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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 ha

by zcw100 4y ago

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. Since the new owner bought it thinking it was a 90, because it was enabled to be a 90, presumably paid for it assuming this was the case and is now upset because they don't have what they thought they bought. 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". Tesla, being notified, should have just enabled the 90 and made the customer happy. How exactly are people supposed to abuse this? Tesla put the 90 in there and they're the only ones who are going to be doing that. Presumably this cost them a fortune to do it in the first place. Why not get some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. Enjoy. Tell everyone you know about how awesome Tesla was about fixing the problem and remember that next time you go to buy your next car"

gambiting 4y ago
>> (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 3080Ti, because....that's what it is. >>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". Maybe, but again, I don't see why that should be necessary. Tesla should not have been able to do this, period.
- wang_li 4y ago
  Intel literally did this last month. Seems that some motherboard manufacturers were selling systems that allowed the Alder Lake CPUs to user AVX512, which is not a feature advertised on those CPUs. Intel released a new microcode that disables it.
- gigatexal 4y ago
  This is my understanding as well.
- jdgoesmarching 4y ago
  Exactly this. Warranty replacements aren’t a new concept, and I have a feeling if this were any other brand HN wouldn’t be so insistent on taking a step back and thinking about who else besides Tesla can be blamed when customers get the short end of the stick.
  - x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
    Yep, if it were John Deere or god-forbid, Google, HN would be up in arms.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      With most brands, if I get screwed as a consumer I can generally expect other consumers to at least sympathize with my plight. With Tesla and Apple, I fully expect for other Tesla or Apple consumers to blame me for everything wrong and defend the company blindly against all common reason. Good brands to avoid for this reason, even if they do make enviable hardware sometimes.
- balls187 4y ago
  > 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 3080Ti, because....that's what it is. What if it's a 3080Ti PCB but inside a RTX3080 card? Is it ethical to sell it as a 3080Ti? What about an RTX3080 Card that Nvidia drivers mistakenly identify as a 3080Ti and enable additional 3080Ti cores (ignore how technically innaccurate that may be)? Reminds me of this video from LTT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZ32mqmsrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZ32mqmsrg
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    The proper analogy is that your Alienware breaks, and Alienware replaces your RTX3080 with a 3080Ti. When you resell it, you can and should identify it as an Alienware with a 3080Ti.
    - balls187 4y ago
      Upon closer analysis, all analogies will break down. I'd argue the car in the sumtotal of all the parts in it. So rather your analogy about Alienware is: You own a dell gaming pc. Under warranty repair, Dell replaces some of the parts with parts from an Alienware build. Are you allowed to put on Alienware decals on your Dell desktop and re-sell it as an Alienware?
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        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?
        balls187 4y ago
        > 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, save for custom tuning, drivers, and cosmetics. Alienware gets a 25% markup. You have the XPS 1000, apply the custom tuning and drivers to get the performance of the XPS to that of it's Alienware's counterpart. Could you sell it for more than the market rate for a use XPS1000? Yes. I'd argue you have added value by custom tuning the PC. But I believe responsible to disclose that it was an XPS that had been modified. 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).
- teawrecks 4y ago
  The customers enforce this. IANAL, but afaik there's no law (in the US) that enforces this. The only place I know of that may have a relevant law to enforce this is Norway and their Norwegian Marketing Control Act that prohibits withdrawing a key feature after sale. Accidental upgrade after a repair under warranty may or may not be included in this.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    I agree with the parent poster that the seller carries some of the blame, here, but that sounds like a good law.
- throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
  A decade or so ago you used to be able to unlock cores on certain AMD CPU's; there was no guarantee that the core would be stable though. The core could be fine without heavy load and have errors when pushed closer to 100%. If there was a similar level of binning done for Tesla batteries they should be able to limit the battery especially if there are safety concerns; sounds like that's not the case here though.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    > A decade or so ago you used to be able to unlock cores on certain AMD CPU's; there was no guarantee that the core would be stable though. The core could be fine without heavy load and have errors when pushed closer to 100%. That also used to happen a lot with Intel CPUs, especially late in a product cycle: after refining fab their yields would be so good there wasn't any "bad" part to bin down, so they'd just soft-disable cores on high-end parts (I think after a while manufacturers started fusing the cores).
  - beebeepka 4y ago
    More than a decade ago. ATi 9800SE could also be modded to 9800pro which was probably the best card at the time.
  - corrral 4y ago
    At least as early as the late 90s, servers were sometimes sold with parts—disks, controller cards, CPUs (in the days when multi-socket was more common), et c—disabled in software, unlockable if you paid for an upgrade.
    - bb88 4y ago
      This is true of test bench equipment today. They use this for vertical marketing. I'm fine with it since it's mostly just software anyway. Yes you can hack it, and people do, but if you're going to use it for proper validation and certification, you're going to pay for those features anyway.
  - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
- walrus01 4y ago
  > 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 You underestimate the potential for straight up evil in $BIGCORP, nvidia treating video cards like HP treats consumer inkjet printers in the future is something I would be totally unsurprised by.
- metacritic12 4y ago
  What if the story above is the same but they locked it down as 3080 on return?
- jabbany 4y ago
  > 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 hardware apart because there were no unique identifiers. Because of this nobody really pushed for the legal protections, and as such they do not exist today (at best you _might_ be able to claim misrepresentation by the previous owner and get a return or refund, like if someone sells a LHR card as if it were non-LHR. But with a large purchase like a car, that would be costly time and money wise). > Tesla should not have been able to do this, period. Yeah, morally, but we need to start working to make this guaranteed legally. As it is now, "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" is totally allowed. Heck, they could even cut down all legitimate 3080Tis to what would be 3080 or even 1060 performance via drivers after 3 years and you'd be able to do nothing besides complain on social media -- you still have exactly the amount of hardware sold, and they never promised any performance levels (just check their site, you only get things like compute units, clock speed, ram etc. not performance guarantees like FLOPs or FPS)
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    > 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. Exactly. Bait and switch is legally disallowed, even when technically possible.
    - jabbany 4y ago
      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 between, say, "games moved to a new API and now old cards are slow" and "we made our new drivers make old cards slow on purpose because we want to sell more new cards". Companies don't do this because it's bad press if found out (which is why there's this whole Twitter thread), not because they are legally required to (at least in the US).
- winternett 4y ago
