you don't get food you did pay for? | Ask DoorDash for a refund? | | Finally, what if you accidentally receive a high ticket item in | from an online order. 3 months later, the online retailer figures | out what happened, and asks you for the item back. If you refuse | to send it back, should they charge you for it? | crooked-v wrote: | > I wonder if there are some regulations that prohibit the type | of upgrade Tesla did on accident, and the $4,500 fee goes to | cover the regulatory requirements necessary to upgrade a | vehicle. | | There aren't. | | > If you're at a restaurant and you get the final bill and you | notice an item wasn't paid for. Do you speak up, or do you | leave knowing you ate food you didn't pay for? | | If a server at a restaurant says "hey, we're out of the strip | cut, would you like a filet mignon instead at the same price?" | I have no reason to think it's a mistake to be charged the | price of a strip steak. That restaurant doesn't get to put | another charge on my credit card literally years later because | a manager decided that in retrospect I should be charged the | difference. | balls187 wrote: | > If a server at a restaurant says "hey, we're out of the | strip cut, would you like a filet mignon instead at the same | price?" | | In this case, the restaurant offered, which is not a mistake, | and IANAL, but arguably "hey, we're out of the strip cut, | would you like a filet mignon instead at the same price?" | sounds close to a verbal contract. | crooked-v wrote: | Tesla installing a larger battery and configuring the car | for it is the same kind of 'mistake' as a restaurant server | offering and billing something that the restaurant manager | disagrees with. "Whoops, our front-line employee wasn't | supposed to do that" doesn't mean they then get to take | something away literally years later. | rootusrootus wrote: | > If you're at a restaurant and you get the final bill and you | notice an item wasn't paid for. Do you speak up, or do you | leave knowing you ate food you didn't pay for? | | I speak up, and 99 times out of 100 they say "ha, whoops, no | big deal, it's on us." | | > What if you order DoorDash, and you get extra food you didn't | pay for? | | The feds already have rules on this sort of thing. When someone | sends you unsolicited goods you didn't order, they are yours to | keep. | | > Finally, what if you accidentally receive a high ticket item | in from an online order. 3 months later, the online retailer | figures out what happened, and asks you for the item back. If | you refuse to send it back, should they charge you for it? | | That's actually the same example. You're asking moral | questions, but they have established legal answers. | kelnos wrote: | I kinda don't care about the aftermath of this. I think this | entire thing is bad: | | 1. Tesla offers a warranty. | | 2. Tesla is unable to properly make good on the warranty because | they don't continue to stock the correct parts. | | 3. Tesla uses a better part, but then tells the software to | pretend the part is much less capable than it really is. | | No, no, no. Stop right there. This should be illegal. We should | not get to any successive steps where Tesla can gouge you $4,500 | for someone to spend two seconds clicking in some admin UI | somewhere. That is just bullshit. If you replace a part with | something that is more capable (because you no longer have the | less capable version), then the customer should get the benefit | of the new capabilities. Full stop. | nr2x wrote: | I'd this isn't already illegal there really needs to be | legislation to ban this shit. Or at least more right to repair | action. | tdiggity wrote: | Tesla after-care is amazingly bad. Falling through the cracks | will leave you up a river without a paddle. | | You have to be an astute Tesla purchaser to avoid all the "easy" | pitfalls. Which simply summarizes to: Don't buy anything that has | a weird option. Don't expect to be retro-fitted for anything, and | get whatever it is in writing. | | With my Model 3, I bought one used from Tesla and it originally | came with premium connectivity forever. However, when I purchased | mine, it was supposed to only be active for a year (this was the | standard deal for used car purchases from Tesla at the time). I | still have it 2 years later. They probably have a filter/cutoff | by vin # that says who gets premium forever and doesn't filter | for sold/resold by Tesla..until they fix that glitch. It'll | happen one day, I'm sure. | | The latest pitfall is service. If you have a problem, the only | way to talk to someone is to go to the service center. If you | have a problem afterwards, you'll end up as a ticket in the | system and no one will get back to you in a timely manner. | | Service story time; I had my car serviced for a bad LTE board. It | took them several days to diagnose this. When I picked up the | car, they had taken apart the panels in the trunk. My mobile | connector was in the trunk, and they forgot to put it back in | when re-assembling the car. I didn't realize this till the day | after I picked up the car. I called as soon as I found this out | and could not get a live person at the service center. The call | center could only put a ticket in and they'd get back to me in 72 | hours. In cases like this, time is of the essence, the more time | that's passed, the more likely that my mobile connector would go | missing. Anyway, after a lot of calling, no one could get me in | touch with someone at the service center. no one. I couldn't | drive back down there myself for 5 days. When I finally got | there, the service advisor didn't even go ask the tech who worked | on my car where the connector was. He just gave me a new one. | Very frustrating. | eadmund wrote: | 'To ransom' means to _pay_ a ransom. | | 'To _hold_ ransom' (or hold for ransom) is the intended usage | here. | [deleted] | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | Internet of Extortion. What a time to be alive. | hammyhavoc wrote: | Fuck Tesla and Elon Musk then. This puts me off ever buying a | product. | [deleted] | Ekaros wrote: | Good customer relations would have been to leave car as it was... | Then again, if there is some ratio of fanatics that are ready to | pay 4500 extra on second hand car this might make financial | sense... You never know with Tesla and some people... | meltyness wrote: | My perspective is that this simply begs the question, "How does | one buy and sell a used Tesla vehicle?" | | And by doing a bit of research, we arrive at the throat of the | issue. Tesla is a competing Used Tesla Dealer, this is listed in | their 10K as a part of their automotive segment: - | https://www.tesla.com/support/ordering-used-tesla | | This page provides no clear guidance on how licenses transfer for | "upgrades." Presumably that's in the licensing details for each | "upgrade." In other instances, such as Full-Self Driving it's | called a "subscription" which has a clearer implication. I seek | the EULA for the vehicle itself, which should detail that part of | the ownership lifecycle, but it doesn't seem to be public. | | The consumer may be able to work a state-permitted return: | https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/o... | | Under the "New Vehicle Limited Warranty" | https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Model_3_... | | Tesla has performed an unneeded repair and broken their own | obligation... "but when replacing a Battery, Tesla will ensure | that the energy capacity of the replacement Battery is at least | equal to that of the original Battery before the failure | occurred" | noasaservice wrote: | > My perspective is that this simply begs the question, "How | does one buy and sell a used Tesla vehicle?" | | > And by doing a bit of research, we arrive at the throat of | the issue. Tesla is a competing Used Tesla Dealer, this is | listed in their 10K as a part of their automotive segment: - | https://www.tesla.com/support/ordering-used-tesla | | Well, that seems to be the original reason why the older | vehicle companies weren't allowed to directly sell, and had to | go through dealerships. | | But because it is a software company, they break the older | rules and the reasons why we had those older rules. And | naturally, society memory is measured in days. | | This article covers the whole situation... and why we probably | should stick with dealerships? | https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15352113/why-do-we-keep-b... | matsemann wrote: | It's actually a bit scary. When considering what upgrades to | buy, I'm afraid those won't be able to be transferred. So if I | pay $XXXX for a feature, I have to account for that being worth | $0 if I were to sell the car. Is the price point then really | worth it? | clintonb wrote: | All upgrades (e.g., FSD, acceleration boost) stay with the | car. This is huge source of frustration for those of us who | purchased FSD, but want to move to another car while | retaining FSD. | rootusrootus wrote: | All upgrades stay with the car _unless the used car dealer | is Tesla_ themselves. | YeBanKo wrote: | Well, it can be more complicated than that. Each upgrade | can have it's own T&C and they maybe introduce an update, | that stays with the driver. | matsemann wrote: | Ah, that may be the source of my confusion. I'm probably | not the only one having heard things get removed, though. | So their reputation is doing them no favors. | clintonb wrote: | True. Tesla is double-dipping here. They also tend to | enable FSD for many of their used models, which is | frustrating because I don't think FDS is worth the $7K I | spent, and definitely not the current $12K. | dfbsdfbwe2ef2e wrote: | Maybe this is Tesla's strategy. Create fear around the sale of | their used cars so that they're the only company that people | will buy used teslas from. | | It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em. | forgetfulness wrote: | Whereas other auto companies set high barriers to entry to | the aftermarket for used cars of their brand by making them | impossibly costly to fix after their parts began to fail, | Tesla skips all steps and gets down to the core of how you | discourage it: generating fear and ill will. A more efficient | way to discourage your "users" from "transferring" your | product. | oittaa wrote: | Seems like this had a happy ending after all. It just sucks that | nowadays you have to make a fuss on social media when a company | fucks up and doesn't own their mistake. | | https://twitter.com/wk057/status/1551986133780889602 | | "While I don't think it's ideal to need a huge social media push | to get things accomplished, thanks to the momentum this thread | has generated it seems like we've got a path forward with Tesla | towards getting this taken care of the right way. | | Thanks to those who've reached out!" | andrewallbright wrote: | This situation certainly feels like it should be in a Dilbert | comic. | kojeovo wrote: | This kind of stuff is why I'm not really keen to get a Tesla. | Might get a v8 next actually. | turns0ut wrote: | The only issue here is the amount of control Tesla has over | "private property". | | It is not their car. They should have no say over the operating | parameters. | dan-robertson wrote: | I wish the title of this submission was less sensational. | LightG wrote: | Imagine the poor bastards out there who can't get this social | media push ... | | Sounds like Tesla have the same support issues as Google... | | Reason 243 I wouldn't go near buying a Tesla. | notorandit wrote: | superchroma wrote: | "I feel like this is more mundane on Tesla's part than many are | making it out to be. A mistake was made years ago. An employee | recently discovered and "fixed" it. Terrible communication and | customer service, but nefarious? Nah." | | At this point I feel like terrible communication and service is | an intentional business strategy for some companies who found | that by making support so baroque as to be inaccessible or just | eliminating it entirely that they can slash costs accordingly. I | do consider it to be nefarious in such cases. | AinderS wrote: | Software locks themselves are nefarious. Is it the owner's car, | or Tesla's? | Ekaros wrote: | I wonder if there is some nice fine print somewhere that they | only sold a "licence" to use the car. Not the car itself... | Kinda like software has... | kube-system wrote: | It wouldn't matter even if they did. In the US we title | large pieces of property so that people don't pull this | kind of BS. | noasaservice wrote: | If they want to *lease* the vehicles, that's fine. They | need to make it explicitly known it is a lease for X term, | and at Y cost per month of the lease. Modifying their | property would be completely in the clear, or at least a | hell of a lot less ethically ambiguous. | | But they're _selling_ these vehicles. As in, transfer of | title to the person they 're selling to. Taxes are paid. | Transfer is registered with the state(s). Insurance is | purchased on vehicles in your possession. And full coverage | is required for vehicle loans (another set of showing | proper legal transfer). | | And, just because some click-wrap software has "We are | allowed to murder your family and eat your children" does | not make illegal clauses legal. And given in this instance, | it was tesla->first owner->second owner->third owner , any | click-wrap garbage would have been done by the first owner. | | Basically, this is the end-run around physical ownership | for all the IoT companies and companies that pay for/demand | 100% connectivity. All of these companies that have these | always-on remote tie ins are the Darth Vader here - "I am | altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further." | | All the EV companies are doing this. I so want to buy an | EV. I'm not willing to subvert my ownership rights for | that. | jackmott wrote: | All cars are doing this stuff, it isn't EV specific | AinderS wrote: | Contracts and DRM are two sides of the same coin when it | comes to chipping away at ownership. They want to segment | the market as finely as possible, to capture all of the | excess value of their product. | | E.g. they don't want to sell you a general-purpose GPU, but | a GPU that's good for one purpose only, and you have to pay | extra to use it for anything else [1]. Tesla is leading the | way [2], but I'm sure other automakers are also trying to | come up with ways to restrict "personal" vehicles from | being used for "commercial" activities. | | [1] _Nvidia's updates EULA to ban the use of gamer-oriented | GPUs in data centers_ - | https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/nvidia-bans- | consumer... | | [2] _Don't plan on using your autonomous Tesla to earn | money with Uber or Lyft_ - | https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/10/dont-plan-on-using- | an-a... | cowtools wrote: | I have always suspected that nvidia's closed source | drivers are