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Tesla sold 75kWh cars to people who bought 60kWh cars. Then, during the wildfires here in California, they remotely unlocked the extra 15 for people trying to g

by ts4z 5y ago

Tesla sold 75kWh cars to people who bought 60kWh cars. Then, during the wildfires here in California, they remotely unlocked the extra 15 for people trying to get out of town. If you wanted to get access to what you had legal title to, well, that's an upcharge.

amelius 5y ago
Business practices should have their own book of law, which says what is and what isn't acceptable.
- OldManAndTheCpp 5y ago
  Isn't that just contract law?
  - amelius 5y ago
    The problem is that the law is too abstract and not sufficiently exhaustive to address all the disingenuous schemes used by businesses.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  Why shouldn't it be acceptable? You bought a 60 kWh car. If it performs as advertised, you not entitled for more, no matter what hardware is inside. And if you find a way to exploit the full capacity of the battery, you can, it's yours, but don't count on Tesla to support it. I have no problem with market segmentation. It allows more people to have access to a product while protecting the margins of the manufacturer. Because, without margins, there is no product. And in fact, I am happy when I am traveling and the student next to me paid half of what I paid, I could afford the higher price ticket in exchange for more convenience, so no problem for me, but if the student had to pay the same price as I did, he wouldn't have been able to travel at all. I was like him years ago, and our children will probably be too.
  - amelius 5y ago
    The problem in this case is that you're dragging along 15kWh worth of battery weight, which is a waste of energy.
    - colejohnson66 5y ago
      Either way, the capacity lowers as time goes on. Your 60 kWh battery might become 50 in a few years. The extra 15 is supposedly a buffer against that. It’s the same thing with spinning hard drives and SSDs. The reported capacity is almost always lower than the actual capacity. That allows dead blocks to be “replaced” without the user even knowing (“remapped sectors”). Could you imagine the PR disaster if your SSD lost visible capacity as time went on? You do have a point about the weight. The cost of shipping an SSD with 0% overprovisioning and one with 25% is negligible; the ICs weigh just a few grams. However, a car that has to haul an extra 15 kWh of unusable capacity does use extra energy. I’d be curious how much is needed to haul those extra cells.
    - sliken 5y ago
      Sure, but using 60kwh of a 75kwh battery lasts longer than a 60kwh battery would. Not to mention that Tesla's R&D to make a 60 kwh battery, an extra asmembly line (or one flexible enough to produce both), extra inventory, testing, maintenance manuals, etc all has costs as well.
  - gjs278 5y ago
    don't post if you have no idea what you're talking about. the extra 15kwh was available as an upgrade. if you found a way to exploit the full capacity of the battery, they would blacklist you from service, software updates, and supercharging until you paid them the upgrade fee. god I have HN people.
- yreg 5y ago
  Cars are often shipped with disabled seat heaters, CPUs are often shipped with disabled cores. As a customer I don't see why should I mind. I understand in case of Tesla you don't like the idea of hauling those extra unused cells around. But you are buying a car model with a specific mass, acceleration and range. It makes no difference whether how exactly the producer fit into those parameters.
wiedehopf 5y ago
With batteries it's a bit more complicated as LiIon degrades faster at higher charge levels / voltages. So you're trading longevity for extra capacity in that case.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  IIRC they did sell people a software unlock for the other capacity which goes against the idea that it was designed to be like that.
CamperBob2 5y ago
Not the same thing. In the event of a life- or property-threatening emergency, it's reasonable for the company to temporarily remove the charge cap. The batteries are backed by a warranty, which in turn is part of the cost of the car. It makes perfect sense to derate the batteries in order to lower warranty costs. Of course, we can debate whether the consumer ever saw the benefit of those lower warranty costs, but the core idea is sound enough. As for "legal title," you have "legal title" to whatever the sales contract promised. If access to full battery capacity at the expense of service life wasn't in the contract, then you're not entitled to it.
- gjs278 5y ago
  well you'd be wrong. they sold the 15kw as an extra upgrade for the car. it had nothing to do with the warranty. I paid $2k for it to software unlock from 60 to 75 permanently.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  As for "legal title," you have "legal title" to whatever the sales contract promised. If access to full battery capacity at the expense of service life wasn't in the contract, then you're not entitled to it. That's definitely not how physical property works.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    Really? Educate me. I mean, there are implicit guarantees that don't have to appear in the sales contract, such as the requirement that the car will meet the applicable pollution-control regulations and won't actively try to kill me, but that's obvious enough. Did you have something else in mind, particularly vis-a-vis the batteries?
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      (Not a lawyer) Generally, at least in the US, when you own a physical object, you can do whatever you want with it that isn't explicitly illegal. This is at least partially represented in the first sale doctrine. For a car, you have a literal entitlement document showing that you own it. What you're not entitled to is any help from the manufacturer to do so, except that repairs can't void a warranty if those repairs didn't cause the problem being warrantied. With regard to batteries, there's no reason someone who owns a Tesla shouldn't be able to replace or upgrade the battery they own on the car they own.

by ts4z 5y ago

amelius 5y ago

Business practices should have their own book of law, which says what is and what isn't acceptable.

