26 ms·

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

173 points by TDL 10y ago

vermontdevil 10y ago
Wow. Key statement here: " but doing so for revenue purposes will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be released next year." Tesla Network? Uber/Lyft competitor? Plus I sure hope this won't hold up in court. I do not want a company telling me how to use my product that I paid for.
- ythl 10y ago
  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.
  - adventurer 10y ago
    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__believe 10y ago
      I've received these as well, but it's always been "Hey, it's been 6 months since your last oil change with us -- come on in!" I could very easily see if you go to the same mechanic and they input your mileage between visits and a system having a reasonable chance of getting scheduled maintenance correct based upon time or average mileage. I've never heard of a company pulling data from a car OTA to do this type of work. (some car insurance companies are a different story though)
      - adventurer 10y ago
        I'm receiving the communication about 2-3 months ahead of that schedule due to the excess mileage I'm driving. At about 6k miles, my tire sensor was going on and off for a few days, then I received an email specifically to come in to check the tire pressure. It may have be coincidence, but it's highly unlikely at this point.
      - masklinn 10y ago
        Many high-end cars have embedded cellular connections, in 2015 Miller and Valasek managed to crack into Jeep's, jump the airgap and take control of the car over the OTA reporting connection: https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/ https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig... No idea if that's the case with Toyota, but it's definitely possible with some high-end cars (most definitely including Teslas which routinely report to the mothership) (incidentally it's fun seeing people drool over teslas then freak out at Firefox or MS telemetry)
        EdHominem 10y ago
        Amusingly, the air-gap was a firewall on a chip. No air whatsoever. They got around it a few ways, including most effectively, by re-flashing it to just be a passthrough. Based on that, I'd say anyone who is injured because of this in any way has a great claim against the company for lying about the equipment they provided.
    - forgetsusername 10y ago
      >I purchased a Toyota last year and magically get updates and phone calls about scheduling maintenance. I bet if you were willing to waive the warranty they'd stop calling you. But, being as how the warranty on cars is now 5+ years, and that the maintenance variance among owners is high, I don't see this as a bad thing. Granted, it's not happening to me (yet), so I might complain too.
    - mtgx 10y ago
      > You can't stop it and most people don't realize it is even happening. Yet the media will probably spin this as "people just don't care," as they usually do with privacy issues. It's very much an awareness and education issue.
    - ceejayoz 10y ago
      > 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. No, it doesn't, at least not necessarily. I also bought a Toyota last year. They called on a regular timed schedule that had nothing to do with my actual usage pattern. We got a call to come in for our 5,000 mile service when we'd just completed the 10,000 mile service. It may be a feature of the higher-end models, but it's definitely not something the 2015/2016 Corollas seem to do.
    - nunez 10y ago
      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
- errnoh 10y ago
  This was already on Musk's Master Plan Pt2 [0], listed under "Sharing". Though it's true that the name of the service and release schedule was not known before. [0] https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux
  - vermontdevil 10y ago
    Interesting. Wonder if I have the option to opt out of the "Network" and join Uber or a future entity?
- lanna 10y ago
  > I do not want a company telling me how to use my product that I paid for. I'm not defending Tesla here, I just want to draw an analogy. You can't go a store, buy a DVD for $15 and then charge tickets to project to an audience. You need a different, more expensive license for that. The same applies to music and software, even if it is embedded firmware in a car.
  - ddalex 10y ago
    > You can't go a store, buy a DVD for $15 and then charge tickets to project to an audience. Maybe this model is actually bad because it circumvents the first sale doctrine, and we need to make this kind of restriction one illegal (haha, in my dreams).
    - lanna 10y ago
      I'm not defending the model, I'm just saying how it is now.
      - EdHominem 10y ago
        A few court vaugely related court-cases don't make a widespread and reliable principle. If there was such a doctrine it would depend on the presentation of the product, the importance of the software to the product, and the viability of the product if separated into parts. Further, such a doctrine would allow you to buy the Tesla and remove the software they didn't want to license to you. So no, that isn't how it is - that's how they want you to think it works so you don't even bother trying. Go ask a lawyer for a clear-cut answer on anything.
  - svens_ 10y ago
    In the same vein, Tesla offers unlimited free supercharging for its vehicles. This is a generous offer, that only works under the assumption that people use it responsibly. It would be quite unfair if someone ran his commercial fleet with it. Of course this is easy to fix, but it would still result in either forbidding commercial use (without license) or metered supercharging.
aantix 10y ago
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.
- jellicle 10y ago
  Why would you think it's not enforceable? Indeed, the more restrictions Tesla adds, the more enforceable it is: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/09/the-end-of-used-major-ruling-upholds-tough-software-licenses/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/09/the-end-of-used-m...
  - pluma 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure the EULA wouldn't be enforceable in the EU, though. The vast majority of EULAs currently in existence are unenforceable in the EU except for the most basic restrictions that would probably be obvious even without a EULA.
    - Noseshine 10y ago