an intentional result of hiding poorly- | implemented limitations (see code 43 error, etc.) for the | sake of market segmentation between data-center and | gaming models. They would be screwed if data centers | realized they could just reuse cheap off-the-shelf | components for a fraction of the price. | | Not to mention they benefit from building up a | proprietary ecosystem (CUDA, etc.) from collecting data | from users (geforce now, etc.). | | It's something of a conspiracy theory. | nr2x wrote: | It's a rental car, you just don't know that when you "buy" | it. | horsawlarway wrote: | This fucking exactly. | | I'm fucking over it. If I "own" the device - legally I | should own a key to _EVERY_ fucking lock inside it. Digital | or physical. | | This attitude that it's acceptable to put a little green | man inside of something you sell, and then retain control | over that sold item using your little green man is | insidious and immoral. I want it fucking banned yesterday, | and it's rapidly becoming one of my strongest political | opinions. | yarg wrote: | Within reason, sure - but there are limits. | | End user control over safety critical software is not | only dangerous, but a potential source of significant | legal liability. | | I don't want an EV that's capable of accelerating at the | maximum rate supported by the motors. | ok_dad wrote: | Why not allow access to safety systems? ICE vehicles have | allowed for all kinds of modifications over the years | that are unsafe and maybe illegal. Why take the user's | choice away now? Because of some bogeyman safety issues | that might affect a dozen people who actually want to | tweak things? It's happening today anyways. | noasaservice wrote: | "Any digital restriction or otherwise arbitrary lock that | tries to supersede physical ownership or first-sale | doctrine or Magnuson Moss Warranty Act shall have all | congressional protections, DMCA, copyright, patent, and | trademarks stripped from those products. | | Any remote access after sale has occurred shall be | considered a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse | Act, and shall hold Chief * Officers, upper tier | executive positions, and boards of directors fully | liable, up to and including reimbursements of 3x per | device to the citizens affected, and prison times no less | than 1 week to a maximum of 10 years. | | Enforcement of this law shall be done by the Federal | Trade Commission." | | I would LOVE to see something like this. | Willish42 wrote: | Unfortunately this kind of law is like, at least 2 | revolutions away from now w.r.t. US politics. No way this | would ever pass even in the house under the current | political system (see: Patriot Act, Citizens United, | etc.) | | It's a nice idea though! | slg wrote: | Maybe this is a controversial opinion here, but I think | software locks aren't inherently bad in a car that can be | driven by software. I don't really trust Tesla's self-driving | software as is, I certainly don't trust some random person's | hack of already questionable Tesla code. This isn't an | iPhone. Someone mucking about in the software can kill | people. | stonemetal12 wrote: | Random person's hack maybe not but what about say Shelby, | or Saleen? I would be all over a Saleen Model S. | tianreyma wrote: | https://www.saleen.com/gtx/ | | Now I kind of want to see what Shelby would do. | Ajedi32 wrote: | Whether or not the car is street legal is an entirely | separate concern, and certainly not one that should be | enforced by allowing the manufacturer to prohibit _all_ | software modifications of any sort. | | It's like preventing customers from changing their own | tires because "they might do it wrong and cause an | accident". Yeah, they might. But it's not the car | manufacturer's responsibility to prevent that, and it | _certainly_ isn 't justification for locking down the car | to only be drivable with manufacturer-installed tires, or | remotely disabling cars that use tires from unapproved | brands. | jonhohle wrote: | While not exactly equivalent, what if the lock was on MPG | on an ICE vehicle? Would that be reasonable? | | Li-ion batteries have a huge environmental cost. To hide | 1/3 of that material behind software is immoral (imho). | | It sounds like they were swapping in a better part because | they may have not had the original. In the past that was a | "win" for the customer. It seems like Tesla has turned this | into a loss for the customer (more weight on the vehicle) | and a loss for humanity (70 tons of earth mined for unused | lithium). | toss1 wrote: | Absolutely true, in the realm of anything related to self- | driving or even fly-by-wire controls. | | However, the software that artificially controls how much | range the battery pack will produce (outside of the | charging & self-protection algos) - that's borderline | unethical to DRM. | 10000truths wrote: | This sort of justification would never fly if we were | talking about modding ICE vehicles: | | * Illegal to replace your own brake rotors or pads, as | faulty ones can cause safety issues. | | * Illegal to replace your own headlights, as bad ones could | be too dim or too bright and cause safety issues. | | * Illegal to change your own oil, as bad ones could seize | up your engine in the middle of the road and cause safety | issues. | | * Illegal to install a turbocharger, as that makes your car | accelerate faster than the manufacturer likes and could | cause safety issues. | | The end result of this line of thinking leads to a million | dollar tractor that a farmer can't fix when they need it | most. I much prefer the idea that people are individually | responsible for any modifications they choose to make to | their cars. | cameronh90 wrote: | In the UK, many modifications are restricted. For | example, if I was to replace my halogen car headlights | with LED ones, the car would be technically illegal, | uninsured and fail inspection (if they notice). Exhausts | can't be noisier than factory, which means in practice | all aftermarket sports exhausts are illegal. | | At some point, I assume modifying drive-by-wire systems | will become legally restricted. | muttled wrote: | In the US, for a while, car manufacturers could void your | warranty over modifications. Something happened some-odd | years back that made it so that they had to prove that | the modification is what caused the issue to refuse | service. | jjav wrote: | 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act | | https://www.autocare.org/government-relations/current- | issues... | pskinner wrote: | Well that's just not true. | HWR_14 wrote: | Are those modifications illegal or is driving it on | public roads after those modifications illegal? | AinderS wrote: | You are talking about something subtly but crucially | different. Replacing your headlights is not illegal, only | the _type_ of headlight you use is legally restricted. | Modification itself is not legally restricted, only the | end result. | kube-system wrote: | Yeah, a better example is modifications to homes. Those | are restricted in many places in the US. I can't replace | a circuit in my homes wiring, even if I follow every | code. | AinderS wrote: | But even in that case, the restriction comes from law, | not an arbitrary decision made by a private company. | Ajedi32 wrote: | And there are a number of competing, qualified, third | party electricians who can make the change for you. You | aren't locked-in to contracting with the company which | originally built the house. | jsight wrote: | Sadly, a lot of people disagree with you and do want much | heavier regulations for a lot of those things. | yarg wrote: | These seem largely to be straw-men; brake rotors, pads, | headlights.... all have associated safety standards. | | You can install your own brake pads sure, but as a layman | if you installed brake pads of your own design and | construction, it might be a bit of an issue. | oittaa wrote: | In EU many modifications are illegal and you'll get huge | fines and/or lose your vehicle. | reedjosh wrote: | Gross. | henkslaaf wrote: | Nitpick: the modifications aren't illegal. Driving with | some modifications is illegal | | You can modify your car to your heart's desire and put it | in a garage or drive it on a race track. You just cannot | go into a public road with them. Totally sensible. | oittaa wrote: | Yeah, that's a better way to put it. But the end result | for an average person is that on public roads you know | that the vehicles are at least somewhat standard. You | just can't go around trying to kill pedestrians or | bicyclist because "muh freedom". [1] | | [1]: https://i.redd.it/e9n15wjtad411.jpg | renewiltord wrote: | I assume you meant that the car in question was a 90 by | virtue of a "random person's hack". Would you mind | describing why you think this? | | The car is a 90 (effectively) because Tesla set it up that | way. | _aavaa_ wrote: | From the twitter thread: "I try to help, but without | completely disconnecting the car from Tesla, when I | change it back to a 90 their "teleforce" bot reaches in | remotely and flips it back to a 60 within moments. | There's hacky ways around this, but none are ideal." | renewiltord wrote: | I see, so that comment is not disagreeing with the | original 60 -> 90 switch. They think it's a bad idea when | 60 -> 90 -> 60 was completed and then the user (and their | confederate) attempted to go back to 90. So that | commenter would have been okay with things if Tesla had | modified nothing back down to 60. Thank you for | explaining. | noasaservice wrote: | Maybe. Maybe not. | | If I sold you my car, and I wanted my stereo but forgot it, the | first sale doctrine covers the whole thing as delivered. If I | was to go to the car, while in your ownership and possession, | and attempt to remove the stereo, you'd call the cops for | vehicular theft. | | That's because it's covered under first sale doctrine. And | being a vehicle (unlike most other goods) has an attached | ownership registered with the state in the forms of a | registration. | | Previously, that was simple. I sell you X; you pay agreed | price; we trade green paper for thing. Now, with remotely tied | crap, people have no say on their properly owned things. That | 3rd party who controls the software can do whateverthefuck they | want - and that's because copyright and software erodes actual | ownership. | | In reality, this "correction" on Tesla's part is no different | if I decided to keep a hole in my previous company's servers, | and then "reach in" for extra-legal 'modifications'. This | should be a federal crime, including interstate commerce | clause, wire fraud, and hacking. People should go to prison for | this kind of thing. - and I'm talking about C levels, not | ground-level techs. | mattnewton wrote: | > If I sold you my car, and I wanted my stereo but forgot it, | the first sale doctrine covers the whole thing as delivered. | If I was to go to the car, while in your ownership and | possession, and attempt to remove the stereo, you'd call the | cops for vehicular theft. | | You could just have included the stereo explicitly in the | contract. This happens all the time in large purchases like | real estate. You would of course need to enforce the contract | in a different way than breaking into their car, but it would | be enforceable as long as the contract as worded doesn't run | afoul of state and local laws. Not doing that, _and_ | forgetting to remove it, well... it seems like consumers are | giving up a very large concept of ownership for marginal | seller use cases, charitably. Uncharitably it seeks to be a | lower grab and cut contract law out of the equation. | | Edit: slight rephrasing because I misread your argument, I | think we are in agreement | glitchinc wrote: | If the time in which the stereo was "forgotten" was at the | time the exclusions were written into the sales contract | (or the sales ad), the stereo would be legally conveyed to | the purchaser of the car once the buyer and seller complete | the sale. | | Similarly, once a real estate purchase is completed, all | items within the bounds of the property purchased--whether | it be roof shingles, trees, or former owner family | heirlooms they forgot to take with them--legally become | possessions of the new owner unless itemized in a sales | contract along with agreed-to stipulations that permit | retrieval of the items by the former owner after completion | of the sale. | | Goodwill (and being a reasonable buyer/seller) goes a long | way in situations such as these, and in most situations a | buyer and seller will work out property sorting issues | amongst themselves. However, there would be nothing legally | preventing a buyer that stumbles upon a stash of gold bars | left in the basement of their new-to-them house--that they | did not know about, and that the previous owner did not | disclose--and immediately selling them. [1] | | BMW's recent second attempt at "enabling equipment features | as a service" is a canary in the coal mine, or trial | balloon, so to speak. BMW's argument for heated-seats-as-a- | service is, flippantly, "What if the second buyer of the | vehicle doesn't want heated seats? They don't have to pay | for the service. Problem solved." This distorted-reality | C-suite speak so drenched in logic fallacy is worthy of a | conversation by itself, but I bring it up to say this: | instead of buying a car in the traditional sense, OEMs are | attempting to change the model to buying "the physical | components comprising a car, and the option to enable | features of those physical components". | | I want no part of it. I like to use hyperbolic (at least | for today) examples adapting commonplace business models | for smart home devices, software licenses, hardware | compatibility lists, EVs, cloud services, etc. to | traditional / legacy / analog items: | | - What if you went to use your hammer you've owned for | years, only to find out that it can't be used to drive in a | nail because the company that made the hammer is no longer | in business? | | - What if your basement flooded because, while the trench | drain around your foundation is physically capable of | directing enough water away from your foundation into your | sump pump, you didn't opt to pay for the "catastrophic | flooding capability" license? Better yet, let's say you | paid for the license, but haven't checked your email in a | few days (maybe because of the storms, since your power has | been out and you don't have ready Internet access) to learn | that the credit card the trench-drain-as-a-service company | has on file has expired and the license renewal charge was | declined, so the license you leased was deactivated via OTA | update without notice sent via the post? | | - What if you find out while driving that your car brakes | won't work because a repair shop you've gone to for years | installed a set of third-party brake pads that used to be | but are no longer compatible