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There's nothing stopping ICE car manufacturers from doing the same thing. ICEs are run by computers with lookup tables for fuel and ignition timings(etc.) which

There's nothing stopping ICE car manufacturers from doing the same thing. ICEs are run by computers with lookup tables for fuel and ignition timings(etc.) which are often less than optimal and could be revised for both performance and reliability after a model has been in use by the general public. This is just Tesla being their usual disruptive self. Patiently waiting for a Tesla I can afford.

malandrew 12y ago
I'm guessing self driving cars will be here or on the horizon when Tesla's get into the affordable range.
guelo 12y ago
Enthusiasts tweak performance parameters on ICE computers all the time.
Arcanum-XIII 12y ago
Traditional vendors are not willing to give the general public those kind of improvements not because they can't, but because they feel it will hurt their bottom line by not being able to sell more new car. Customer are left on their own - and so they resort to patch their car with parts that drop their warranty - sometimes for good reason, sometimes not. For example some vendors are famous for selling the same engine at different price point, throttling the low end - a bit like what's done on some CPU/GPU in the computer world !
- zone411 12y ago
  Actually, some other manufacturers do provide such free improvements, though they would require a visit to the dealership. McLaren provided performance improvements for the 12C, even after the model got discontinued.
  - saiya-jin 12y ago
    good example, but McLaren is far from your usual car manufacturer. In purchasing price you pay also for these services...
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  I put more stock in the idea that traditional vendors are terrified of any kind of pathway for frequent/easy access to the onboard engine computers. Just look at the kerflufle around stuck gas pedals; imagine what the public will do to the first vendor whose ECM is maliciously modified OTA, or who pushes an update with an unnoticed key regression or new bug (hardly an unusual thing in the world of frequent updates)
- semi-extrinsic 12y ago
  Many manufacturers do actually sell you these upgrades. Mercedes has AMG chip tuning, Volvo calls their stuff Polestar (swedes and their funny english), BMW does it at least for the 1-series, etc etc. In most cases it includes not only ECU remapping but also cooling upgrades. As for throttling the engine to sell at a different price point: in many countries this relates to government taxation on horsepowers. I don't see this as particularly nefarious by the car manufacturers.
  - arprocter 12y ago
    This is correct. In the UK Mountune provides this for Ford and your car is still covered by the original manufacturer warranty Edit: same for Mountune USA
- threeseed 12y ago
  Nonsense. "Traditional vendors" routinely update their cars to give better performance where it doesn't cost them anything and brings other benefits e.g. safety. Especially if the components are reused during multiple generations e.g. MY14/MY15. I am buying a used LandRover now where I will get more than a 0.1s performance improvement when I take it into the dealership for a transmission software update.
cuu508 12y ago
Sure, but 1) cars come out of factory with sensible defaults. If you knew what you're doing, you could trade e.g. engine longevity or fuel consumption for extra HP but most people would be better off with factory defaults 2) visiting a dealership or doing update manually is not that much of a deal if it only needs to be done once or twice during the lifetime of the vehicle For comparison, think about BIOS updates or camera firmware updates. Sure it would be kind of neat if these happened auto-magically. But would I see it as a big plus if my motherboard was able to fetch and install BIOS updates all by itself? Not really, I would in fact be concerned that it's fixing stuff that is not broken, and doing it behind my back.
- thanksgiving 12y ago
  > Sure, but 1) cars come out of factory with sensible defaults. If you knew what you're doing, you could trade e.g. engine longevity or fuel consumption for extra HP but most people would be better off with factory defaults 2) visiting a dealership or doing update manually is not that much of a deal if it only needs to be done once or twice during the lifetime of the vehicle Just look at the CVT Ford Fiesta / Ford Fusion. In the 2012 model of the cars, the transmission would "slip" under certain conditions. I know because my friend Pete owns one. He went to the dealership. The mechanic there drove it with him in the passenger seat. Sure enough, this was a problem. They call Ford and they adamantly denied there was a problem of any sort. Fast forward about eight months and the dealership calls Pete. Apparently, there's been a software update. Pete went to the dealership. The transmission slips no longer happen. I guess the point I am making is that it really sucks when Ford denies there being a problem when there is clearly a problem. I am not saying the software was the problem but they had a fix for it in software. I don't think Ford even publicly announced this software update. For sure, I understand that you should be able to decide when and which updates happen to your device. However, I see a positive change if they come up with a good change list with each update. Someone above noted that until recently Toyota didn't even have a bug tracking system for its software.
tdicola 12y ago
Parts in the engine can only take so much speed, heat, power, etc. before they fail. Sure you could push out a slightly higher performance tune but at some point you're going to need to get into the engine and upgrade moving parts like pistons, camshafts, fuel injectors, cooling system, etc. Also transmissions can only take so much power before they have to be upgraded too. It wouldn't make any sense to ship an economy car with a sports car transmission because you might juice up the power with an update later. Not to mention only upgrading power is no fun at all if you don't upgrade the brakes and suspension. All the power in the world does nothing if you can't put it down on the pavement or can't stop before hitting a wall.
- threeseed 12y ago
  Slightly higher performance tune ? ECU remaps and similar devices can add significant performance improvements typically around 30% more torque and power. Car manufacturers generally aim for their cars to be mostly identical regardless of the country they are sold. Hence they are often targeting lowest common denominator country emissions levels. And I've done ECU remaps before. You definitely do NOT need to upgrade brakes and suspension. Example: http://www.bluesparkautomotive.com http://www.bluesparkautomotive.com
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    I'm sure that some overall improvement is possible, but those gains are often going to come at the expense of reliability or emissions compliance. (Which I think you acknowledge in your second paragraph, just seems worth it to be explicit about it)
    - threeseed 12y ago
      Those improvements aren't just possible they are what you get. Enthusiasts have been using these system for decades (?) with almost every type of car imaginable. And your issues about reliability/emissions aren't necessarily true (spend time on any car forum and you will see better rebuttals to these issues). It isn't necessarily true for reliability since engines are often reused between models/manufacturers and so safe mappings are known. And yes you may exceed emissions regulations but not necessarily. Again manufacturers aim to sell the same car in multiple countries and so depending on how relaxed your country is your car may still be legal with increased emissions. Think about this. If these devices were so bad why do most insurance companies when you tell them about it either (a) don't increase premiums or (b) do so with a negligible increase. It's because they are never the cause for safety or reliability issues. Car companies use engine power as a key product differentiator.
threeseed 12y ago
> This is just Tesla being their usual disruptive self. Dealerships have been doing this for YEARS. There are many dealerships who sell ECU remaps/devices that significantly increase performance of the car. And the biggest joke is that some manufacturers e.g. Mercedes actually turn a blind eye to it in many situations.
gambiting 12y ago
Yeah. But ECUs in regular cars are designed to function in a broad variety of conditions. A car bought in Germany has to work when filling up top-quality BP Ultimate Diesel, but it also has to work if you drive it to Russia and fill up their horrible sulphuric Diesel. A petrol car has to work when filled up with 98 or even 100 octane petrol, but also when filled up with 91 octane petrol sold in some countries. Not to mention that the engine has to function normally in -30C but also 40C,both of which can be encountered within a single country. Of course if you know that certain things are not going to be a problem(like you are not planning on driving to Russia or filling up at shady stations) then you can manually tweak the ECU for shorter timings or whatever, to get more performance out.
PinguTS 12y ago
That is called chip-tuning and being done since years. The only think is, no OEM does this officially. It is only done by more or less shady third parties. Officially it is done eg. by Brabus for Mercedes, Alpine for BMW, …. But then not part of a retrofit but you have to buy the whole car from them. You can buy it as retrofit from some Russian or other alike. It is also very common in the industry that the very same engine is used with different algorithms resulting in different PS. Like my Volvo S60 2001 Model uses an engine which was available with 140PS, 170PS and 210PS. The very same engine was used by Ford at that time in different Models with different PS.
- shiftpgdn 12y ago
  I wouldn't really call APR or COBB tuning shady. APR has their own private race track for testing & development.