      The legal situation right now does not matter. Who pays the lobbyists? This is a long-term plan not just of Tesla, but a corporate dream. No more danger of losing customers, when you have "the one ring" to bind them... It won't sound evil. They will just tell the politicians that in order to invest huge sums of money they need guarantees, that the uncertainty of not binding their customers hinders job creation and investment, etc. Nothing is new in that playbook, since from their point of view it's actually not even wrong. It's not like they have to come up with some outrageous lies. Today it's Tesla, but that process has been going on for a long time. It's just too good: Control over a stable income stream instead of the ups and downs of the free market. It also appeals to people working in those firms, so again not actually clearly "evil". It also appeals to a lot of people in our allegedly "uncertain and dangerous times" that there is ever more "order" and control. They actually have a point: The more complex out systems become, which includes the state, the more dangerous failure and the harder a recovery. Are our systems becoming more unstable? If so the trend explains itself, because that calls for more certainty and control - since changing the system itself seems to be no option because nobody knows how and what to change it to, or at least there is no trace of a consensus. So, more order and control it is.
awesomerobot 10y ago
A venn diagram with two circles that don't intersect: "Can afford a Tesla" "Wants to drive for Uber"
- shuntress 10y ago
  "I could afford a Tesla if it could help pay for itself..."
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  Well the point is that the car would drive itself for Uber.
- MatthewMcDonald 10y ago
  I think it's more appropriate to model: "Can afford a Tesla" "Wants to monetize Tesla when not using it"
  - simonlc 10y ago
    I doubt driving for Uber will earn you a net profit, considering the millage on your car.
    - MatthewMcDonald 10y ago
      I'm not familiar enough with the pricing details to disagree with you, but it's worth mentioning that a Model S can be used for the UberLux service (~3x more expensive than UberX).
    - sokoloff 10y ago
      Uber pays over a dollar per mile for UberX. The GSA rate for autos now is $0.54/mile, which is intended to be an "all-in" figure for operating costs. I think there's room for profiting from driving Uber. (I also agree that it's a good bit less than it appears based on the cash-in and cash-out every week.)
- gambiting 10y ago
ghaff 10y ago
On the one hand, it's absolutely appropriate for people to raise questions about these types of contract/license terms and have a discussion around them. On the other hand, as a practical matter, this particular case is a complete non-issue. Anyone who thinks a car being sold today is ever going to be remotely capable of fully autonomous operation, software updates notwithstanding, is... optimistic.
snowwrestler 10y ago
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 software is eating the world, it is also eating our concept of what it means to buy and own things. Amazon in 2009 remotely deleted George Orwell books (you can't make this up) from customer Kindles without asking first. Amazon didn't need the customers' permission because a Kindle book is legally a license, not a piece of property. John Deere tractors have been prized by farmers for their durability and flexibility. Now they come with software and a prohibition against customer modification or repair. It sounds silly but the right to repair our own property is under threat. It's now something that we need to fight for. And now apparently even paying $100,000 will not be enough to give full ownership rights to a car.
- daddykotex 10y ago
  > 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. That's a pretty good summary.
- RUG3Y 10y ago
  It's our responsibility to choose and support products that respect our rights and empower us. Vote with your feet.
  - hood_syntax 10y ago
    I agree with this, and I try to follow it as much as possible, but it can be hard to find companies that produce those products.
  - fucking_tragedy 10y ago
bryanlarsen 10y ago
There are a bunch of possible good reasons that Tesla might want to do this: - liability - hacking prevention: anybody in the car will be able to take over the car, so you should make sure there's always somebody you trust in the car - regulatory: the owner of the car is liable for any infractions a car makes, so only there should always be somebody you trust in the car But the wording makes clear that this is just a cash grab. You'd think that Tesla would have worded it to imply that they actually have a good reason...
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  All of those reasons would apply to any other vehicle.
- CoryG89 10y ago
  This might be a reasonable argument except that Tesla makes clear that they plan to allow this as long as you use their ride sharing service, Tesla Network, which doesn't even exist yet.
anbende 10y ago
If this is really about Tesla pushing their own ridesharing, wouldn't it be smarter for them to make all future price-breaks contingent on using their system? That way if someone really wants to drive Uber they can, but it'll cost them 10-15k extra for the "unlocked" version. This would seriously curtail Teslas being used on competing services, and when they were, Tesla would make money... Seems like it would be better to do it with pricing than irritating rules...
- TheCondor 10y ago
  Are they preventing you from driving for uber or are they preventing their software from driving for uber?
  - pcr0 10y ago
    Their software
sideshowb 10y ago
This sounds more like a PR stunt than anything else. Honestly how many jurisdictions will allow self driving vehicles (without a human on board) to function before the current generation of cars reach end of life?
virtualsue 10y ago
Surely this is to stop Uber, Lyft etc from buying a fleet of the things for their business use, rather than targeting individual drivers specifically (though they're happy to stop that too).
- virtualsue 10y ago
  ...bearing in mind that Tesla AFAIAA is supposed to be selling more moderately priced cars in the near future
- serge2k 10y ago
  Why should tesla stop that? Fleet sales are big money.
  - virtualsue 10y ago
    Since they appear to plan on running an uber/lyft style service with self-driving tech, and they believe that their tech is especially likely to give them an advantage in that business, that would be one big reason.
  - flylib 10y ago