  A TON of hardware related things are hobbled and even retired by manufacturers in driver updates and the lack thereof now. Entire pre built computers can easily be rendered obsolete by dropping support for network cards, peripherals, video drivers, almost anything when OS updates, software upgrades, or other dependencies are issued... Non-Technical people suffer the most from this game... The person who doesn't know how to look up and install drivers (Your Dad or Grandma) usually then needs to go out an buy a brand new computer every 2-3 years, simply because the device stops working.. A relatively easy fix to us generates billions of dollars for companies that know the system is broken, and they conveniently don't want to fix that system because it would cut their revenue. As software permeates the car making industry, they actually wouldn't mind making all cars leased and/or disposable like computer devices, they run online campaigns on reddit against car ownership, and brigade endlessly about the environmental benefits of EVs, which still to this day use tons of toxic materials in batteries and non-bio-degradable plastics as well. Even the madness over each new minorly adjusted variation of video card that comes out is driven by this drive to maximize company profit is quite harmful to the environment and our health, without any sense of responsibility held by the companies that drive this consumerism. We pay a lor for these products, we need to all be better at demanding proper product support and quality, and we need to stop continually and carelessly renewing everything tech that we buy, even if we have the extra money burning a hole in our pocket... Because ultimately it's destroying us all.
- saynay 4y ago
  We are going to be seeing this more frequently in cars, and probably hardware overall. Having a single hardware spec that is license-limited to various levels is just cheaper for the manufacturer in how it simplifies their logistics. It also provides additional revenue options from existing customers that might want to "upgrade" at a later date. On the plus side, if you can figure out how to sideload your car you get a free range extension on your battery.
- mgdlbp 4y ago
  The general concept of software and hardware impaired by the maker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippleware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippleware Relevantly, > ==Automobiles== > Tesla limits the range on lower-end versions of the Model S in software, as well as disabling Autopilot functions if those functions weren't purchased. > Some high-end BMW cars in [list of countries] have the option to pay a subscription fee for features such as heated seats, advanced cruise control, and automatic beam switching. The components and functionality already exist within the vehicle, but BMW has a software block that prevent them from being used without paying. (#2 was recently on HN)
- Zenst 4y ago
  Interesting comparision given didn't Nvidia sell people some 30xx series graphics cards and then limit their has rate with a driver update! Giving a situation were some people brought a card for X ability of the card for an update to artificially limit it?
  - enragedcacti 4y ago
    They started selling LHR cards with a nerfed hash rate but it was clear up front that that is what you were buying.
- vkk8 4y ago
  > Maybe, but again, I don't see why that should be necessary. Tesla should not have been able to do this, period. Maybe you're right. However, much of the modern hardware business operates this way. At least Nvidia and Intel have been known to sell the same chips as different models, but just some part of the chip disabled via firmware.
- tomohawk 4y ago
  Except that with something like a Tesla, you are not buying the car. You are buying a piece of paper that grants you specific use of a car. This means that in the future, everyone will need to retain a lawyer conversant in contract law when making any sort of purchase, as what is being purchased may have little to do with the thing you think you have bought, and everything to do with the abstract contract that the lawyer can understand. The World Economic Forum thinks this is a great idea. I can't wait til those guys are run out of town.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    So kind of a NFT for a car then?
- 7thaccount 4y ago
  Again...I don't know why people willingly buy from companies like Tesla or BMW when they treat customers so poorly.
- danudey 4y ago
  Imagine Apple replacing your broken Macbook Pro M1 base model with the upgraded model because they didn't have any exact replacements in stock, and then years later deciding to disable two of the CPU cores, two of the GPU cores, and half the SSD space (1 TB to 512 GB). People, especially on HN, would lose their freaking minds. They would also lose their minds if Apple only sold the highest-end model but firmware-locked CPU cores and SSD space unless you paid extra for it, or, even better, paid a subscription for it. Refresh rates up to 120 Hz, available for $4.99 per month!
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    Intel has occasionally done this: https://www.zdnet.com/article/facepalm-of-the-day-intel-charges-customers-50-to-unlock-cpu-features/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/facepalm-of-the-day-intel-char... It tends not to go down well.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Crosseye_Jack 4y ago
      And they are planning to do it again https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-software-defined-cpu-support-coming-to-linux-518 https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-software-defined-cpu... Now this time the idea is that because their differnt SKU's are basically the same chip under the hood anyway just locked at the Silicon level why not allow them to be unlocked if the extra features are found to be needed after purchase. This happen in other markets just fine. One market that jumps to mind is oscilloscopes, you will basically have a single piece of hardware spanning multiple skus where features are disabled via software/hardware (sometimes the CPU is just reading resistor values or jumpers to determine which model it is and therefore which features it has enabled), one notable vendor jumps to mind is Hantek. You can take a 70Mhz scope and opening it up to unlock it to 250mhz. (The same can be done in a number of Rigol scopes iirc)
  - elzbardico 4y ago
    Please, don't give them ideas.
- tj-teej 4y ago
  "because....that's what it is" I think this is the key problem here. Tesla is asserting the right to decide for the owner what the car "is". Kinda brings into question who the "owner" "is"...
  - hef19898 4y ago
    If something runs software that either isn't air gapped, eg. cars, or that can recwived forced updates, e.g. OTA updates, obviously the person buying the device is not the owner. Legally for sure you are the owner, in oractical terms less so. And in case of cars, even if the embedded software is air-gaped, if you cannot choose your garage (liscensed garages may perform software uodates wothout you knowing) you kind of loose some "ownership" as well.
infogulch 4y ago
> "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. Enjoy. Tell everyone you know about how awesome Tesla was about fixing the problem and remember that next time you go to buy your next car" That would be such a great solution
- 1shooner 4y ago
  Any rational marketer or PR officer would gladly give up that $4,500 to avoid this HN post.
  - rrdharan 4y ago
    Tesla doesn’t believe in having such folks (they famously eliminated their PR department).
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    Tesla saved $4,500 by firing their PR people, they’re one step ahead.
  - rurp 4y ago
    They didn't even trade the bad PR for $4,500, they traded it for a chance at $4,500 since they don't know if the customer will pay it. This decision-making boggles my mind. Either there are a ton of Tesla fanatics out there who will put up with a lot of dubious behavior, or Tesla is severely limiting its upside with all of their anti-customer service antics.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      > Either there are a ton of Tesla fanatics out there who will put up with a lot of dubious behavior, or Tesla is severely limiting its upside with all of their anti-customer service antics. I think it's both. There are a ton of Tesla fanatics who think Tesla can do no wrong. Some of them are commenting on this article here, others in the Twitter thread. But there are also people like myself, who will probably never buy a Tesla due to current and past behavior like this. And there are probably at least a few people reading this who were on the fence, but for whom this battery kerfuffle pushed them over the edge.
nathancahill 4y ago
Reminds me of Office Space "We fixed the glitch". > We, uh, we fixed the glitch. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it'll just work itself out naturally. We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem is solved from your end.
- zcw100 4y ago
  The Bobs appreciate you noticing the reference ;)
giarc 4y ago
The odd part is the OP said it was "badged as a 90" which to me implies Tesla also removed the physical badges on the car and replaced them to indicate it was a P90. That, to me, really implies they wanted to make this a P90 car.
- zippergz 4y ago
  Or one of the previous owners did it. I have known people who have modified the badges on their car.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- squirtle24 4y ago
  There's no way Tesla themselves changed the badge to a 90, especially since the 90 appears to be some kind of mistake, given that they fixed the mistake years later. It was probably one of the previous owners, and them changing the badge without disclosing that it's actually a 60 seems to put the bad-faith blame on them. Having said that, if I was going to drop $40k on a used car, I would certainly have inspected everything... the carfax, title, stickers on the car, maintenance history, with Tesla themselves, etc. Surely one of those would've hinted to the current owner that it's actually a 60!?
