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Tesla remotely converts battery pack, cutting 1/3 of range

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Re: Tesla remotely converts battery pack, cutting 1/3 of range

#331

Post by jtbayly »

jabbany wrote: post #275
zozbot234 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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 be…

Did you read the post? It said it was a 90.

Re: Tesla remotely converts battery pack, cutting 1/3 of range

#332

Post by techolic »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #35

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.

Why stop at that? Why not a 5 second ad every 10 miles?

Re: Tesla remotely converts battery pack, cutting 1/3 of range

#334

Post by jjulius »

sverhagen wrote: post #177
015a wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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 con…

>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.

Re: Tesla remotely converts battery pack, cutting 1/3 of range

#335

Post by jjav »

muttled wrote: post #287
cameronh90 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act

https://www.autocare.org/government-relations/current-issues...

Re: Tesla remotely converts battery pack, cutting 1/3 of range

#337

Post by jabbany »

shadowgovt wrote: post #324
jabbany wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 h…

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…

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 (?).

Re: Tesla remotely converts battery pack, cutting 1/3 of range

#338

Post by mercutio2 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #27
Enginerrrd wrote: post #10

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'…

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…

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.

Re: Tesla remotely converts battery pack, cutting 1/3 of range

#340

Post by dan_quixote »

1shooner wrote: post #161
infogulch wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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

Any rational marketer or PR officer would gladly give up that $4,500 to avoid this HN post.

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.
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