malandrew 12y ago

I'm guessing self driving cars will be here or on the horizon when Tesla's get into the affordable range.

guelo 12y ago

Enthusiasts tweak performance parameters on ICE computers all the time.

Arcanum-XIII 12y ago

Traditional vendors are not willing to give the general public those kind of improvements not because they can't, but because they feel it will hurt their bottom line by not being able to sell more new car. Customer are left on their own - and so they resort to patch their car with parts that drop their warranty - sometimes for good reason, sometimes not. For example some vendors are famous for selling the same engine at different price point, throttling the low end - a bit like what's done on some CPU/GPU in the computer world !

zone411 12y ago
Actually, some other manufacturers do provide such free improvements, though they would require a visit to the dealership. McLaren provided performance improvements for the 12C, even after the model got discontinued.
- saiya-jin 12y ago
  good example, but McLaren is far from your usual car manufacturer. In purchasing price you pay also for these services...
sliverstorm 12y ago
I put more stock in the idea that traditional vendors are terrified of any kind of pathway for frequent/easy access to the onboard engine computers. Just look at the kerflufle around stuck gas pedals; imagine what the public will do to the first vendor whose ECM is maliciously modified OTA, or who pushes an update with an unnoticed key regression or new bug (hardly an unusual thing in the world of frequent updates)
semi-extrinsic 12y ago
Many manufacturers do actually sell you these upgrades. Mercedes has AMG chip tuning, Volvo calls their stuff Polestar (swedes and their funny english), BMW does it at least for the 1-series, etc etc. In most cases it includes not only ECU remapping but also cooling upgrades. As for throttling the engine to sell at a different price point: in many countries this relates to government taxation on horsepowers. I don't see this as particularly nefarious by the car manufacturers.
- arprocter 12y ago
  This is correct. In the UK Mountune provides this for Ford and your car is still covered by the original manufacturer warranty Edit: same for Mountune USA
threeseed 12y ago
Nonsense. "Traditional vendors" routinely update their cars to give better performance where it doesn't cost them anything and brings other benefits e.g. safety. Especially if the components are reused during multiple generations e.g. MY14/MY15. I am buying a used LandRover now where I will get more than a 0.1s performance improvement when I take it into the dealership for a transmission software update.