    the majority of revenue will come from tesla network, it will far eclipse potential revenue from fleet sales, this isn't that controversial what tesla is doing and is what every car company will do. Revenue from car sales will go down as more and more people use fleet services and car companies will make the majority of revenue from autonomous ride sharing networks, why let some competitor use your cars/software without having to do any of the difficult work themselves, creating a low barrier to entry is a losing strategy if your doing all the work
sschueller 10y ago
What will Tesla do if you do it anyway? Disable your $100k car? Does that hold up in court? What did you buy for $100k?
- arcticbull 10y ago
  The license to drive a Tesla subject to the terms and conditions.
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    So you still own the car but won't be licensed to drive it? And people are saying "Yeah, sounds reasonable!" in this thread? Okay...
    - jboles 10y ago
      Might want to read the article?
  - jboles 10y ago
    No, you're free to drive the Tesla however you wish. If you want Tesla software to drive the Tesla, then there are conditions. Fair enough.
- snrplfth 10y ago
  You actually do buy a car, but the autonomy software comes with restrictions. You can the car manually if you want to use it for ride-sharing.
- eggnet 10y ago
  They could easily disable the autonomous functions. Maybe even refund a portion of the license fee. Who knows what they will choose to do.
moon_of_moon 10y ago
How would this work? "Dear Customer - your usage patterns shows that you are using your car for ride sharing revenue. Please stop it." "Dear Customer - Second warning." "Dear Customer - we have disabled important safety updates for your car, because it looks like you are ride sharing for profit. You might be a real estate agent with irregular driving patterns for legitimate reasons but we cannot confirm that. Sucks to be you."
- mtgx 10y ago
  Five years from now Tesla customers will be confused about whether it was Tesla that locked their car for "using it without permission" or some car ransomware (which no doubt will be a problem by then for all "smart cars"). Because I imagine they'll look pretty similar.
- saint_fiasco 10y ago
  It also means that if you get in trouble for using Uber in a place where it's forbidden (like the Taxi lobby is friends with the local dictator or something) then Tesla won't get in trouble for being an "accessory" to the crime.
- bluehawk 10y ago
  I think a couple of things will help alleviate this problem: If you are a real estate agent with irregular driving patterns, there will be other patterns that are consistent. For example you (and your key fob) always being in the car. You would go from your home/office to several different addresses, then back to home/office. Also, I'm sure that when tesla sent the warning the best action would be to explain the situation. If that fails, tweet Elon.
geodel 10y ago
Makes sense. If money is to be made Tesla with all its engineers and finance people can think better than individuals who were thinking along same lines.
pfarnsworth 10y ago
We pretty much were set on getting a Tesla next year. The fact that they can ban me from doing whatever I want has effectively stopped me from purchasing a Tesla. Not that I plan on doing car-sharing, but I refuse to spend so much money on something that I don't actually "own".
- jmcdiesel 10y ago
  Then you shouldn't buy any newer model car. Its still the question of the software... you may own the metal, but the software is licensed
- agentdrtran 10y ago
  Then are you going to avoid basically every newer model vehicle? They all have the same TOS wrt software.
  - themgt 10y ago
    Where is the line drawn though? Can Tesla sign a contract with McDonald's and then prohibit my self-driving car from taking me to Taco Bell? Could Tesla allow me to deliver pizzas for Papa Johns but not my local pizza shop?
deleted 10y ago
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calvinbhai 10y ago
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, the car becomes available on the Ridesharing Autonomous Network of Teslas (RANT :). At that point, it makes no sense to put the car on something like say Google / Uber autonomous networks of Ridesharing. Its a bit like how iPhone is not open for non app store downloads and yet an iPhone buyer 'owns' the phone. FWIW, every autonomous car maker will put their car on their own rideshare network (making a rider app is 1% of creating the ridesharing service effort). Uber and Lyft apps will become too expensive to use if they cannot figure out the autonomous vehicle part of the equation.
- tremon 10y ago
  Once the car is fully autonomous, the process of dispatching rides to a pickup location will be controlled by Tesla. But if that's the case, then I will not pay thousands of dollars to own one.
  - tonyhb 10y ago
    Why? You'll earn the same money as with Uber. The cut goes to Tesla to reward them for their work in making the hardware and software. That's instead of paying Uber, who fire people by email.
    - comboy 10y ago
      After paying $100K for a car, would you let strangers ride in without any supervision only to earn a few bucks? Even if there would be no damages, imagine getting your car back to go somewhere with your family and it smells like a bad kind of party.
    - forgottenpass 10y ago
      Why? You'll earn the same money as with Uber. No I won't. It's simple economics that I won't. Assuming a future where I can choose to rent my car's free time to a ride sharing app. You just told me that I'd be able to make just as much money locked into a single customer as I would if different customers had to compete to rent my car's free time. And yes blah blah blah I could buy a different type of car. But market forces don't break this sort of monsopoly until "what app can I rent my car's time to" is the TOP purchase differentiator to a very sizable portion of auto buyers.
grecy 10y ago
A few people here have mentioned maybe Telsa just want to stop Uber/Lyft buying a bunch of Telsas and operating an autonomous fleet. My questions is - why would Tesla want to stop them doing that? The goal is to transition the world to sustainable transport, ASAP. If companies are buying tens of thousands of their cars, that's great! I have to wonder if Tesla want to stop this because they want to make the profit from the fleet, or because of legal reasons.
- jwegan 10y ago
  Probably branding? If Uber/Lyft start operating a lot of Teslas, then they start to loose their brand allure and people start to view them as just taxis