with your car (or part of an | OEM-certified or OEM-supported configuration) as the result | of a recent firmware update to your car's PCM/ECU? | | All of those sound terrifying to me. | | [1] Source: myself, but not about gold bars, unfortunately. | More than one year post-purchase of a house I purchased, | the seller decided they wanted a lamp back that they | thought they left at the house prior to its sale. I did not | remember if they left it or not, but they did leave several | items behind. I sent items to their forwarding address that | I deemed to be personal items (e.g. monogrammed clothes), | but assumed that all other items were left because they | didn't want to take them. I donated all of the items I | didn't want, possibly including the lamp they desperately | wanted returned, to charities. After spending a good bit of | energy harassing me over the lamp, the seller consulted | with counsel and learned that they had no options for | recourse. The harassment stopped, and I have not heard from | them since. | ratg13 wrote: | Imagine you bought a home, and 10+ years after you bought it, | not the previous owner, but the owner before that comes to take | the chimney off the house because they had a clause in the | contract between the previous two owners where the chimney was | not part of the sale. This was not in your contract. | | You gonna let the original owner take his chimney over some | deal that happened a decade ago that you had no idea about? | rootusrootus wrote: | It didn't need to be fixed, though. It's as if they consider it | a moral error -- can't be giving free stuff out, ya know! The | money was spent long ago, so the fix didn't save Tesla any | money, no recurring costs, etc. It was purely a "fuck you" | move, and any halfway competent employee should have seen this | shitstorm coming a mile away. | jackmott wrote: | It certainly echos the approach of other tech companies like | google and apple. Save money and reduce risk by not giving your | employees any power or freedom to think on their own. Or not | having employees even exist when possible. The customer suffers | but the customer is also the sucker who used your service | because it was the cheapest or free. | | its all gross and unnecessary | gnicholas wrote: | How can a potential buyer verify that a used Tesla they are | considering purchasing is not subject to some sort of pullback | like this? | | I feel like there's an information asymmetry between the used car | buyer (who has likely never owned a Tesla before, and certainly | doesn't know the history of the vehicle he's considering | purchasing), the seller (who may specifically be aware that the | car appears to have functionality that could be revoked at a | later date), and Tesla (who have records of what has been paid | for). | | What are the right questions for a buyer to ask in order to | ensure they're not left in this unfortunate position? | LgWoodenBadger wrote: | In the US that would be the Monroney Sticker that every new car | comes with. Instead of throwing it out, sounds like most new | car buyers should keep it as a fundamental record of ownership | now. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroney_sticker | gnicholas wrote: | What about addons that were purchased later, like FSD or | BMW's heated seats? Does a simple receipt do the trick? It | feels like we need some way to know that a record was (and | still is) valid. | kube-system wrote: | I don't understand people who throw away monroney stickers. | They fit perfectly in the back of every owners manual pouch. | duncan_idaho wrote: | Tesla wants you to buy a new one | AlexandrB wrote: | Why would I buy a new one if no one will want to buy it from | me in 5 years? Sounds like Tesla wants me to buy a new Ford. | gnicholas wrote: | Tesla's not the only one who pulls shenanigans like this. | BMW was charging annually for CarPlay for a while, and now | they're testing the same for heated seats. If this trend | continues, people will actually want a checklist of things | to ask about, and perhaps a contract that says what | features were paid for, how, and whether there are any | transfer fees so the new owner can use them. Sad state of | affairs. | renewiltord wrote: | Hmm, the Carfax report for the car should show it as what it is | originally, right? All features that are not in that should | then be considered absent. | | But that's not a complete list. FSD, etc. won't transfer | either. You're right. This would be a useful page on some Tesla | owners' wiki. | gnicholas wrote: | It's bigger than just Tesla. Someone should make a site with | a checklist for the type of car you're buying, so you know | what to ask about. And then have a contract that the seller | signs indicating what he paid for and if it will transfer. | Think BMW heated seats, for example. | dylan604 wrote: | >What are the right questions for a buyer to ask in order to | ensure they're not left in this unfortunate position? | | Just a few spit balls for you: | | Do you have another used car for sale that is not a Tesla? | | Does this Tesla have any features currently enabled that might | be disabled when someone realizes I'm no longer the original | owner or the current owner realizes their credit card is still | paying for services they no longer use, etc? | | In what ways will Tesla fuck me after purchasing this car? | toomuchtodo wrote: | You could just as easily get screwed by GM, Ford, or any | other legacy automaker. Your remedies are _always_ legal or | regulatory in nature, and you can't rely on brand alone to | ensure a satisfactory ownership experience. | dylan604 wrote: | I've never had a legacy car that could over-the-air disable | things. Maybe OnStar or similar could do something, but not | like the level that Tesla took things. | | You're "remedies are always legal" is a bit flat. Tell to | the parent that is in a rush to take their 2.34 kids to | school before heading to work that they need to contact a | lawyer before starting their day. And when is the last time | a call to a lawyer fixed anything within any kind of quick | turn time? So now you're without a car until lawyers "fix" | things. | [deleted] | toomuchtodo wrote: | I agree we need better laws around right to repair and | what "ownership" means when software and telematics are | involved. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | > when is the last time a call to a lawyer fixed anything | within any kind of quick turn time? | | This May when my landlord was taking a piss with his | obligations. | | A single letter set him staight real fast. | rootusrootus wrote: | > You could just as easily get screwed by GM, Ford, or any | other legacy automaker | | That is purely hypothetical, however -- as far as I know, | this kind of stunt has only become a thing since Tesla | started doing it. Chevy wants to reduce the capacity of my | wife's Bolt by 20%, but they are _asking_ for her | permission to do that, not just sending an OTA update to do | it against her wishes. | | When I look at what car to buy, I am not going to care so | much about regulations or legal ramifications, I'm going to | look primarily at how likely it is that I will have to | resort to those remedies in the future because the | manufacturer likes to modify already-sold vehicles after | the fact without even asking. | | Stunts like this are why we are looking at a Mach-E to | replace my wife's Bolt, not a Model Y. | dylan604 wrote: | Curiosity is too strong. For