  - account42 4y ago
    > There's no way Tesla themselves changed the badge to a 90, especially since the 90 appears to be some kind of mistake, given that they fixed the mistake years later. There is plenty of "way". Maybe they did mean to give it as a free upgrade bug did not properly document that. Maybe the person updating the badge did not realize that it was not supposed to be unlocked. Why are you jumping to conclusions like this just to give some corporation the benefit of the doubt especially when it in no way excuses them remotely downgrading the vehicle WITH NO WARNING.
    - squirtle24 4y ago
      Maybe the tweeter misrepresented the situation for ragebait. Maybe this is a software bug. Maybe, maybe, maybe. If we’re going to dismiss every aspect of the situation to the point of meaninglessness or speculation, why bother? I’m not saying that the takebacksies by Tesla is right, but I’ve also never heard of a manufacturer changing the badges on a car, especially a used one, and in a situation where the tweeter clearly says Tesla made a mistake that they corrected years later - nothing "nefarious". Whereas it is not unheard of for owners to change badges on a car.
NullPrefix 4y ago
>It says 90, badged 90, has 90-type range. Tweet author said it's badged 90
- simondotau 4y ago
  Not sure how that matters if Tesla installed a 60 badge at the factory and a customer replaced it with an aftermarket 90 badge. I’m not saying Tesla are in the right overall, but the question of the badge appears to be one of misrepresentation by a previous owner.
cyanydeez 4y ago
Welcome to DRM hell. Basically you're always going to want flexibility in hardware, but infinite limits in usage. Tesla is in the wrong here. If your hardware allows greater range because it allows flexibility in warranty repairs, they need to eat it.
015a 4y ago
> 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" I'm not as sure about this take. Imagine if this were something not connected to The Cloud; the seller sells the car they have, its not their responsibility, nor should it be, nor has it ever been, to know that this is a component that's Cloud Connected and Tesla can just take it away with no notice. No other car operates like that; even the new BMW shit isn't like that, its pretty clear "this is a subscription which is bound to your account, not the car". Very few consumer physical goods operate like that. Here's a correlate: Intel bins chips. Imagine you buy a computer, you get an i5, years later its upgraded to an i7, years later Intel rolls around a software update and says "your desktop only shipped with an i5, we're disabling two of the cores". That's theoretically totally possible with Intel & partners control over microcode & chipset updates; but it would be wild to happen. Now, put yourself in the shoes of someone selling that desktop: you sell the computer you have, it has an i7, "two years ago the chip was upgraded", that's it. Let's say the price difference between these two chips is, like, 20% of the total cost of the machine. Would you, the seller, accept 20% less; in other words, selling the laptop Intel may or may not create for the buyer, in the unknowable future? Would you, the buyer, be willing to pay 20% more, even knowing (or, more likely, not knowing) that Intel could nerf the performance at any time?
- sverhagen 4y ago
  Isn't it a bit akin to disclosing hidden defects for a house? If you have known about those defects, or they were properly disclosed to you when you bought the house, in many jurisdictions you're responsible to disclose them to the next buyer, are you not? I'm not on Tesla's side here: I have an expectation of reasonability that they're not meeting, and I feel that they've forfeited their "rights" to locking this configuration down, a long time ago. But in parallel, it seems that strictly speaking the new owner may also have some reasonable expectation that the history of the care is relayed to them upon purchase. I say "strictly" because I also understand that's not how it goes in the real world. But since were hypothesizing here...
  - powerhour 4y ago
HWR_14 4y ago
> Presumably this cost them a fortune to do it in the first place. Why not get some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. As I understand it, all batteries are the same size. They are just software locked. So no additional costs. It's the same as how Tesla remote unlocked the battery life of people fleeing natural disasters. Which means not only is it there, it's charged.
- Retric 4y ago
  The batteries weigh different amounts so it isn’t just software locking at the factory. https://themotordigest.com/how-much-do-tesla-batteries-weigh/ https://themotordigest.com/how-much-do-tesla-batteries-weigh... It’s more likely they didn’t have a 60kWh battery at the time pack to do the replacement. Which brings up an interesting point, a 90kWh battery software locked to 60kWh is a defective part as the added weight takes more energy to move around, has worse acceleration, more tire and break ware etc. It’s therefore likely Tesla failed to provide an equivalent replacement part and thus broke their warranty contract.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    That might be a new change that happened in the past few years ago. But it certainly was the way Tesla made cars in 2019: https://insideevs.com/news/342746/more-on-the-return-of-teslas-software-limited-battery-pack-scheme/ https://insideevs.com/news/342746/more-on-the-return-of-tesl...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retric 4y ago
      Tesla software locked a few 75kWh batteries in 2019 to 60 kWh because so few people bought 60kWh cars and battery prices had fallen a great deal. They didn’t software lock 90kWh to 60kWh batteries in 2013.
    - muzika 4y ago
Consultant32452 4y ago
Yep, as soon as the car leaves the shop configured as 90, if Tesla discovers the error they should just laugh it off and move on. The most they should do is inform the customer of their error and be like "Bank error in your favor, keep your 90."
FireBeyond 4y ago
> 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". Why not? Tesla not only replaced the battery, but REBADGED the car for him. Putting this on the customer is asinine.
- Delphiki 4y ago
  Doesn't really help the situation, but it's not clear who rebadged the car. It could have been the first owner, or the second owner, or Tesla.
- buffington 4y ago
  The rebadging is what I find most confusing. I tried getting a Tesla logo/badge replaced since mine had broken, and Tesla made it clear that getting one was going to be a much greater pain in the ass than just finding one made by a third party. They claimed it was a supply chain thing, but it clearly had a lot less to do with that and a lot more to do with their techs not giving a damn.
Retric 4y ago
Not quite, a software limited 90kWh battery is worse than a 60kWh battery pack due to weight. So, Tesla can’t fulfill their warranty obligations with a software locked higher capacity battery. A full capacity battery on the other hand could reasonably qualify as an as good or better replacement which is fine. Therefore whoever did this change at Tesla is exposing them to liability. Technically if car identified as having a 90kWh battery then Tesla also befitted from that deception by being able to claim higher resale value. Thus making this arguably fraud on their part, though that’s unlikely to stick.
- rocqua 4y ago
  Otoh a software limited battery will last longer.
- andruby 4y ago
  It’s worse because you carry more weight, but it’s also better because you can charge to 100% without risking much degradation. And you also have less/no degradation. Not sure if that balances out.
  - yreg 4y ago
    90kWh pack is not strictly better, so they should have asked for customers blessing to install a heavier, software-locked battery. Which they perhaps did, who knows.
  - simondotau 4y ago
    One would hope that Tesla’s software lock gives users the middle 60 kWh of battery capacity by locking off both extremes. If so, you’d be correct and this would be a lot better than a “real” 60 kWh battery. Especially if the software limiter continues to guarantee 60 kWh as the battery ages/degrades.
_fat_santa 4y ago
The problem I have is Tesla even having the ability to do something like that. The idea of car manufacturers having remote access to my car to enable and disable features is a very scary proposition. It’s adds another point of failure to something your life can sometimes depend on, imagine if you’re in a cyber truck on a backroad trail and Tesla finds out the last owner didn’t pay for 4WD, you could easily get stranded. And I feel like with all this connectivity to the manufacturer, we will start to see “acceptable use cases” for your cars. For the vast majority of people they won’t notice but a gearhead will get in and head to the track to find out he can’t drive there because he doesn’t have the “track package subscription” or an off-roader realizing he can’t take his jeep off road because if didn’t come with an “off pavement subscription”. Your truck won’t be able to move when hooked up to a trailer because it doesn’t have a “tow package”. Eventually you’re going to be doing something and want to do something with your car and realize you can’t, not because it’s incapable, but because it was told not to by someone else. I promise you there will be scams abound with hackers selling base model cars as fully loaded ones then reverting everything after the fact. A few are going to die in off-roading situations where the car just refused to move or had critical features disabled through software, and we’re going to relish the days where the only subscription was to your heated seats. And all these subscriptions are going to make Adobe look like a saint with their subscriptions.
