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If by "people" you mean the owner of the car, of course they should be able to do whatever they want with it. If they modify something and it ends up hurting so

If by "people" you mean the owner of the car, of course they should be able to do whatever they want with it. If they modify something and it ends up hurting someone, they're liable for it. It's not that different from modifying an older car.

avar 8y ago
> It's not that different from modifying an older car. There's a huge practical difference between gearheads modifying the physical parts of their cars and a world where any Tesla buyer could as easily tweak engine, breaking etc. performance as they could download an app or re-flash their phone. You'd have idiots who'd otherwise never bothered to modify their cars dying as a result of trying to rice up their ride. It's the same situation as RC planes and drones. The RC community had a natural selection bias for decades and wasn't worth regulating, then drones became available on the mass-market resulting in a bunch of idiocy that regulators needed to scramble to keep up with. I think car manufacturers are rightly paranoid about that. There's a lot of profoundly stupid and unsafe stuff you could trivially do with a Tesla if you had access to the software, and if it was easy to install those sorts of things people would do so en masse.
cheerlessbog 8y ago
It's widely accepted that if I modify my vehicle mechanically causing to to become unsafe, it is my fault. Not news, at least for 100 years. Driving assistance software has not yet earned the same presumption of initial safety. Its also more technically feasible to prevent modification, and speaking as a fellow road user, I think I'd rather you run with stock firmware.
Silhouette 8y ago
If they modify something and it ends up hurting someone, they're liable for it. Until the courts can provide adequate compensation to the family of someone was was killed or to a crash victim who received life-changing injuries, I don't think that's going to be a compelling argument in this sort of situation.

avar 8y ago

> It's not that different from modifying an older car. There's a huge practical difference between gearheads modifying the physical parts of their cars and a world where any Tesla buyer could as easily tweak engine, breaking etc. performance as they could download an app or re-flash their phone. You'd have idiots who'd otherwise never bothered to modify their cars dying as a result of trying to rice up their ride. It's the same situation as RC planes and drones. The RC community had a natural selection bias for decades and wasn't worth regulating, then drones became available on the mass-market resulting in a bunch of idiocy that regulators needed to scramble to keep up with. I think car manufacturers are rightly paranoid about that. There's a lot of profoundly stupid and unsafe stuff you could trivially do with a Tesla if you had access to the software, and if it was easy to install those sorts of things people would do so en masse.

cheerlessbog 8y ago

It's widely accepted that if I modify my vehicle mechanically causing to to become unsafe, it is my fault. Not news, at least for 100 years. Driving assistance software has not yet earned the same presumption of initial safety. Its also more technically feasible to prevent modification, and speaking as a fellow road user, I think I'd rather you run with stock firmware.

Silhouette 8y ago

If they modify something and it ends up hurting someone, they're liable for it. Until the courts can provide adequate compensation to the family of someone was was killed or to a crash victim who received life-changing injuries, I don't think that's going to be a compelling argument in this sort of situation.