OldManAndTheCpp 5y ago
Isn't that just contract law?
- amelius 5y ago
  The problem is that the law is too abstract and not sufficiently exhaustive to address all the disingenuous schemes used by businesses.
GuB-42 5y ago
Why shouldn't it be acceptable? You bought a 60 kWh car. If it performs as advertised, you not entitled for more, no matter what hardware is inside. And if you find a way to exploit the full capacity of the battery, you can, it's yours, but don't count on Tesla to support it. I have no problem with market segmentation. It allows more people to have access to a product while protecting the margins of the manufacturer. Because, without margins, there is no product. And in fact, I am happy when I am traveling and the student next to me paid half of what I paid, I could afford the higher price ticket in exchange for more convenience, so no problem for me, but if the student had to pay the same price as I did, he wouldn't have been able to travel at all. I was like him years ago, and our children will probably be too.
- amelius 5y ago
  The problem in this case is that you're dragging along 15kWh worth of battery weight, which is a waste of energy.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    Either way, the capacity lowers as time goes on. Your 60 kWh battery might become 50 in a few years. The extra 15 is supposedly a buffer against that. It’s the same thing with spinning hard drives and SSDs. The reported capacity is almost always lower than the actual capacity. That allows dead blocks to be “replaced” without the user even knowing (“remapped sectors”). Could you imagine the PR disaster if your SSD lost visible capacity as time went on? You do have a point about the weight. The cost of shipping an SSD with 0% overprovisioning and one with 25% is negligible; the ICs weigh just a few grams. However, a car that has to haul an extra 15 kWh of unusable capacity does use extra energy. I’d be curious how much is needed to haul those extra cells.
  - sliken 5y ago
    Sure, but using 60kwh of a 75kwh battery lasts longer than a 60kwh battery would. Not to mention that Tesla's R&D to make a 60 kwh battery, an extra asmembly line (or one flexible enough to produce both), extra inventory, testing, maintenance manuals, etc all has costs as well.
- gjs278 5y ago
  don't post if you have no idea what you're talking about. the extra 15kwh was available as an upgrade. if you found a way to exploit the full capacity of the battery, they would blacklist you from service, software updates, and supercharging until you paid them the upgrade fee. god I have HN people.
yreg 5y ago
Cars are often shipped with disabled seat heaters, CPUs are often shipped with disabled cores. As a customer I don't see why should I mind. I understand in case of Tesla you don't like the idea of hauling those extra unused cells around. But you are buying a car model with a specific mass, acceleration and range. It makes no difference whether how exactly the producer fit into those parameters.

wiedehopf 5y ago

With batteries it's a bit more complicated as LiIon degrades faster at higher charge levels / voltages. So you're trading longevity for extra capacity in that case.

Gigachad 5y ago
IIRC they did sell people a software unlock for the other capacity which goes against the idea that it was designed to be like that.

CamperBob2 5y ago

Not the same thing. In the event of a life- or property-threatening emergency, it's reasonable for the company to temporarily remove the charge cap. The batteries are backed by a warranty, which in turn is part of the cost of the car. It makes perfect sense to derate the batteries in order to lower warranty costs. Of course, we can debate whether the consumer ever saw the benefit of those lower warranty costs, but the core idea is sound enough. As for "legal title," you have "legal title" to whatever the sales contract promised. If access to full battery capacity at the expense of service life wasn't in the contract, then you're not entitled to it.

gjs278 5y ago
well you'd be wrong. they sold the 15kw as an extra upgrade for the car. it had nothing to do with the warranty. I paid $2k for it to software unlock from 60 to 75 permanently.
nitrogen 5y ago
As for "legal title," you have "legal title" to whatever the sales contract promised. If access to full battery capacity at the expense of service life wasn't in the contract, then you're not entitled to it. That's definitely not how physical property works.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Really? Educate me. I mean, there are implicit guarantees that don't have to appear in the sales contract, such as the requirement that the car will meet the applicable pollution-control regulations and won't actively try to kill me, but that's obvious enough. Did you have something else in mind, particularly vis-a-vis the batteries?
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    (Not a lawyer) Generally, at least in the US, when you own a physical object, you can do whatever you want with it that isn't explicitly illegal. This is at least partially represented in the first sale doctrine. For a car, you have a literal entitlement document showing that you own it. What you're not entitled to is any help from the manufacturer to do so, except that repairs can't void a warranty if those repairs didn't cause the problem being warrantied. With regard to batteries, there's no reason someone who owns a Tesla shouldn't be able to replace or upgrade the battery they own on the car they own.