- kvetching 4y ago
  > The idea of car manufacturers having remote access to my car to enable and disable features is a very scary proposition. "BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month" "The auto industry is racing towards a future full of microtransactions" Source: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscription...
causi 4y ago
Don't forget the fact that he has to pay for the electricity cost of hauling around what is probably a hundred pounds of battery he can't use.
lwhi 4y ago
I agree it's a rat's nest of bad decisons. But ultimately, all it reinforces to me is that there is no chance in hell I will ever give money to a company that can remotely perform this type of sanction on a product I own. I will never buy a Tesla.
phkahler 4y ago
>> Sounds like all around bad decisions. Disagree. >> 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". Yes, they should have said that and did. You agree with this decision when you say 'Why not get some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. Enjoy.' Tesla, being notified, should have just enabled the 90 and made the customer happy. Tbey did. Not a bad decision. The only "bad" decision was to revert it from a 60 to a 90 and stick to that. Hardly "all around bad decisions" but a very bad one at the end.
masswerk 4y ago
I think, the decisive point is really in the warranty regulations, like "equal or better". You chose one (which may have been the most convenient to you at that time) and went with it. Anyways, this is how you chose to fulfil the contract. Are you really going to "fix" this years later by a withdrawal? Who has ownership of the car?
faeriechangling 4y ago
I honestly want to see this taken to court, it would be an interesting case. I mean I'm not convinced at all what Tesla did is even lawful. To me, it seems like Tesla and the owner came to a mutual agreement repairing warranty service years earlier, and Tesla's only real arguments is that that either the customer agreed to the downgrade happening eventually (probably not true) or that they didn't understand they were giving the customer all this capacity (maybe?), but I don't think that in turn gives them the right to sabotage a car arbitrarily without notice to remediate this. I think they have an obligation to restore the status quo before the sabotage.
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  I wonder who the parties would be. Perhaps the current owner's claim should be against the person who sold it to them as a 90, and that person against their seller, and that original owner against Tesla?
thayne 4y ago
Just the fact that they can do this makes me not want to own a tesla.
- kube-system 4y ago
  I find it less concerning that they can do it, and more concerning that they do do it. If a company treats their customers like crap, they have more avenues to do so than OTAs.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Not only will Tesla do something like this, but it seems half their customers will defend Tesla for doing it. So there isn't even consumer pressure for reform. Tesla is going to keep doing shit like this because their fanboys will continue to defend it.
tomrod 4y ago
The first bad decision is allowing a manufacturer to control how elements of a car are used after its gone on the market.
- yreg 4y ago
  The manufacturer has that control only if you want to use their services. If you are fine cutting the cord, 3rd parties can change the configuration for you.
vkk8 4y ago
> 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.
- simondotau 4y ago
  Imagine you purchased a home and it wasn’t disclosed that the shed out the back was actually on your neighbor’s land.
  - account42 4y ago
    Even that doesn't let the neighbour just bulldoze the shed when you are using it without involving the legal system.
kelnos 4y ago
> 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". This is a couple new owners downstream, though. The most recent owner to sell the car might not have known about this, or may not have remembered it or understood the implications of it. And, regardless, while I think many of us here are very familiar with the idea of more-capable hardware being software-locked to be less capable, with monetary upgrade options, I think it's reasonable to assume that the average consumer would be very surprised that it would be even possible that they could drive a car into a service station for a completely unrelated issue, and then drive it out with a software-enforced "smaller" battery.
unixbane 4y ago
What the fuck, if I RMA something and they replace a component in it with a better one, and I happen to be informed of which one they replaced, I need to resell it as if it doesn't have the better component, because I just assume the worst case possible which I would have only imagined if I read this thread? (I don't think it was resold "as a 90", unless that was the sole differentiator, yeah I'm not an expert in meme cars) inb4: Yes, I'm an expert at cucking myself to vaguely justifiable corporate laws and behavior.
root_axis 4y ago
It should not be legal for any car company to remotely stymie the mobility of a vehicle without the consent of the owner. I'm not saying Tesla shouldn't be allowed to gate range via software, but they should not be allowed to remotely hamstring a vehicle in such a manner, potentially stranding or endangering someone.
simion314 4y ago
And on top of that you will always have extra stuff to worry about when buy a Tesla, on top of all the risks of buying a used car you have the extra risks that Tesla will push an update and cripple your stuff , so in the end you don't own a functional car , you own some useless material stuff and a license to use it, Tesla pushes an software update and you are screwed. No wonder people prefer to buy very old cars that are simpler to own and fix.
Lazare 4y ago
> 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". I mean, it's actually is a 90, and it was configured as a 90 when sold, and we have no idea why that happened, nor what the original owner knew or (crucially) was told by Tesla. > Why not get some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. Enjoy. Tell everyone you know about how awesome Tesla was about fixing the problem and remember that next time you go to buy your next car" We have zero reason to think that's not a literal transcript of what the original owner was told when their car was repaired under warranty. Even if it wasn't, if you take a product in for a repair under warranty, you expect it to be returned in same or better configuration (that's actually a legal requirement), so if you drop off a broken Widget 500X, and then you pick it up and it's now a newer Widget 600X, the absolutely inevitable conclusion is "oh, I bet they were out of stock of the 500Xs, so they gave me a 600X, score", and then you think nothing of it, and years later you sell the 600X on Ebay when you upgrade to the latest Widget 800Z. That's just how it works, and I suspect most people here will have experienced that exact sequence of events. (There's also a non-zero chance, given Tesla's general level of customer service, that it was locked to be a 60, a previous owner already paid to unlock it to a 90, and then they lost the records.) The only way I can see we can blame the original owner is if they were told during the warranty process "hey, we're installing a 90, but we'll be locking it to a 60", then Tesla accidentally failed to do it. Which sure, could happen, but it really seems like the least likely result. I certainly agree that Tesla today is handling this in the worst way possible.
gonzo41 4y ago
This one of those really easy, Bank error in your favour, sorts of problems where all Telsa had to do is just leave the 90 alone and essentially tighten up it's internal processes. I have a hard time with tech that has software kill switches. Like all those farm tractors out there, it just invites a culture of hacking and stealing and probably doing unsafe and risking things. This is a space where we totally need to see proper regulation.
pedalpete 4y ago
You nailed it by discussing goodwill. Where has our goodwill gone? It isn't just Tesla, but they are a quite brutal offender.
renonce 4y ago
The worst thing about this is the idea that Tesla has the power to change whatever configuration they want on your car, rendering it totally unusable. Whether 90 or 60 was desired, such changes shouldn't have been able to be done remotely and without consent.
HeavyStorm 4y ago
Well, I get your point. But, still, what I'm reading is that when you buy a tesla you down really own it. Just like a game on Steam, or a ebook on Kindle.