  - comboy 10y ago
    Never heard of a car brand that would ban using it for taxi purposes. If you take a ride in a taxi, and you like what you see, you seem more likely to buy that car in the future.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ninju 10y ago
  Because they want the Teslas to be exclusive to the Tesla Network
- tonyhb 10y ago
  Because they're leaving money on the table by giving away 25% of ridesharing cuts to lyft/uber for doing nothing compared to what Tesla did. Tesla made this software. They spent years planning, designing, and working on it. Uber have a scheduling app. Frankly I'm all for this. Tesla is a MUCH better company than Uber. Let them take the ridesharing market and our world will be much better off.
- jaynos 10y ago
  They may want to start their own version of Uber/Lyft or they may just be setting up a scenario in the future where Uber/Lyft would have to enter into a separate purchase agreement with Tesla with changes to warranty terms, roadside assistance terms, price, insurance, etc.
jomamaxx 10y ago
You don't own your iPhone, your music, your car, your house ... Even though you paid for them ... I have a new toaster for sale. Must use my electricity, nobody else's :)
M_Grey 10y ago
This is why you shouldn't buy a car you don't actually get to own (or any device you don't actually own).
XJOKOLAT 10y ago
"...the street finds its own uses for things"
ohstopitu 10y ago
You can't do what you want, with a car you buy - even though this does not mean that it will be a lot cheaper :/ I'm more than willing to agree to this concept, if for example, Tesla sends me a new top of the line model 3/s/x every year for around 5k-ish/yr - At that price point, I feel that they can tell me what I can / can't do with "their" car. However, now, they expect people to pay the full price of the car (anywhere between 31k to almost 150k) and then they get to dictate how I use the car. Given time, this sort of concept will be applied to everything "we" own. I mean, it's just getting started... In a few decades, you'd not really own anything - the house you live in, the devices that you use, everything will be a subscription service. While I look at it as a bleak / weird future, I love SaaS products in general over IaaS products, because it means, I don't have to put effort into stuff. And if that means, I'd never have to fix my car, or my house for example...is that a future the general population will have an issue with?
- joering2 10y ago
  > In a few decades, you'd not really own anything - the house you live in [...] Just to clarify, in the true meaning of the word "own", you never owned your house, and that goes to at least post WW2 times. If you believe you own your house simply because its paid off, then try not to pay property tax imposed on you by the county you live in. But don't be surprised if one year later Sheriff shows up at your "own" house doorstep with eviction team.
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    That's a facile example. You still own your house, but the government, as elected by the people, has decided that one of the ways to encourage/ enforce property tax payment is the right to use said property as collateral. You explicitly agree that you are obligated to do so, and laws, which aren't secret, divulge the possible consequences of failure to do so. This in no way diminishes ownership, any more than you parking the car that you own somewhere that it may be towed and impounded means that you somehow "never really owned it". If you want to talk about ownership of the -land- that's a different, tangential, kettle of fish.
chc 10y ago
As the article notes, this isn't about ride-sharing as we know it. It's about having your car autonomously drive somebody else around without you. You can use your Tesla while driving for Uber or Lyft — but if you're going to have the car autonomously drive people around for fares, Tesla requires that you put it on their network. It's still lame, but it's not the "You can't drive for Uber in a Tesla" situation that a lot of people seem to be interpreting it as.
joesmo 10y ago
So are these terms subject to change without notice? What will I be prevented from doing or where will I be prevented from going in my Tesla next? What if Tesla says I can't sleep in my car. Or I can't go visit other car dealerships? I love self driving cars, but I'm sure other competitors will have models that I can actually own. I am not interested in giving up my right to own a car just to have a car that can drive itself. Hell, can I even sell one of these used or are we just transferring software licenses now? In lieu of that, if this is just a glorified lease/rental, then I would expect Tesla to pay for 100% of the maintenance for the life of the car. That's clearly not happening. My opinion of Tesla and Musk has dropped considerably. This isn't revolutionary. It's not even desirable for consumers.
pmdulaney 10y ago
I can well believe that Tesla would _like_ to ban this activity, but do they have legal standing to do so?
rdlecler1 10y ago
This is a smart move. Tesla doesn't want to be disintermediated. Besides ride sharing is a commercial use application and may be costly to their warranty.
- rdlecler1 10y ago
  Down voted for this comment? What would Paul Graham recommend to Telsa is he was on the board.
qntty 10y ago
Stallman was right
protomyth 10y ago
If Tesla is truly going to build trucks in the future, then stuff like this will scare off quite a few buyers.
serge2k 10y ago
> While this is the first instance we can think of where a car company has preemptively banned its customers from using their vehicles for a specific use, post-sale conditions imposed by car companies are not entirely unheard of. Ferrari, for example, has been known to insist that customers buying its most expensive cars (like the Enzo or LaFerrari) promise not to resell them before a certain point, and the Italian sports car maker also famously disliked the way one of its high-profile customers had his car wrapped. Right, but isn't the penalty for going against Ferrari merely that they will refuse to sell to you in the future? The deadmau5 thing was about the "purrari" stuff, not the crazy nylon wrap. Tesla is attempting to do something far worse.
f137 10y ago
It does not matter, really. We will never see a fully autonomous car from Tesla, for the simple reason that this is still a few years away, and Tesla will go bankrupt or will be sold within 2-3 years.
fnordfnordfnord 10y ago
Why?

