AnthonyMouse, I can't seem to reply to your comment directly, so I'll have to comment to mine.
>They don't have to be, for the same reason that you don't have to understand Maxwell's equations to understand that it's possible to cause a fire with bad wiring. The concept of "the user modifications caused the problem" is not beyond the public understanding. Anyone who cares about more details than that can take the time to understand them but those are not the people you have to worry about.
You try convincing the public of that. Every time a Tesla has caught on fire, it's been reported on in numerous news outlets. Despite the fact that thousands of gasoline cars catch on fire every year, people are worried about much rarer, milder lithium-ion battery fires. It's a new thing, so it gets way more scrutiny. People aren't always reasonable, and regulations are often made based on perceptions of danger, not actual risks. I think Tesla is not being unreasonable in thinking that "well, it's the owner's fault for messing with it!" is going to come off as anything but mealy-mouthed blame deflection. Even if they're in the right.
>Your arguments either apply or they don't. Their competitors are not in a different situation. They'll all make the same choice.
So whatever choice Tesla makes, all their competitors will also make? Or, in the case of Uber's in-development car, probably already have made? I think you're according them more influence than they really have. The point stands that whatever Tesla's choice on this matter, it does not apply a legal obligation on their competitors to do the same. So it is not "no improvement".
>That's the point. You don't want a black box in control of life or death situations. You want something the user can understand when they're capable of it, so that the 2% of users who are can identify and fix problems that will affect the other 98% before it turns into deaths and liability.
Opening up the car could reduce their liability, because it gives them somewhere else to point the finger sometimes, and a large population of people willing to find and fix problems. If they control the car entirely then all the liability is always on them and no one can help them when they make a mistake.
But that's the thing - they don't want to be pointing the finger anywhere because that's almost always bad press for them. Throwing blame just looks bad. While helpful users are certainly an asset, it's mostly as a resource for identifying problems, not attempting to solve them on their own cars. Trying to aggregate, understand, vet, and integrate users' solutions is a huge and difficult undertaking, and not something that I think they want to attempt while trying to roll out a reasonably consistent product.