by zcw100 4y ago

gambiting 4y ago

>> (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 3080Ti, because....that's what it is. >>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". Maybe, but again, I don't see why that should be necessary. Tesla should not have been able to do this, period.

wang_li 4y ago
Intel literally did this last month. Seems that some motherboard manufacturers were selling systems that allowed the Alder Lake CPUs to user AVX512, which is not a feature advertised on those CPUs. Intel released a new microcode that disables it.
gigatexal 4y ago
This is my understanding as well.
jdgoesmarching 4y ago
Exactly this. Warranty replacements aren’t a new concept, and I have a feeling if this were any other brand HN wouldn’t be so insistent on taking a step back and thinking about who else besides Tesla can be blamed when customers get the short end of the stick.
- x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
  Yep, if it were John Deere or god-forbid, Google, HN would be up in arms.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    With most brands, if I get screwed as a consumer I can generally expect other consumers to at least sympathize with my plight. With Tesla and Apple, I fully expect for other Tesla or Apple consumers to blame me for everything wrong and defend the company blindly against all common reason. Good brands to avoid for this reason, even if they do make enviable hardware sometimes.
balls187 4y ago
> 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 3080Ti, because....that's what it is. What if it's a 3080Ti PCB but inside a RTX3080 card? Is it ethical to sell it as a 3080Ti? What about an RTX3080 Card that Nvidia drivers mistakenly identify as a 3080Ti and enable additional 3080Ti cores (ignore how technically innaccurate that may be)? Reminds me of this video from LTT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZ32mqmsrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZ32mqmsrg
- HWR_14 4y ago
  The proper analogy is that your Alienware breaks, and Alienware replaces your RTX3080 with a 3080Ti. When you resell it, you can and should identify it as an Alienware with a 3080Ti.
  - balls187 4y ago
    Upon closer analysis, all analogies will break down. I'd argue the car in the sumtotal of all the parts in it. So rather your analogy about Alienware is: You own a dell gaming pc. Under warranty repair, Dell replaces some of the parts with parts from an Alienware build. Are you allowed to put on Alienware decals on your Dell desktop and re-sell it as an Alienware?
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      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?
      - balls187 4y ago
        > 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, save for custom tuning, drivers, and cosmetics. Alienware gets a 25% markup. You have the XPS 1000, apply the custom tuning and drivers to get the performance of the XPS to that of it's Alienware's counterpart. Could you sell it for more than the market rate for a use XPS1000? Yes. I'd argue you have added value by custom tuning the PC. But I believe responsible to disclose that it was an XPS that had been modified. 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).
teawrecks 4y ago
The customers enforce this. IANAL, but afaik there's no law (in the US) that enforces this. The only place I know of that may have a relevant law to enforce this is Norway and their Norwegian Marketing Control Act that prohibits withdrawing a key feature after sale. Accidental upgrade after a repair under warranty may or may not be included in this.
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  I agree with the parent poster that the seller carries some of the blame, here, but that sounds like a good law.
throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
A decade or so ago you used to be able to unlock cores on certain AMD CPU's; there was no guarantee that the core would be stable though. The core could be fine without heavy load and have errors when pushed closer to 100%. If there was a similar level of binning done for Tesla batteries they should be able to limit the battery especially if there are safety concerns; sounds like that's not the case here though.
- masklinn 4y ago
  > A decade or so ago you used to be able to unlock cores on certain AMD CPU's; there was no guarantee that the core would be stable though. The core could be fine without heavy load and have errors when pushed closer to 100%. That also used to happen a lot with Intel CPUs, especially late in a product cycle: after refining fab their yields would be so good there wasn't any "bad" part to bin down, so they'd just soft-disable cores on high-end parts (I think after a while manufacturers started fusing the cores).
- beebeepka 4y ago
  More than a decade ago. ATi 9800SE could also be modded to 9800pro which was probably the best card at the time.
- corrral 4y ago
  At least as early as the late 90s, servers were sometimes sold with parts—disks, controller cards, CPUs (in the days when multi-socket was more common), et c—disabled in software, unlockable if you paid for an upgrade.
  - bb88 4y ago
    This is true of test bench equipment today. They use this for vertical marketing. I'm fine with it since it's mostly just software anyway. Yes you can hack it, and people do, but if you're going to use it for proper validation and certification, you're going to pay for those features anyway.
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
walrus01 4y ago
> 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 You underestimate the potential for straight up evil in $BIGCORP, nvidia treating video cards like HP treats consumer inkjet printers in the future is something I would be totally unsurprised by.
metacritic12 4y ago
What if the story above is the same but they locked it down as 3080 on return?
jabbany 4y ago
> 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 hardware apart because there were no unique identifiers. Because of this nobody really pushed for the legal protections, and as such they do not exist today (at best you _might_ be able to claim misrepresentation by the previous owner and get a return or refund, like if someone sells a LHR card as if it were non-LHR. But with a large purchase like a car, that would be costly time and money wise). > Tesla should not have been able to do this, period. Yeah, morally, but we need to start working to make this guaranteed legally. As it is now, "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" is totally allowed. Heck, they could even cut down all legitimate 3080Tis to what would be 3080 or even 1060 performance via drivers after 3 years and you'd be able to do nothing besides complain on social media -- you still have exactly the amount of hardware sold, and they never promised any performance levels (just check their site, you only get things like compute units, clock speed, ram etc. not performance guarantees like FLOPs or FPS)
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > 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. Exactly. Bait and switch is legally disallowed, even when technically possible.
  - jabbany 4y ago
    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 between, say, "games moved to a new API and now old cards are slow" and "we made our new drivers make old cards slow on purpose because we want to sell more new cards". Companies don't do this because it's bad press if found out (which is why there's this whole Twitter thread), not because they are legally required to (at least in the US).
winternett 4y ago
A TON of hardware related things are hobbled and even retired by manufacturers in driver updates and the lack thereof now. Entire pre built computers can easily be rendered obsolete by dropping support for network cards, peripherals, video drivers, almost anything when OS updates, software upgrades, or other dependencies are issued... Non-Technical people suffer the most from this game... The person who doesn't know how to look up and install drivers (Your Dad or Grandma) usually then needs to go out an buy a brand new computer every 2-3 years, simply because the device stops working.. A relatively easy fix to us generates billions of dollars for companies that know the system is broken, and they conveniently don't want to fix that system because it would cut their revenue. As software permeates the car making industry, they actually wouldn't mind making all cars leased and/or disposable like computer devices, they run online campaigns on reddit against car ownership, and brigade endlessly about the environmental benefits of EVs, which still to this day use tons of toxic materials in batteries and non-bio-degradable plastics as well. Even the madness over each new minorly adjusted variation of video card that comes out is driven by this drive to maximize company profit is quite harmful to the environment and our health, without any sense of responsibility held by the companies that drive this consumerism. We pay a lor for these products, we need to all be better at demanding proper product support and quality, and we need to stop continually and carelessly renewing everything tech that we buy, even if we have the extra money burning a hole in our pocket... Because ultimately it's destroying us all.
saynay 4y ago
We are going to be seeing this more frequently in cars, and probably hardware overall. Having a single hardware spec that is license-limited to various levels is just cheaper for the manufacturer in how it simplifies their logistics. It also provides additional revenue options from existing customers that might want to "upgrade" at a later date. On the plus side, if you can figure out how to sideload your car you get a free range extension on your battery.
mgdlbp 4y ago
The general concept of software and hardware impaired by the maker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippleware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippleware Relevantly, > ==Automobiles== > Tesla limits the range on lower-end versions of the Model S in software, as well as disabling Autopilot functions if those functions weren't purchased. > Some high-end BMW cars in [list of countries] have the option to pay a subscription fee for features such as heated seats, advanced cruise control, and automatic beam switching. The components and functionality already exist within the vehicle, but BMW has a software block that prevent them from being used without paying. (#2 was recently on HN)
Zenst 4y ago
Interesting comparision given didn't Nvidia sell people some 30xx series graphics cards and then limit their has rate with a driver update! Giving a situation were some people brought a card for X ability of the card for an update to artificially limit it?
- enragedcacti 4y ago
  They started selling LHR cards with a nerfed hash rate but it was clear up front that that is what you were buying.
vkk8 4y ago
> Maybe, but again, I don't see why that should be necessary. Tesla should not have been able to do this, period. Maybe you're right. However, much of the modern hardware business operates this way. At least Nvidia and Intel have been known to sell the same chips as different models, but just some part of the chip disabled via firmware.
tomohawk 4y ago
Except that with something like a Tesla, you are not buying the car. You are buying a piece of paper that grants you specific use of a car. This means that in the future, everyone will need to retain a lawyer conversant in contract law when making any sort of purchase, as what is being purchased may have little to do with the thing you think you have bought, and everything to do with the abstract contract that the lawyer can understand. The World Economic Forum thinks this is a great idea. I can't wait til those guys are run out of town.
- hef19898 4y ago
  So kind of a NFT for a car then?
7thaccount 4y ago
Again...I don't know why people willingly buy from companies like Tesla or BMW when they treat customers so poorly.
danudey 4y ago
Imagine Apple replacing your broken Macbook Pro M1 base model with the upgraded model because they didn't have any exact replacements in stock, and then years later deciding to disable two of the CPU cores, two of the GPU cores, and half the SSD space (1 TB to 512 GB). People, especially on HN, would lose their freaking minds. They would also lose their minds if Apple only sold the highest-end model but firmware-locked CPU cores and SSD space unless you paid extra for it, or, even better, paid a subscription for it. Refresh rates up to 120 Hz, available for $4.99 per month!
- rsynnott 4y ago
  Intel has occasionally done this: https://www.zdnet.com/article/facepalm-of-the-day-intel-charges-customers-50-to-unlock-cpu-features/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/facepalm-of-the-day-intel-char... It tends not to go down well.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Crosseye_Jack 4y ago
    And they are planning to do it again https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-software-defined-cpu-support-coming-to-linux-518 https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-software-defined-cpu... Now this time the idea is that because their differnt SKU's are basically the same chip under the hood anyway just locked at the Silicon level why not allow them to be unlocked if the extra features are found to be needed after purchase. This happen in other markets just fine. One market that jumps to mind is oscilloscopes, you will basically have a single piece of hardware spanning multiple skus where features are disabled via software/hardware (sometimes the CPU is just reading resistor values or jumpers to determine which model it is and therefore which features it has enabled), one notable vendor jumps to mind is Hantek. You can take a 70Mhz scope and opening it up to unlock it to 250mhz. (The same can be done in a number of Rigol scopes iirc)
- elzbardico 4y ago
  Please, don't give them ideas.
tj-teej 4y ago
"because....that's what it is" I think this is the key problem here. Tesla is asserting the right to decide for the owner what the car "is". Kinda brings into question who the "owner" "is"...
- hef19898 4y ago
  If something runs software that either isn't air gapped, eg. cars, or that can recwived forced updates, e.g. OTA updates, obviously the person buying the device is not the owner. Legally for sure you are the owner, in oractical terms less so. And in case of cars, even if the embedded software is air-gaped, if you cannot choose your garage (liscensed garages may perform software uodates wothout you knowing) you kind of loose some "ownership" as well.