173 points by TDL 10y ago

Wow. Key statement here: " but doing so for revenue purposes will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be released next year." Tesla Network? Uber/Lyft competitor? Plus I sure hope this won't hold up in court. I do not want a company telling me how to use my product that I paid for.

ythl 10y ago
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.
- adventurer 10y ago
  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__believe 10y ago
    I've received these as well, but it's always been "Hey, it's been 6 months since your last oil change with us -- come on in!" I could very easily see if you go to the same mechanic and they input your mileage between visits and a system having a reasonable chance of getting scheduled maintenance correct based upon time or average mileage. I've never heard of a company pulling data from a car OTA to do this type of work. (some car insurance companies are a different story though)
    - adventurer 10y ago
      I'm receiving the communication about 2-3 months ahead of that schedule due to the excess mileage I'm driving. At about 6k miles, my tire sensor was going on and off for a few days, then I received an email specifically to come in to check the tire pressure. It may have be coincidence, but it's highly unlikely at this point.
    - masklinn 10y ago
      Many high-end cars have embedded cellular connections, in 2015 Miller and Valasek managed to crack into Jeep's, jump the airgap and take control of the car over the OTA reporting connection: https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/ https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig... No idea if that's the case with Toyota, but it's definitely possible with some high-end cars (most definitely including Teslas which routinely report to the mothership) (incidentally it's fun seeing people drool over teslas then freak out at Firefox or MS telemetry)
      - EdHominem 10y ago
        Amusingly, the air-gap was a firewall on a chip. No air whatsoever. They got around it a few ways, including most effectively, by re-flashing it to just be a passthrough. Based on that, I'd say anyone who is injured because of this in any way has a great claim against the company for lying about the equipment they provided.
  - forgetsusername 10y ago
    >I purchased a Toyota last year and magically get updates and phone calls about scheduling maintenance. I bet if you were willing to waive the warranty they'd stop calling you. But, being as how the warranty on cars is now 5+ years, and that the maintenance variance among owners is high, I don't see this as a bad thing. Granted, it's not happening to me (yet), so I might complain too.
  - mtgx 10y ago
    > You can't stop it and most people don't realize it is even happening. Yet the media will probably spin this as "people just don't care," as they usually do with privacy issues. It's very much an awareness and education issue.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    > 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. No, it doesn't, at least not necessarily. I also bought a Toyota last year. They called on a regular timed schedule that had nothing to do with my actual usage pattern. We got a call to come in for our 5,000 mile service when we'd just completed the 10,000 mile service. It may be a feature of the higher-end models, but it's definitely not something the 2015/2016 Corollas seem to do.
  - nunez 10y ago
    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
errnoh 10y ago
This was already on Musk's Master Plan Pt2 [0], listed under "Sharing". Though it's true that the name of the service and release schedule was not known before. [0] https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux
- vermontdevil 10y ago
  Interesting. Wonder if I have the option to opt out of the "Network" and join Uber or a future entity?
lanna 10y ago
> I do not want a company telling me how to use my product that I paid for. I'm not defending Tesla here, I just want to draw an analogy. You can't go a store, buy a DVD for $15 and then charge tickets to project to an audience. You need a different, more expensive license for that. The same applies to music and software, even if it is embedded firmware in a car.
- ddalex 10y ago
  > You can't go a store, buy a DVD for $15 and then charge tickets to project to an audience. Maybe this model is actually bad because it circumvents the first sale doctrine, and we need to make this kind of restriction one illegal (haha, in my dreams).
  - lanna 10y ago
    I'm not defending the model, I'm just saying how it is now.
    - EdHominem 10y ago
      A few court vaugely related court-cases don't make a widespread and reliable principle. If there was such a doctrine it would depend on the presentation of the product, the importance of the software to the product, and the viability of the product if separated into parts. Further, such a doctrine would allow you to buy the Tesla and remove the software they didn't want to license to you. So no, that isn't how it is - that's how they want you to think it works so you don't even bother trying. Go ask a lawyer for a clear-cut answer on anything.
- svens_ 10y ago
  In the same vein, Tesla offers unlimited free supercharging for its vehicles. This is a generous offer, that only works under the assumption that people use it responsibly. It would be quite unfair if someone ran his commercial fleet with it. Of course this is easy to fix, but it would still result in either forbidding commercial use (without license) or metered supercharging.

aantix 10y ago

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.

jellicle 10y ago
Why would you think it's not enforceable? Indeed, the more restrictions Tesla adds, the more enforceable it is: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/09/the-end-of-used-major-ruling-upholds-tough-software-licenses/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/09/the-end-of-used-m...
- pluma 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure the EULA wouldn't be enforceable in the EU, though. The vast majority of EULAs currently in existence are unenforceable in the EU except for the most basic restrictions that would probably be obvious even without a EULA.
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    The legal situation right now does not matter. Who pays the lobbyists? This is a long-term plan not just of Tesla, but a corporate dream. No more danger of losing customers, when you have "the one ring" to bind them... It won't sound evil. They will just tell the politicians that in order to invest huge sums of money they need guarantees, that the uncertainty of not binding their customers hinders job creation and investment, etc. Nothing is new in that playbook, since from their point of view it's actually not even wrong. It's not like they have to come up with some outrageous lies. Today it's Tesla, but that process has been going on for a long time. It's just too good: Control over a stable income stream instead of the ups and downs of the free market. It also appeals to people working in those firms, so again not actually clearly "evil". It also appeals to a lot of people in our allegedly "uncertain and dangerous times" that there is ever more "order" and control. They actually have a point: The more complex out systems become, which includes the state, the more dangerous failure and the harder a recovery. Are our systems becoming more unstable? If so the trend explains itself, because that calls for more certainty and control - since changing the system itself seems to be no option because nobody knows how and what to change it to, or at least there is no trace of a consensus. So, more order and control it is.

