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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

#591

Post by toomuchtodo »

dylan604 wrote: post #579
enragedcacti wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its part of a massive recall on the bolt. They completely halted production for months and months and are now going to recall and replace the battery of every bolt on the road. Before the replacements go in they want owners to agree to have their capacity cut as an extra precaution.

So is it better to do this, or do an Apple and just have the software silently start handling things for you in order to protect your battery therefore protecting you? I don't mean that in a rhetorical way either. Things happen in the real world that means products sometimes misbehave outside of the expected. To me, the ultimate thing would be for the company to revalue the item based on the new limited capabilities…

Better isn’t the question I would say. It’s “what remedy is fair to owners, within regulatory and legal requirements, and performed with full disclosure?”

If an owner wants a buyback, the automaker buys it back. If the owner wants to keep the vehicle with whatever changes need to be made to make the vehicle safe, they keep the car and a check is cut to make them whole for the diminished value of the vehicle.

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

#592

Post by judge2020 »

kelnos wrote: post #425
judge2020 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

> 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…

> Tough shit? Why are we responsible for the success of Tesla's business model?

If you don't want Tesla to succeed, you shouldn't be purchasing the product. In the same vein, you shouldn't be purchasing Apple products if you think their business model of taking 30% of app-based iOS transactions is too much profit for your liking.

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

#593

Post by judge2020 »

hgomersall wrote: post #420
judge2020 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Except that 30kWh of batteries cost several thousand $ wholesale, whereas heated seats cost pennies.

But the costs are abstract. What if it costs more than $4500 per unit to pay people to catalog, build, and inventory these huge 60kw packs compared to 90kw packs? This is especially likely with how they're probably only making a few dozen of these a year (given the % of the existing packs that fail under warranty) compared to the hundreds of 90s that need replacement every year.

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

#594

Post by [deleted] »

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'…

[deleted]

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

#595

Post by tomjakubowski »

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'…

> Harmony is a really underrated concept. When things are harmonious, you don't have problems like this, and you can still make money.

OK, I think I agree. How do we build things that are harmonious?

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

#596

Post by thfuran »

ROTMetro wrote: post #583
jtbayly wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If I sell a base package of software, and the same codebase has advanced functionality sold as an option/upgrade, with the only difference being the software key used to activate the software, and a version of my software fails the key validation and gives you everything, am I now required to upgrade you to the full version forever?

No one is suggesting that Tesla ought to be obligated to replace the battery for free whenever the new owner wants.

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

#597

Post by ok_dad »

judge2020 wrote: post #565
ok_dad wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When's the last time you saw Toyota in the headline for one of their cars catching on fire on the highway? Tesla has hype on the same level of Apple, so any time anything goes wrong with a car catching on fire or crashing, or having a terrible time with getting the car serviced, they're in the news. Tesla's first-party service centers are usually a plus for consumers, but Ford GM et al. benefit from dealerships being…

I don’t understand how a business’s PR concerns should affect my freedom.

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

#598

Post by enragedcacti »

dylan604 wrote: post #579
enragedcacti wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its part of a massive recall on the bolt. They completely halted production for months and months and are now going to recall and replace the battery of every bolt on the road. Before the replacements go in they want owners to agree to have their capacity cut as an extra precaution.

So is it better to do this, or do an Apple and just have the software silently start handling things for you in order to protect your battery therefore protecting you? I don't mean that in a rhetorical way either. Things happen in the real world that means products sometimes misbehave outside of the expected. To me, the ultimate thing would be for the company to revalue the item based on the new limited capabilities…

> So is it better to do this, or do an Apple and just have the software silently start handling things for you in order to protect your battery therefore protecting you?

I always thought Apple should have offered free battery replacements, ideally ones that had been re-engineered to better maintain voltage, so I think Chevy's approach is good here given the predicament.

Having to accept a very small risk of fire or lose range temporarily is really unfortunate, but all 2017-2019 owners are getting a 6kWh (20ish mile) upgrade in addition to everyone getting a brand new battery with a fresh battery warranty. Options for buy back or partial refund would be good to present as options but idk how many people would take it in this car market and/or with the option to get a brand new battery.

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

#599

Post by porknubbins »

I wonder technically how they implement this. If the battery stops charging at 60 wouldn’t that potentially have a negative impact on the battery life depending on the battery chemistry? I guess the alternative would be tracking power used and cutting off at 30 left which would actually be better than running down to 0.
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