infogulch 4y ago

> "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. Enjoy. Tell everyone you know about how awesome Tesla was about fixing the problem and remember that next time you go to buy your next car" That would be such a great solution

1shooner 4y ago
Any rational marketer or PR officer would gladly give up that $4,500 to avoid this HN post.
- rrdharan 4y ago
  Tesla doesn’t believe in having such folks (they famously eliminated their PR department).
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  Tesla saved $4,500 by firing their PR people, they’re one step ahead.
- rurp 4y ago
  They didn't even trade the bad PR for $4,500, they traded it for a chance at $4,500 since they don't know if the customer will pay it. This decision-making boggles my mind. Either there are a ton of Tesla fanatics out there who will put up with a lot of dubious behavior, or Tesla is severely limiting its upside with all of their anti-customer service antics.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    > Either there are a ton of Tesla fanatics out there who will put up with a lot of dubious behavior, or Tesla is severely limiting its upside with all of their anti-customer service antics. I think it's both. There are a ton of Tesla fanatics who think Tesla can do no wrong. Some of them are commenting on this article here, others in the Twitter thread. But there are also people like myself, who will probably never buy a Tesla due to current and past behavior like this. And there are probably at least a few people reading this who were on the fence, but for whom this battery kerfuffle pushed them over the edge.

nathancahill 4y ago

Reminds me of Office Space "We fixed the glitch". > We, uh, we fixed the glitch. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it'll just work itself out naturally. We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem is solved from your end.

zcw100 4y ago
The Bobs appreciate you noticing the reference ;)

giarc 4y ago

The odd part is the OP said it was "badged as a 90" which to me implies Tesla also removed the physical badges on the car and replaced them to indicate it was a P90. That, to me, really implies they wanted to make this a P90 car.

zippergz 4y ago
Or one of the previous owners did it. I have known people who have modified the badges on their car.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
squirtle24 4y ago
There's no way Tesla themselves changed the badge to a 90, especially since the 90 appears to be some kind of mistake, given that they fixed the mistake years later. It was probably one of the previous owners, and them changing the badge without disclosing that it's actually a 60 seems to put the bad-faith blame on them. Having said that, if I was going to drop $40k on a used car, I would certainly have inspected everything... the carfax, title, stickers on the car, maintenance history, with Tesla themselves, etc. Surely one of those would've hinted to the current owner that it's actually a 60!?
- account42 4y ago
  > There's no way Tesla themselves changed the badge to a 90, especially since the 90 appears to be some kind of mistake, given that they fixed the mistake years later. There is plenty of "way". Maybe they did mean to give it as a free upgrade bug did not properly document that. Maybe the person updating the badge did not realize that it was not supposed to be unlocked. Why are you jumping to conclusions like this just to give some corporation the benefit of the doubt especially when it in no way excuses them remotely downgrading the vehicle WITH NO WARNING.
  - squirtle24 4y ago
    Maybe the tweeter misrepresented the situation for ragebait. Maybe this is a software bug. Maybe, maybe, maybe. If we’re going to dismiss every aspect of the situation to the point of meaninglessness or speculation, why bother? I’m not saying that the takebacksies by Tesla is right, but I’ve also never heard of a manufacturer changing the badges on a car, especially a used one, and in a situation where the tweeter clearly says Tesla made a mistake that they corrected years later - nothing "nefarious". Whereas it is not unheard of for owners to change badges on a car.