awesomerobot 10y ago

A venn diagram with two circles that don't intersect: "Can afford a Tesla" "Wants to drive for Uber"

shuntress 10y ago
"I could afford a Tesla if it could help pay for itself..."
snowwrestler 10y ago
Well the point is that the car would drive itself for Uber.
MatthewMcDonald 10y ago
I think it's more appropriate to model: "Can afford a Tesla" "Wants to monetize Tesla when not using it"
- simonlc 10y ago
  I doubt driving for Uber will earn you a net profit, considering the millage on your car.
  - MatthewMcDonald 10y ago
    I'm not familiar enough with the pricing details to disagree with you, but it's worth mentioning that a Model S can be used for the UberLux service (~3x more expensive than UberX).
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    Uber pays over a dollar per mile for UberX. The GSA rate for autos now is $0.54/mile, which is intended to be an "all-in" figure for operating costs. I think there's room for profiting from driving Uber. (I also agree that it's a good bit less than it appears based on the cash-in and cash-out every week.)
gambiting 10y ago

ghaff 10y ago

On the one hand, it's absolutely appropriate for people to raise questions about these types of contract/license terms and have a discussion around them. On the other hand, as a practical matter, this particular case is a complete non-issue. Anyone who thinks a car being sold today is ever going to be remotely capable of fully autonomous operation, software updates notwithstanding, is... optimistic.

snowwrestler 10y ago

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 software is eating the world, it is also eating our concept of what it means to buy and own things. Amazon in 2009 remotely deleted George Orwell books (you can't make this up) from customer Kindles without asking first. Amazon didn't need the customers' permission because a Kindle book is legally a license, not a piece of property. John Deere tractors have been prized by farmers for their durability and flexibility. Now they come with software and a prohibition against customer modification or repair. It sounds silly but the right to repair our own property is under threat. It's now something that we need to fight for. And now apparently even paying $100,000 will not be enough to give full ownership rights to a car.

daddykotex 10y ago
> 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. That's a pretty good summary.
RUG3Y 10y ago
It's our responsibility to choose and support products that respect our rights and empower us. Vote with your feet.
- hood_syntax 10y ago
  I agree with this, and I try to follow it as much as possible, but it can be hard to find companies that produce those products.
- fucking_tragedy 10y ago

bryanlarsen 10y ago

There are a bunch of possible good reasons that Tesla might want to do this: - liability - hacking prevention: anybody in the car will be able to take over the car, so you should make sure there's always somebody you trust in the car - regulatory: the owner of the car is liable for any infractions a car makes, so only there should always be somebody you trust in the car But the wording makes clear that this is just a cash grab. You'd think that Tesla would have worded it to imply that they actually have a good reason...

jsprogrammer 10y ago
All of those reasons would apply to any other vehicle.
CoryG89 10y ago
This might be a reasonable argument except that Tesla makes clear that they plan to allow this as long as you use their ride sharing service, Tesla Network, which doesn't even exist yet.

anbende 10y ago

If this is really about Tesla pushing their own ridesharing, wouldn't it be smarter for them to make all future price-breaks contingent on using their system? That way if someone really wants to drive Uber they can, but it'll cost them 10-15k extra for the "unlocked" version. This would seriously curtail Teslas being used on competing services, and when they were, Tesla would make money... Seems like it would be better to do it with pricing than irritating rules...

TheCondor 10y ago
Are they preventing you from driving for uber or are they preventing their software from driving for uber?
- pcr0 10y ago
  Their software

sideshowb 10y ago

This sounds more like a PR stunt than anything else. Honestly how many jurisdictions will allow self driving vehicles (without a human on board) to function before the current generation of cars reach end of life?

virtualsue 10y ago

Surely this is to stop Uber, Lyft etc from buying a fleet of the things for their business use, rather than targeting individual drivers specifically (though they're happy to stop that too).

virtualsue 10y ago
...bearing in mind that Tesla AFAIAA is supposed to be selling more moderately priced cars in the near future
serge2k 10y ago
Why should tesla stop that? Fleet sales are big money.
- virtualsue 10y ago
  Since they appear to plan on running an uber/lyft style service with self-driving tech, and they believe that their tech is especially likely to give them an advantage in that business, that would be one big reason.
- flylib 10y ago
  the majority of revenue will come from tesla network, it will far eclipse potential revenue from fleet sales, this isn't that controversial what tesla is doing and is what every car company will do. Revenue from car sales will go down as more and more people use fleet services and car companies will make the majority of revenue from autonomous ride sharing networks, why let some competitor use your cars/software without having to do any of the difficult work themselves, creating a low barrier to entry is a losing strategy if your doing all the work

sschueller 10y ago

What will Tesla do if you do it anyway? Disable your $100k car? Does that hold up in court? What did you buy for $100k?