what reason does Chevy want | you to volunteer to lower your capacity? | renewiltord wrote: | They blow up otherwise. | https://cleantechnica.com/2021/09/19/gm-tells-bolt- | owners-to... | gnicholas wrote: | I'm not in line for a Tesla either, and the Mach-E does | look nice. Their latent flaw is that they shed range much | more than other EVs in cold weather: | https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/winter-ev-range- | loss | bambax wrote: | > _To be extra clear, I don 't post this stuff because I hate | Tesla or anything. In fact, it's just the opposite. I hate seeing | Tesla derail themselves with this kind of nonsense._ | | I respect the OP for saying this. But I have a hard time | respecting people buying Teslas, or anything from Musk. Is it not | obvious that the guy is a charlatan? (and that the fish rots from | the head?) How likely is it that you won't be robbed blind if you | try to do business with him or any of his ventures? | colechristensen wrote: | He oversells it a bit much (what startup doesn't? it's also a | method for success) but I wouldn't call him a charlatan. The | companies he's run have accomplished quite a lot. | markus_zhang wrote: | I don't like him and I don't think he is that important to | Tesla and SpaceX nowadays. But he did contribute at least at | the beginning. | hinkley wrote: | Someone called him out on twitter for his flirtation with toxic | conservatism. They asked if he remembers what demographic buys | 99% of his vehicles. | | I didn't see if he replied. | rootusrootus wrote: | Aside from anecdotes and fear mongering from EV owners, most | people aren't actually making car buying decisions based on | politics. Of the friends & family I have who own EVs, more | than half are die hard conservatives. They recognize value | when they see it. | astrange wrote: | He needs electric vehicles to be associated with | conservatism, otherwise they're going to ban them and make | rolling coal mandatory. It's probably the greatest thing he | could do for climate change. | hinkley wrote: | If you piss off your current customer base before you land | the new one you'll be filing for bankruptcy protection | before you know it. | ihumanable wrote: | I saw a report somewhere that Teslas current customer | base is pretty evenly split when it comes to political | affiliation. | | I don't think it was this CNN article I'm remembering, | but this has the survey data in it. | | https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/03/cars/tesla-buyer- | politics/ind... | | > Surveys by research firm Morning Consult show that in | January about 22% of Democrats were considering buying a | Tesla, while 17% of Republicans were looking to purchase | one. And that gap has been closing -- Republican | consideration of buying a Tesla has risen about 3 | percentage points just since December's survey. And | Republicans are slightly more likely to trust the Tesla | brand, 27% compared to 25% among Democrats. | kranke155 wrote: | Tim Dillon said it best. | | "I met him and guy is a genius. But he's also a carnival | barker." | rootusrootus wrote: | Genius may be overselling it. Elon's primary skill seems to | be marketing, and recognizing talented senior management to | actually run the company. | kytazo wrote: | I don't know Tim Dillon but you have to be equally 'smart' to | call this pothead puppet a genius | chris_wot wrote: | And this is why I won't buy a Tesla. | malwarebytess wrote: | I have a Tesla (M3.) But it's stories like these that will make | my next electric not a Tesla. | | From the failure to deliver FSD, to the inability to quickly fix | their out-of-factory fitment problems, to anti-customer policies | like these they're quickly souring in my mind. | | At least the car is a blast to drive. | | edit: FWIW looks like Tesla decided to do the right thing, | | > While I don't think it's ideal to need a huge social media push | to get things accomplished, thanks to the momentum this thread | has generated it seems like we've got a path forward with Tesla | towards getting this taken care of the right way. | | https://twitter.com/wk057/status/1551986133780889602 | rootusrootus wrote: | I'm with you. I had a P3D. What a blast it was to drive. But | one of the reasons I sold it was uneasiness about the level of | control Tesla maintained over the car and their apparent | willingness to use that control later -- and not in my best | interest. | | I'm going to stick to cars from manufactures that don't seem | inclined to do this to me. So definitely not Tesla. And maybe | not BMW, they're giving off strong vibes of wanting to play | this same game with their cars. | | It helps that Tesla has fallen way behind in actual features, | so I don't really want what they're offering. I can get lane | following and adaptive cruise from anyone else, CarPlay is more | valuable to me than Tesla's tiny little garden, and all the | other standard car features Tesla doesn't want to offer. Wipers | that work, door handles that don't suck, 360* camera for | parking in tight places, stuff like that. Tesla doesn't have a | monopoly on fast EVs any more, and before much longer they | won't have the best charging network either. That was what drew | me to the P3D. | protomyth wrote: | So, if you buy a Tesla, know your resale value is artificially | low because of the actions of the company. I would expect you | will also be a target of a lawsuit if Tesla reduces features to | the next owner by update unless your sale contract is ironclad. | Even then, if you claim features in your ad or sale agreement | that might come back to haunt you. In this case, if it was | branded a 90 then you are in deep. | wnevets wrote: | Stories like this and BMW selling microtransactions makes me hate | technology. I remember being disgusted when the horse armor DLC | was released and now that type of monetization is everywhere in | gaming. These stories of car manufacturers locking you out of | hardware you paid for with software is the horse armor DLC of the | future for cars. | Spivak wrote: | Horse armor at least provided value through at least a decade | of memes. | rootusrootus wrote: | What a terrible PR stunt. Leaving the extra capacity in place | costs them _nothing_. The money for the bigger pack spent long | ago. Now they have bad PR and an unhappy customer. How many | people are going to read this and say to themselves "Yikes, I | won't ever be buying a Tesla, look how they treat their | customers!" | | They should have used it for a little warm fuzzy "Hey we see this | was in the system wrong, your car is in fact a 60, but you may | now consider it officially a 90. If you haven't already, we'd be | happy to send you a complimentary 90 badge to put on the back." | Cost practically nothing, instant goodwill. | | I enjoyed my Tesla, won't be buying another however. | bena wrote: | The only reason to software lock the capacity of the battery in | this manner is to extort customers. | | There is apparently absolutely no additional labor, no additional | material, nothing to distinguish a P90 from a P60 except for a | software lock. | | That's labor that was not necessary. All the work needed to | software lock the charge capacity of the battery could have been | avoided. The only way it makes sense is if you get to charge more | for the exact same thing. Which is what Tesla is apparently | doing. | | Essentially, every P90 should be $4500 cheaper and every P60 | should have the range of a P90. | LeifCarrotson