NullPrefix 4y ago

>It says 90, badged 90, has 90-type range. Tweet author said it's badged 90

simondotau 4y ago
Not sure how that matters if Tesla installed a 60 badge at the factory and a customer replaced it with an aftermarket 90 badge. I’m not saying Tesla are in the right overall, but the question of the badge appears to be one of misrepresentation by a previous owner.

cyanydeez 4y ago

Welcome to DRM hell. Basically you're always going to want flexibility in hardware, but infinite limits in usage. Tesla is in the wrong here. If your hardware allows greater range because it allows flexibility in warranty repairs, they need to eat it.

015a 4y ago

> 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" I'm not as sure about this take. Imagine if this were something not connected to The Cloud; the seller sells the car they have, its not their responsibility, nor should it be, nor has it ever been, to know that this is a component that's Cloud Connected and Tesla can just take it away with no notice. No other car operates like that; even the new BMW shit isn't like that, its pretty clear "this is a subscription which is bound to your account, not the car". Very few consumer physical goods operate like that. Here's a correlate: Intel bins chips. Imagine you buy a computer, you get an i5, years later its upgraded to an i7, years later Intel rolls around a software update and says "your desktop only shipped with an i5, we're disabling two of the cores". That's theoretically totally possible with Intel & partners control over microcode & chipset updates; but it would be wild to happen. Now, put yourself in the shoes of someone selling that desktop: you sell the computer you have, it has an i7, "two years ago the chip was upgraded", that's it. Let's say the price difference between these two chips is, like, 20% of the total cost of the machine. Would you, the seller, accept 20% less; in other words, selling the laptop Intel may or may not create for the buyer, in the unknowable future? Would you, the buyer, be willing to pay 20% more, even knowing (or, more likely, not knowing) that Intel could nerf the performance at any time?

sverhagen 4y ago
Isn't it a bit akin to disclosing hidden defects for a house? If you have known about those defects, or they were properly disclosed to you when you bought the house, in many jurisdictions you're responsible to disclose them to the next buyer, are you not? I'm not on Tesla's side here: I have an expectation of reasonability that they're not meeting, and I feel that they've forfeited their "rights" to locking this configuration down, a long time ago. But in parallel, it seems that strictly speaking the new owner may also have some reasonable expectation that the history of the care is relayed to them upon purchase. I say "strictly" because I also understand that's not how it goes in the real world. But since were hypothesizing here...
- powerhour 4y ago

HWR_14 4y ago

> Presumably this cost them a fortune to do it in the first place. Why not get some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. As I understand it, all batteries are the same size. They are just software locked. So no additional costs. It's the same as how Tesla remote unlocked the battery life of people fleeing natural disasters. Which means not only is it there, it's charged.

Retric 4y ago
The batteries weigh different amounts so it isn’t just software locking at the factory. https://themotordigest.com/how-much-do-tesla-batteries-weigh/ https://themotordigest.com/how-much-do-tesla-batteries-weigh... It’s more likely they didn’t have a 60kWh battery at the time pack to do the replacement. Which brings up an interesting point, a 90kWh battery software locked to 60kWh is a defective part as the added weight takes more energy to move around, has worse acceleration, more tire and break ware etc. It’s therefore likely Tesla failed to provide an equivalent replacement part and thus broke their warranty contract.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  That might be a new change that happened in the past few years ago. But it certainly was the way Tesla made cars in 2019: https://insideevs.com/news/342746/more-on-the-return-of-teslas-software-limited-battery-pack-scheme/ https://insideevs.com/news/342746/more-on-the-return-of-tesl...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 4y ago
    Tesla software locked a few 75kWh batteries in 2019 to 60 kWh because so few people bought 60kWh cars and battery prices had fallen a great deal. They didn’t software lock 90kWh to 60kWh batteries in 2013.
  - muzika 4y ago

Consultant32452 4y ago

Yep, as soon as the car leaves the shop configured as 90, if Tesla discovers the error they should just laugh it off and move on. The most they should do is inform the customer of their error and be like "Bank error in your favor, keep your 90."

FireBeyond 4y ago

> 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". Why not? Tesla not only replaced the battery, but REBADGED the car for him. Putting this on the customer is asinine.

Delphiki 4y ago
Doesn't really help the situation, but it's not clear who rebadged the car. It could have been the first owner, or the second owner, or Tesla.
buffington 4y ago
The rebadging is what I find most confusing. I tried getting a Tesla logo/badge replaced since mine had broken, and Tesla made it clear that getting one was going to be a much greater pain in the ass than just finding one made by a third party. They claimed it was a supply chain thing, but it clearly had a lot less to do with that and a lot more to do with their techs not giving a damn.

Retric 4y ago

Not quite, a software limited 90kWh battery is worse than a 60kWh battery pack due to weight. So, Tesla can’t fulfill their warranty obligations with a software locked higher capacity battery. A full capacity battery on the other hand could reasonably qualify as an as good or better replacement which is fine. Therefore whoever did this change at Tesla is exposing them to liability. Technically if car identified as having a 90kWh battery then Tesla also befitted from that deception by being able to claim higher resale value. Thus making this arguably fraud on their part, though that’s unlikely to stick.

rocqua 4y ago
Otoh a software limited battery will last longer.
andruby 4y ago
It’s worse because you carry more weight, but it’s also better because you can charge to 100% without risking much degradation. And you also have less/no degradation. Not sure if that balances out.
- yreg 4y ago
  90kWh pack is not strictly better, so they should have asked for customers blessing to install a heavier, software-locked battery. Which they perhaps did, who knows.
- simondotau 4y ago
  One would hope that Tesla’s software lock gives users the middle 60 kWh of battery capacity by locking off both extremes. If so, you’d be correct and this would be a lot better than a “real” 60 kWh battery. Especially if the software limiter continues to guarantee 60 kWh as the battery ages/degrades.