arcticbull 10y ago
The license to drive a Tesla subject to the terms and conditions.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  So you still own the car but won't be licensed to drive it? And people are saying "Yeah, sounds reasonable!" in this thread? Okay...
  - jboles 10y ago
    Might want to read the article?
- jboles 10y ago
  No, you're free to drive the Tesla however you wish. If you want Tesla software to drive the Tesla, then there are conditions. Fair enough.
snrplfth 10y ago
You actually do buy a car, but the autonomy software comes with restrictions. You can the car manually if you want to use it for ride-sharing.
eggnet 10y ago
They could easily disable the autonomous functions. Maybe even refund a portion of the license fee. Who knows what they will choose to do.

moon_of_moon 10y ago

How would this work? "Dear Customer - your usage patterns shows that you are using your car for ride sharing revenue. Please stop it." "Dear Customer - Second warning." "Dear Customer - we have disabled important safety updates for your car, because it looks like you are ride sharing for profit. You might be a real estate agent with irregular driving patterns for legitimate reasons but we cannot confirm that. Sucks to be you."

mtgx 10y ago
Five years from now Tesla customers will be confused about whether it was Tesla that locked their car for "using it without permission" or some car ransomware (which no doubt will be a problem by then for all "smart cars"). Because I imagine they'll look pretty similar.
saint_fiasco 10y ago
It also means that if you get in trouble for using Uber in a place where it's forbidden (like the Taxi lobby is friends with the local dictator or something) then Tesla won't get in trouble for being an "accessory" to the crime.
bluehawk 10y ago
I think a couple of things will help alleviate this problem: If you are a real estate agent with irregular driving patterns, there will be other patterns that are consistent. For example you (and your key fob) always being in the car. You would go from your home/office to several different addresses, then back to home/office. Also, I'm sure that when tesla sent the warning the best action would be to explain the situation. If that fails, tweet Elon.

geodel 10y ago

Makes sense. If money is to be made Tesla with all its engineers and finance people can think better than individuals who were thinking along same lines.

pfarnsworth 10y ago

We pretty much were set on getting a Tesla next year. The fact that they can ban me from doing whatever I want has effectively stopped me from purchasing a Tesla. Not that I plan on doing car-sharing, but I refuse to spend so much money on something that I don't actually "own".

jmcdiesel 10y ago
Then you shouldn't buy any newer model car. Its still the question of the software... you may own the metal, but the software is licensed
agentdrtran 10y ago
Then are you going to avoid basically every newer model vehicle? They all have the same TOS wrt software.
- themgt 10y ago
  Where is the line drawn though? Can Tesla sign a contract with McDonald's and then prohibit my self-driving car from taking me to Taco Bell? Could Tesla allow me to deliver pizzas for Papa Johns but not my local pizza shop?

deleted 10y ago

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calvinbhai 10y ago

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, the car becomes available on the Ridesharing Autonomous Network of Teslas (RANT :). At that point, it makes no sense to put the car on something like say Google / Uber autonomous networks of Ridesharing. Its a bit like how iPhone is not open for non app store downloads and yet an iPhone buyer 'owns' the phone. FWIW, every autonomous car maker will put their car on their own rideshare network (making a rider app is 1% of creating the ridesharing service effort). Uber and Lyft apps will become too expensive to use if they cannot figure out the autonomous vehicle part of the equation.

tremon 10y ago
Once the car is fully autonomous, the process of dispatching rides to a pickup location will be controlled by Tesla. But if that's the case, then I will not pay thousands of dollars to own one.
- tonyhb 10y ago
  Why? You'll earn the same money as with Uber. The cut goes to Tesla to reward them for their work in making the hardware and software. That's instead of paying Uber, who fire people by email.
  - comboy 10y ago
    After paying $100K for a car, would you let strangers ride in without any supervision only to earn a few bucks? Even if there would be no damages, imagine getting your car back to go somewhere with your family and it smells like a bad kind of party.
  - forgottenpass 10y ago
    Why? You'll earn the same money as with Uber. No I won't. It's simple economics that I won't. Assuming a future where I can choose to rent my car's free time to a ride sharing app. You just told me that I'd be able to make just as much money locked into a single customer as I would if different customers had to compete to rent my car's free time. And yes blah blah blah I could buy a different type of car. But market forces don't break this sort of monsopoly until "what app can I rent my car's time to" is the TOP purchase differentiator to a very sizable portion of auto buyers.

grecy 10y ago

A few people here have mentioned maybe Telsa just want to stop Uber/Lyft buying a bunch of Telsas and operating an autonomous fleet. My questions is - why would Tesla want to stop them doing that? The goal is to transition the world to sustainable transport, ASAP. If companies are buying tens of thousands of their cars, that's great! I have to wonder if Tesla want to stop this because they want to make the profit from the fleet, or because of legal reasons.

