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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

#351
post #48

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. Sin…

> 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.

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

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> (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 3…

> 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…

Three types:

The person you're responding to meant "can't" as is "socially disallowed".

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

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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, sav…

> 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.

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

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Also if TSLA actually cares about "saving the planet" then they probably need to support a used car market...

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

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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 t…

Too much pedantry. If it doesn't benefit the consumer unequivocally, don't fucking do it.
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