_fat_santa 4y ago

The problem I have is Tesla even having the ability to do something like that. The idea of car manufacturers having remote access to my car to enable and disable features is a very scary proposition. It’s adds another point of failure to something your life can sometimes depend on, imagine if you’re in a cyber truck on a backroad trail and Tesla finds out the last owner didn’t pay for 4WD, you could easily get stranded. And I feel like with all this connectivity to the manufacturer, we will start to see “acceptable use cases” for your cars. For the vast majority of people they won’t notice but a gearhead will get in and head to the track to find out he can’t drive there because he doesn’t have the “track package subscription” or an off-roader realizing he can’t take his jeep off road because if didn’t come with an “off pavement subscription”. Your truck won’t be able to move when hooked up to a trailer because it doesn’t have a “tow package”. Eventually you’re going to be doing something and want to do something with your car and realize you can’t, not because it’s incapable, but because it was told not to by someone else. I promise you there will be scams abound with hackers selling base model cars as fully loaded ones then reverting everything after the fact. A few are going to die in off-roading situations where the car just refused to move or had critical features disabled through software, and we’re going to relish the days where the only subscription was to your heated seats. And all these subscriptions are going to make Adobe look like a saint with their subscriptions.

kvetching 4y ago
> The idea of car manufacturers having remote access to my car to enable and disable features is a very scary proposition. "BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month" "The auto industry is racing towards a future full of microtransactions" Source: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscriptions-microtransactions-heated-seats-feature https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23204950/bmw-subscription...

causi 4y ago

Don't forget the fact that he has to pay for the electricity cost of hauling around what is probably a hundred pounds of battery he can't use.

lwhi 4y ago

I agree it's a rat's nest of bad decisons. But ultimately, all it reinforces to me is that there is no chance in hell I will ever give money to a company that can remotely perform this type of sanction on a product I own. I will never buy a Tesla.

phkahler 4y ago

>> Sounds like all around bad decisions. Disagree. >> 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". Yes, they should have said that and did. You agree with this decision when you say 'Why not get some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. Enjoy.' Tesla, being notified, should have just enabled the 90 and made the customer happy. Tbey did. Not a bad decision. The only "bad" decision was to revert it from a 60 to a 90 and stick to that. Hardly "all around bad decisions" but a very bad one at the end.

masswerk 4y ago

I think, the decisive point is really in the warranty regulations, like "equal or better". You chose one (which may have been the most convenient to you at that time) and went with it. Anyways, this is how you chose to fulfil the contract. Are you really going to "fix" this years later by a withdrawal? Who has ownership of the car?

faeriechangling 4y ago

I honestly want to see this taken to court, it would be an interesting case. I mean I'm not convinced at all what Tesla did is even lawful. To me, it seems like Tesla and the owner came to a mutual agreement repairing warranty service years earlier, and Tesla's only real arguments is that that either the customer agreed to the downgrade happening eventually (probably not true) or that they didn't understand they were giving the customer all this capacity (maybe?), but I don't think that in turn gives them the right to sabotage a car arbitrarily without notice to remediate this. I think they have an obligation to restore the status quo before the sabotage.

sacrosancty 4y ago
I wonder who the parties would be. Perhaps the current owner's claim should be against the person who sold it to them as a 90, and that person against their seller, and that original owner against Tesla?

thayne 4y ago

Just the fact that they can do this makes me not want to own a tesla.

kube-system 4y ago
I find it less concerning that they can do it, and more concerning that they do do it. If a company treats their customers like crap, they have more avenues to do so than OTAs.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Not only will Tesla do something like this, but it seems half their customers will defend Tesla for doing it. So there isn't even consumer pressure for reform. Tesla is going to keep doing shit like this because their fanboys will continue to defend it.

tomrod 4y ago

The first bad decision is allowing a manufacturer to control how elements of a car are used after its gone on the market.

yreg 4y ago
The manufacturer has that control only if you want to use their services. If you are fine cutting the cord, 3rd parties can change the configuration for you.

vkk8 4y ago

> 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.

simondotau 4y ago
Imagine you purchased a home and it wasn’t disclosed that the shed out the back was actually on your neighbor’s land.
- account42 4y ago
  Even that doesn't let the neighbour just bulldoze the shed when you are using it without involving the legal system.

kelnos 4y ago

> 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". This is a couple new owners downstream, though. The most recent owner to sell the car might not have known about this, or may not have remembered it or understood the implications of it. And, regardless, while I think many of us here are very familiar with the idea of more-capable hardware being software-locked to be less capable, with monetary upgrade options, I think it's reasonable to assume that the average consumer would be very surprised that it would be even possible that they could drive a car into a service station for a completely unrelated issue, and then drive it out with a software-enforced "smaller" battery.

unixbane 4y ago

What the fuck, if I RMA something and they replace a component in it with a better one, and I happen to be informed of which one they replaced, I need to resell it as if it doesn't have the better component, because I just assume the worst case possible which I would have only imagined if I read this thread? (I don't think it was resold "as a 90", unless that was the sole differentiator, yeah I'm not an expert in meme cars) inb4: Yes, I'm an expert at cucking myself to vaguely justifiable corporate laws and behavior.

root_axis 4y ago

It should not be legal for any car company to remotely stymie the mobility of a vehicle without the consent of the owner. I'm not saying Tesla shouldn't be allowed to gate range via software, but they should not be allowed to remotely hamstring a vehicle in such a manner, potentially stranding or endangering someone.

simion314 4y ago

And on top of that you will always have extra stuff to worry about when buy a Tesla, on top of all the risks of buying a used car you have the extra risks that Tesla will push an update and cripple your stuff , so in the end you don't own a functional car , you own some useless material stuff and a license to use it, Tesla pushes an software update and you are screwed. No wonder people prefer to buy very old cars that are simpler to own and fix.

Lazare 4y ago

> 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". I mean, it's actually is a 90, and it was configured as a 90 when sold, and we have no idea why that happened, nor what the original owner knew or (crucially) was told by Tesla. > Why not get some good will out of it? "Hey sorry about your battery. We only had a 90 so we threw that in there. Enjoy. Tell everyone you know about how awesome Tesla was about fixing the problem and remember that next time you go to buy your next car" We have zero reason to think that's not a literal transcript of what the original owner was told when their car was repaired under warranty. Even if it wasn't, if you take a product in for a repair under warranty, you expect it to be returned in same or better configuration (that's actually a legal requirement), so if you drop off a broken Widget 500X, and then you pick it up and it's now a newer Widget 600X, the absolutely inevitable conclusion is "oh, I bet they were out of stock of the 500Xs, so they gave me a 600X, score", and then you think nothing of it, and years later you sell the 600X on Ebay when you upgrade to the latest Widget 800Z. That's just how it works, and I suspect most people here will have experienced that exact sequence of events. (There's also a non-zero chance, given Tesla's general level of customer service, that it was locked to be a 60, a previous owner already paid to unlock it to a 90, and then they lost the records.) The only way I can see we can blame the original owner is if they were told during the warranty process "hey, we're installing a 90, but we'll be locking it to a 60", then Tesla accidentally failed to do it. Which sure, could happen, but it really seems like the least likely result. I certainly agree that Tesla today is handling this in the worst way possible.

gonzo41 4y ago

This one of those really easy, Bank error in your favour, sorts of problems where all Telsa had to do is just leave the 90 alone and essentially tighten up it's internal processes. I have a hard time with tech that has software kill switches. Like all those farm tractors out there, it just invites a culture of hacking and stealing and probably doing unsafe and risking things. This is a space where we totally need to see proper regulation.

pedalpete 4y ago

You nailed it by discussing goodwill. Where has our goodwill gone? It isn't just Tesla, but they are a quite brutal offender.

renonce 4y ago

The worst thing about this is the idea that Tesla has the power to change whatever configuration they want on your car, rendering it totally unusable. Whether 90 or 60 was desired, such changes shouldn't have been able to be done remotely and without consent.

HeavyStorm 4y ago

Well, I get your point. But, still, what I'm reading is that when you buy a tesla you down really own it. Just like a game on Steam, or a ebook on Kindle.