jwegan 10y ago
Probably branding? If Uber/Lyft start operating a lot of Teslas, then they start to loose their brand allure and people start to view them as just taxis
- comboy 10y ago
  Never heard of a car brand that would ban using it for taxi purposes. If you take a ride in a taxi, and you like what you see, you seem more likely to buy that car in the future.
deleted 10y ago
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ninju 10y ago
Because they want the Teslas to be exclusive to the Tesla Network
tonyhb 10y ago
Because they're leaving money on the table by giving away 25% of ridesharing cuts to lyft/uber for doing nothing compared to what Tesla did. Tesla made this software. They spent years planning, designing, and working on it. Uber have a scheduling app. Frankly I'm all for this. Tesla is a MUCH better company than Uber. Let them take the ridesharing market and our world will be much better off.
jaynos 10y ago
They may want to start their own version of Uber/Lyft or they may just be setting up a scenario in the future where Uber/Lyft would have to enter into a separate purchase agreement with Tesla with changes to warranty terms, roadside assistance terms, price, insurance, etc.

jomamaxx 10y ago

You don't own your iPhone, your music, your car, your house ... Even though you paid for them ... I have a new toaster for sale. Must use my electricity, nobody else's :)

M_Grey 10y ago

This is why you shouldn't buy a car you don't actually get to own (or any device you don't actually own).

XJOKOLAT 10y ago

"...the street finds its own uses for things"

ohstopitu 10y ago

You can't do what you want, with a car you buy - even though this does not mean that it will be a lot cheaper :/ I'm more than willing to agree to this concept, if for example, Tesla sends me a new top of the line model 3/s/x every year for around 5k-ish/yr - At that price point, I feel that they can tell me what I can / can't do with "their" car. However, now, they expect people to pay the full price of the car (anywhere between 31k to almost 150k) and then they get to dictate how I use the car. Given time, this sort of concept will be applied to everything "we" own. I mean, it's just getting started... In a few decades, you'd not really own anything - the house you live in, the devices that you use, everything will be a subscription service. While I look at it as a bleak / weird future, I love SaaS products in general over IaaS products, because it means, I don't have to put effort into stuff. And if that means, I'd never have to fix my car, or my house for example...is that a future the general population will have an issue with?

joering2 10y ago
> In a few decades, you'd not really own anything - the house you live in [...] Just to clarify, in the true meaning of the word "own", you never owned your house, and that goes to at least post WW2 times. If you believe you own your house simply because its paid off, then try not to pay property tax imposed on you by the county you live in. But don't be surprised if one year later Sheriff shows up at your "own" house doorstep with eviction team.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  That's a facile example. You still own your house, but the government, as elected by the people, has decided that one of the ways to encourage/ enforce property tax payment is the right to use said property as collateral. You explicitly agree that you are obligated to do so, and laws, which aren't secret, divulge the possible consequences of failure to do so. This in no way diminishes ownership, any more than you parking the car that you own somewhere that it may be towed and impounded means that you somehow "never really owned it". If you want to talk about ownership of the -land- that's a different, tangential, kettle of fish.

chc 10y ago

As the article notes, this isn't about ride-sharing as we know it. It's about having your car autonomously drive somebody else around without you. You can use your Tesla while driving for Uber or Lyft — but if you're going to have the car autonomously drive people around for fares, Tesla requires that you put it on their network. It's still lame, but it's not the "You can't drive for Uber in a Tesla" situation that a lot of people seem to be interpreting it as.

joesmo 10y ago

So are these terms subject to change without notice? What will I be prevented from doing or where will I be prevented from going in my Tesla next? What if Tesla says I can't sleep in my car. Or I can't go visit other car dealerships? I love self driving cars, but I'm sure other competitors will have models that I can actually own. I am not interested in giving up my right to own a car just to have a car that can drive itself. Hell, can I even sell one of these used or are we just transferring software licenses now? In lieu of that, if this is just a glorified lease/rental, then I would expect Tesla to pay for 100% of the maintenance for the life of the car. That's clearly not happening. My opinion of Tesla and Musk has dropped considerably. This isn't revolutionary. It's not even desirable for consumers.

pmdulaney 10y ago

I can well believe that Tesla would _like_ to ban this activity, but do they have legal standing to do so?

rdlecler1 10y ago

This is a smart move. Tesla doesn't want to be disintermediated. Besides ride sharing is a commercial use application and may be costly to their warranty.

rdlecler1 10y ago
Down voted for this comment? What would Paul Graham recommend to Telsa is he was on the board.

qntty 10y ago

Stallman was right

protomyth 10y ago

If Tesla is truly going to build trucks in the future, then stuff like this will scare off quite a few buyers.

serge2k 10y ago

> While this is the first instance we can think of where a car company has preemptively banned its customers from using their vehicles for a specific use, post-sale conditions imposed by car companies are not entirely unheard of. Ferrari, for example, has been known to insist that customers buying its most expensive cars (like the Enzo or LaFerrari) promise not to resell them before a certain point, and the Italian sports car maker also famously disliked the way one of its high-profile customers had his car wrapped. Right, but isn't the penalty for going against Ferrari merely that they will refuse to sell to you in the future? The deadmau5 thing was about the "purrari" stuff, not the crazy nylon wrap. Tesla is attempting to do something far worse.

f137 10y ago

It does not matter, really. We will never see a fully autonomous car from Tesla, for the simple reason that this is still a few years away, and Tesla will go bankrupt or will be sold within 2-3 years.

fnordfnordfnord 10y ago

Why?