wrote: | "Extort customers" is another way of saying "perform price | segmentation". Customers hate it, especially when coupled with | economies of scale that make building one physical thing and | selling two software-separated different things, but it's | perfectly rational if abhorrent capitalism. | | As I quoted literally yesterday regarding the BMW heated seat | subscription [1]: | | > _And God help you if an A-list blogger finds out that your | premium printer is identical to the cheap printer, with the | speed inhibitor turned off._ [2] | | You wrote: | | > _Essentially, every P90 should be $4500 cheaper and every P60 | should have the range of a P90._ | | This is not realistic, or is at least overly simplified. There | are customers who would not buy the product at the P90 price, | but still will give Tesla money - just a little less. Tesla | wants that money. There are also customers who are willing to | spend a lot more than the list price of a P60, and Tesla wants | that money too. Tesla also doesn't want to build and stock two | different sized battery packs. | | How would you propose that this should work? Regulate price | segmentation? Better information for consumers? Moral pleading | for megacorporations to act against their financial interests? | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32225588 | | [2] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and- | rubber-... | mlyle wrote: | > but it's perfectly rational | | Indeed, price discrimination eliminates deadweight losses and | improves economic efficiency. | mlyle wrote: | > The only reason to software lock the capacity of the battery | in this manner is to extort customers. | | I have mixed feelings about schemes like this, but I don't | think they're inherently bad. | | You start off making 60kWh and 90kWh cars. Customers are happy | buying both. | | You notice you can save costs overall by just selling the 90kWh | cars at the 60kWh price-- but revenue will fall if you don't | lock the pack down to 60kWh. | | Would it be better to force Tesla to maintain two different | physical pack SKUs and incur more costs if they want different | pricing for the different capacities? | | And you do save some money, even, with the locking-- after all, | the 90kWh pack used as a 60kWh one is _far less likely_ to need | warranty service-- it has spent less time at the extremes of | charge and it can fall all the way from 90 to 54kWh instead of | 90 to 81kWh. | | This is just like binning with CPUs-- at first, the yields | control whether something is an 8 core or 6 core part. Later, | you lock some 8 core parts down to be 6 cores so you can sell | them at a lower price. | crooked-v wrote: | There's a huge difference here compared to binning: binning | generally involves chips that are _physically incapable_ of | performing to the higher spec because of defects. | mlyle wrote: | As I stated in my comment: this is true at the beginning of | a process node with a new design. But yields improve, and | eventually you end up with too many parts in the high bins | and nowhere near enough in the value bins-- so you end up | blowing fuses on parts that test fully OK to make them be 4 | cores or 6 cores. | | (And now, Intel is about to let Xeon customers pay to | unlock additional cores...) | IronWolve wrote: | I was going to mention this also, software defined | processors, where you have to pay intel to unlock | features. But the original buyer unlocks and sells the | PC, it should revert to the stock and limited cpu. | | Here they gave the owner a 90, then came back and limited | it to 60, after the fact, years later. | mlyle wrote: | > Here they gave the owner a 90, then came back and | limited it to 60, after the fact, years later. | | Yah. And the buyer was a buyer in good faith of a 90 | product that no one expected to be snapped down to a 60 | artificially afterwards. I agree this is very | problematic. | ericd wrote: | Initially that's the case, but once the production yield | improves, they frequently start gimping large numbers of | them. | bena wrote: | Or. And I know this is radical. But stop selling the 6 core | and sell the 8 core for the price of the 6. | | Yes revenue will fall, but your costs fell as well. Your | margin should be roughly the same. Anyway, I thought that's | what progress was supposed to be. We get better at making | things, those things become cheaper. | | If the only difference between two physical items is that I'm | not allowed to use all of one, what is the actual difference? | | Why are we justifying these corporations taking us for a | ride? | mlyle wrote: | > Or. And I know this is radical. But stop selling the 6 | core and sell the 8 core for the price of the 6. | | But you still get _some_ 6 core parts-- just not enough to | meet demand. | | In general, suppliers prefer modulating the mix of supply | of their products entering the retail chain over endlessly | modulating pricing to try and match demand. | | > Why are we justifying these corporations taking us for a | ride? | | Well, one fundamental underlying reason is that deadweight | losses fall when you are able to segment markets and adjust | pricing for each (price discrimination). | agloeregrets wrote: | There is actually a second catch here. A Software locked | 90>60 gets less range than a native 60kWh car for the exact | reason why your binning example makes no sense here. Tesla is | building the same packs and locking down the hardware via | software with no yield reason but more importantly, in | binning a 6 core part is a 8 Core part with a defect or not. | | A 60kWh battery is not a defective 90kWh pack at all, it's an | entirely different component weighing hundreds of pounds | less. the 90kWh pack cars eat tires faster, have worse MPGe, | and overall are Ewaste. | mlyle wrote: | > A Software locked 90>60 gets less range than a native | 60kWh | | Yah, a little less, this is true. It also is less damaged | by charging to 100%, has better regen, charges faster, and | can be expected to have a much better lifespan. You could | make a lot of arguments both ways for which one is better. | | > A 60kWh battery is not a defective 90kWh pack at all, | | The point I'm making is that most 6 core parts _are_ 8 core | parts with no defect, so the distinction becomes an | artificial one for the purpose of price discrimination | rather quickly. | | > locking down the hardware via software with no yield | reason | | In addition to the market segmentation reason, there's also | the much-better-warranty-yields reason, and the less-need- | to-predict-what-buyers-will-want reason. | aflag wrote: | Not every P60 is a P90 with software cap. Only a few, when a | P60 battery is not available. They swapped the battery for a | better one in order to keep waiting times low and costumers | happy. That's a good thing. Ideally, if it's an one off thing, | they should just give the upgrade for free to the customer. | However, if it's more of a systematic issue that extended for a | while, it's reasonable that they cap it to avoid abuse. | | Anyway, now that they already let it out without capping, it's | pretty shitty to suddenly cap it. Specially if the car now has | a different owner. | Dylan16807 wrote: | > There is apparently absolutely no additional labor, no | additional material, nothing to distinguish a P90 from a P60 | except for a software lock. | | > Essentially, every P90 should be $4500 cheaper and every P60 | should have the range of a P90. | | Oh