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Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

arstechnica.com

201–210 of 213 posts

Re: Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

#201
post #65

The erosion of the concept of "ownership" continues. Traditionally, goods are subject to the first sale doctrine--once I buy a shirt, it's my property, and if I want to sell or rent it, I can. It's mine. But software is licensed. When I buy a piece of software, I'm actually paying for a limited and revokable right to use someone else's property. And now companies are putting software into more and more goods. As soft…

It's very important to realize that this is a problem that our generation will have to fix, or it will never be fixed. To us, this seems completely unnatural, because we've spent so many years in a world where this type of tech could be truly "owned." However, future generations born in the world of today will be totally accustomed to renting/licensing everything. They won't have the same fiery indignation that we do…

I fail to understand the lure of "owning" things. I don't own my cars. I don't own my music. I don't own my phone. I don't own my apartment and I probably won't own my house when I'm ready to make that move.

But my cars take me wherever I want to go, my music makes me feel good, my phone helps me in a multitude of ways and my apartment is great and, hopefully, my house will be too. They get the job done.

Is there a risk that the owning party (who sometimes don't even own the stuff they're selling!) can take everything away? Of course. But it's rare enough for me to not worry about. If I can't make my car payments, I've got bigger problems.

Re: Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

#202
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not "buying" a Tesla anymore just like you aren't "buying" an iPhone anymore. Thus it is not "yours", and you can't do anything you want with it.

It's starting to get out of hand. I purchased a Toyota last year and magically get updates and phone calls about scheduling maintenance. This means the car is sending data to the mothership without anyone realizing it. They have all your driving habits and likely share it with however they want. You can't stop it and most people don't realize it is even happening.

I'd rather have that and know when I need to bring my car in for service than go without and accidentally go thousands of miles beyond the service date

Re: Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not signed nor agreed on any such a thing. I got house from my grandpa who build it on his own land. So if anything I am forced into either paying the property tax or facing penalty of having my house closed down and put for bid. Call it anything but, please don't call it an ownership.

I fear this is going down a rabbit hole, but nonetheless. You are, I suspect deliberately, attempting to obfuscate the issue of ownership. Here are some examples: - you legally own a gun. you use gun in commission of a crime. gun will be confiscated. - you legally own a vehicle. you use it in commission of a crime (whether as a getaway vehicle, or striking a pedestrian). car can be confiscated. Whether you think they…

> Whether you think they SHOULD be or not, not paying taxes is considered a crime

That's fine so lock me up. But don't take over my property and sell it to the highest bidder. If they have a right to do so, I have to be naive to say "I own my house".

Re: Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

#204

I had a similar reaction (as in the article) when I read the Tesla feature explanation initially. But, later I realized Tesla is not overstepping the boundary. Here's why I think so: Tesla is setting the correct expectations. Once the car is fully autonomous, the process of dispatching rides to a pickup location will be controlled by Tesla. So, if you own the car, and but are not needing the car to be used for a week…

In this fictitious world you're describing, I should not be paying full prices for the car. Instead it should be more of a rental agreement, which I'd be totally fine with. However, if I'm paying $100k for a vehicle, it should be mine to do what I want with (within the bounds of the law).

That rental agreement you seek is called a lease, and you can certainly do that with the Tesla if it's new. You only pay the car's depreciation, not its total value

Leases are great for us that buy used since we get to have awesome cars at tens of thousands of dollars cheaper than new

Re: Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

#205
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true though. The app isn't going to crank the steering wheel around, it's going to input a destination. Their lies don't become any more compelling when you repeat them.

The destination is not a control input?

Not meaningfully, no. We're talking about the user damaging the car. The car already has to check for bad user input.

A hypothetical Uber app that controlled the self-driving car would just be passing the user's destination through - to be verified as if they entered it directly. It wouldn't be controlling the steering...

Re: Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Now they come with software and a prohibition against customer modification or repair." This is not entirely unreasonable, they can probably justify it some way, of course it's probably just a away go guarantee their service contracts.

No, it is. It's well established case law. If your modification or repair can be shown to contribute to a problem/ accident, you're held liable, not the manufacturer. Instead it was used, and abused by manufacturers - "Oh, your transmission blew? Horrible! It's a real shame that you put aftermarket rims on your car, those are non approved parts and void your vehicles warranty!"

There's a difference between liability in causing accidents - and support/warranty.

Think about it: some guy changes the suspension on his car, making it super tight, puts racing wheels on - and then claims an issue on 'warranty' when something happens due to his modifications?

It's definitely within reason to forfeit a warranty if someone hacks up the product with their customizations.

There's no way an auto-manufacturer can provide warranties for parts, which depend on other parts - that have been altered.

Re: Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear this is going down a rabbit hole, but nonetheless. You are, I suspect deliberately, attempting to obfuscate the issue of ownership. Here are some examples: - you legally own a gun. you use gun in commission of a crime. gun will be confiscated. - you legally own a vehicle. you use it in commission of a crime (whether as a getaway vehicle, or striking a pedestrian). car can be confiscated. Whether you think they…

> Whether you think they SHOULD be or not, not paying taxes is considered a crime That's fine so lock me up. But don't take over my property and sell it to the highest bidder. If they have a right to do so, I have to be naive to say "I own my house".

Locking you up does not get them their money. Infact, they are spending more money on you. Taking over your house and selling it, gets them their money.

If you really wanted to complain about the govt being over powered and taking over stuff you own, you could point out Civil Forfeiture.

Re: Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That concept of some restrictions has a specialized word for it - government.

You can avoid the restrictions on Teslas by not purchasing a Tesla. You can avoid the restrictions set by government by...well, you can't really, unless you want to leave where you are.

but you can?

Re: Revenue from self-driving Teslas only allowed through the Tesla Network

#209
post #3

It's not enforceable, so why demand it Tesla? Nothing more annoying than a company that starts to overstep boundaries.. Stay out of my personal decisions.

it's probably unenforceable if one person is using their autonomous car for ridesharing, but i doubt that's what tesla cares about. If Uber decided to buy a fleet of autonomous Teslas and use them to operate an autonomous taxi service, instead of building their own autonomous car, Tesla could get that shut down pretty easily with these terms. And i'm guessing that's what they're targeting.

So do you really suggest that tesla's going to refuse an order of 100000 cars by Uber?
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