come on, don't take this to a ridiculous extreme. | | I'm pretty sure this logic would say that if a store has a | loss-leader then they should sell _everything_ at a negative 20 | percent profit margin. | | Hell, even without software locks, if they want to sell half | the stock at one price and half the stock at a different price | that's fine. | bena wrote: | How is it a ridiculous extreme. If they're the same thing | except you're just not allowed to use the full capacity of | one, then what is the difference? | | It's not like two physically different products. My issue is | that there is no differentiator besides "didn't give enough | money". | Dylan16807 wrote: | Well, like I was trying to say, simplify it even further. | Make it _exactly_ the same product, some sold at price A | and some sold at price B. Just because I can afford to sell | _some_ at a cheaper price doesn 't mean I can afford to | sell _all_ of them at a cheaper price. Right? | | We can take issue with the software lock without saying | something silly like "the lowest price must be the correct | price". Sometimes the lowest price actually loses money. | That's why I brought up loss leaders. | goethes_kind wrote: | The guy should sue Tesla for lugging around 1/3 extra battery | weight at his own cost. | psyc wrote: | Payed-For Physical Objects As A Service strikes again. | hristov wrote: | This has got to be one of the worst clickbait headlines in HN | history, and this is an achievement. This is what happened. | Person A has his tesla serviced, tesla increases his range by | mistake. Person A puts a wrong decal on the tesla and illegally | and fraudulently sells it as a car with an increased range to | person B. The car eventually gets to person C, who takes the | tesla to service where they correct the mistake. | | So sorry, there is no ransoming. Just a bit of old fashioned | fraud, and not on the part of Tesla. | crooked-v wrote: | > illegally and fraudulently | | How so? The car clearly had increased range at the time of | sale. Tesla clearly approved of it at the time or they wouldn't | have let it happen, and companies sure as hell don't get to | take back stuff after _years_ of condoning it because it was | "by mistake". | nocman wrote: | > So sorry, there is no ransoming. Just a bit of old fashioned | fraud, and not on the part of Tesla. | | Actually, it's just a bit of old fashioned stupidity on the | part of Tesla (or, at least, on the part of one of Tesla's | employees). | | They made the mistake when the car was owned by someone else | (in fact, two someone elses ago). It would cost them basically | nothing to just leave it alone, and instead they've gained a | huge pile of ill will -- not only for the current owner of the | car, but an internet's worth of customers and potential | customers. And saying they will "fix" what they "fixed" for | $4500 just makes them look even more like jerks. | | Really bad move on Tesla's part. | ngvrnd wrote: | Would not buy a tesla. There are other electric cars on the | market. | xyproto wrote: | So, 2 owners got extra range for a couple of years. This was to | their benefit. | | It should be considered a gift from Tesla, since Tesla made the | mistake. | | If Tesla withdraws the gift then they should also pay for the | mistake, somehow. | barefeg wrote: | Devils advocate here. Does the action of the customer service | person (and maybe their manager) reflect the real mission of the | company? Could it be employees (for whatever reason) not | realizing that leaving the full range unlocked is in the best | interest of the company? | suprfsat wrote: | Why would the company hire employees, particularly those whose | literal job description is to _represent_ the company, who act | against the real mission of the company? Occam 's Razor | applies. | paulcole wrote: | > Just to be clear, IMO if Tesla swaps a battery under warranty | with a larger one because they don't have the right one, and they | don't software lock it before it leaves the service center... | well, that's on them. They can't play takebacksies years later, | remotely, with no warning. | | This is a really funny thing to say because they can and did. | Should be clear that Tesla will do whatever they want. | kreetx wrote: | There is another story somewhere where a car dealer blames Tesla | for software-downgrading the car. It might be Tesla to blame, but | on the other article a careful read put it in a grey area. | Perhaps here too, the dealer wants to wash themselves clean? | hericium wrote: | Surprise, surprise: the insane may not be a best judge of what's | right and wrong. | jordanmorgan10 wrote: | Things like this make me indifferent. I bought a Model 3 last | year, and it's by far the best car I've ever owned. I love it. | | And then I think, I hope none of this BS ever befalls me. | vitalus wrote: | Is it possible to modify the car to disconnect from the remote | Tesla service and keep the 90 firmware on there? What critical | functionality of the car would you be looking at losing, other | than updates? | theandrewbailey wrote: | https://twitter.com/wk057/status/1551713024171548672 | | EDIT: Meant to paste unrolled link: | https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1551713024171548672.html | kytazo wrote: | So futuristic | rvz wrote: | > Ransoms car owner remotely... | | Well, as expected and unsurprising. [0] It isn't your car. You | don't own it and it has a backdoor straight to Tesla inc. | | Especially this magnificent and well (badly) aged comment in [0] | "TESla OwNErs likE THiS BAcKdoOR abIlITY." | | I don't think the comments here now would like a backdoor talking | straight to Tesla so that they can disable features and hold your | car to ransoms like this. | | No thanks and no deal. | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29624703 | Seattle3503 wrote: | The message to customers is that they are on the hook for Tesla's | mistakes. | tonymet wrote: | Consumers have the power here and are giving up more and more | rights every day. | | In the EU they can now remotely speed limit your car. | | If you think the push for EVs is for the environment think again, | they are a dubious tradeoff with a bigger environmental impact. | | The EV push is meant to take away your control over the assets | that you "own". | | If you don't fight back now, you won't be able to own anything in | 5 years. | rootusrootus wrote: | Oh jeez. This has nothing to do with EVs. Most EVs, in fact, | are nowhere near as intrusively leashed to the mothership as | Teslas are. My wife's Bolt is just a car that happens to use | electric motors instead of gas. As are most EVs. | | Also, if you think EVs are worse for the environment, then you | are exposing your ideologically-driven ignorance. | SeanLuke wrote: | Can we have the title changed? "To ransom" means to free someone | from captivity by paying their ransom. Tesla's not freeing | anyone. I think the term the poster meant was "extorts". | exabrial wrote: | In my current gas truck (GMC), I disconnected the OnStar module | harness. I'm not buying an electric vehicle until I have the same | option. | | "Green" and "Environmental" hardware companies like Tesla, Apple, | etc are a joke. | misiti3780 wrote: | Couple question for everyone dogging tesla in this thread: | | 1. Does your car support over the air updates? | | 2. If (1) is yes, do you really want to give them up because of | this edge case? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-26 23:00 UTC)