cuu508 12y ago

Sure, but 1) cars come out of factory with sensible defaults. If you knew what you're doing, you could trade e.g. engine longevity or fuel consumption for extra HP but most people would be better off with factory defaults 2) visiting a dealership or doing update manually is not that much of a deal if it only needs to be done once or twice during the lifetime of the vehicle For comparison, think about BIOS updates or camera firmware updates. Sure it would be kind of neat if these happened auto-magically. But would I see it as a big plus if my motherboard was able to fetch and install BIOS updates all by itself? Not really, I would in fact be concerned that it's fixing stuff that is not broken, and doing it behind my back.

thanksgiving 12y ago
> Sure, but 1) cars come out of factory with sensible defaults. If you knew what you're doing, you could trade e.g. engine longevity or fuel consumption for extra HP but most people would be better off with factory defaults 2) visiting a dealership or doing update manually is not that much of a deal if it only needs to be done once or twice during the lifetime of the vehicle Just look at the CVT Ford Fiesta / Ford Fusion. In the 2012 model of the cars, the transmission would "slip" under certain conditions. I know because my friend Pete owns one. He went to the dealership. The mechanic there drove it with him in the passenger seat. Sure enough, this was a problem. They call Ford and they adamantly denied there was a problem of any sort. Fast forward about eight months and the dealership calls Pete. Apparently, there's been a software update. Pete went to the dealership. The transmission slips no longer happen. I guess the point I am making is that it really sucks when Ford denies there being a problem when there is clearly a problem. I am not saying the software was the problem but they had a fix for it in software. I don't think Ford even publicly announced this software update. For sure, I understand that you should be able to decide when and which updates happen to your device. However, I see a positive change if they come up with a good change list with each update. Someone above noted that until recently Toyota didn't even have a bug tracking system for its software.

tdicola 12y ago

Parts in the engine can only take so much speed, heat, power, etc. before they fail. Sure you could push out a slightly higher performance tune but at some point you're going to need to get into the engine and upgrade moving parts like pistons, camshafts, fuel injectors, cooling system, etc. Also transmissions can only take so much power before they have to be upgraded too. It wouldn't make any sense to ship an economy car with a sports car transmission because you might juice up the power with an update later. Not to mention only upgrading power is no fun at all if you don't upgrade the brakes and suspension. All the power in the world does nothing if you can't put it down on the pavement or can't stop before hitting a wall.

threeseed 12y ago
Slightly higher performance tune ? ECU remaps and similar devices can add significant performance improvements typically around 30% more torque and power. Car manufacturers generally aim for their cars to be mostly identical regardless of the country they are sold. Hence they are often targeting lowest common denominator country emissions levels. And I've done ECU remaps before. You definitely do NOT need to upgrade brakes and suspension. Example: http://www.bluesparkautomotive.com http://www.bluesparkautomotive.com
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I'm sure that some overall improvement is possible, but those gains are often going to come at the expense of reliability or emissions compliance. (Which I think you acknowledge in your second paragraph, just seems worth it to be explicit about it)
  - threeseed 12y ago
    Those improvements aren't just possible they are what you get. Enthusiasts have been using these system for decades (?) with almost every type of car imaginable. And your issues about reliability/emissions aren't necessarily true (spend time on any car forum and you will see better rebuttals to these issues). It isn't necessarily true for reliability since engines are often reused between models/manufacturers and so safe mappings are known. And yes you may exceed emissions regulations but not necessarily. Again manufacturers aim to sell the same car in multiple countries and so depending on how relaxed your country is your car may still be legal with increased emissions. Think about this. If these devices were so bad why do most insurance companies when you tell them about it either (a) don't increase premiums or (b) do so with a negligible increase. It's because they are never the cause for safety or reliability issues. Car companies use engine power as a key product differentiator.

threeseed 12y ago

> This is just Tesla being their usual disruptive self. Dealerships have been doing this for YEARS. There are many dealerships who sell ECU remaps/devices that significantly increase performance of the car. And the biggest joke is that some manufacturers e.g. Mercedes actually turn a blind eye to it in many situations.

gambiting 12y ago

Yeah. But ECUs in regular cars are designed to function in a broad variety of conditions. A car bought in Germany has to work when filling up top-quality BP Ultimate Diesel, but it also has to work if you drive it to Russia and fill up their horrible sulphuric Diesel. A petrol car has to work when filled up with 98 or even 100 octane petrol, but also when filled up with 91 octane petrol sold in some countries. Not to mention that the engine has to function normally in -30C but also 40C,both of which can be encountered within a single country. Of course if you know that certain things are not going to be a problem(like you are not planning on driving to Russia or filling up at shady stations) then you can manually tweak the ECU for shorter timings or whatever, to get more performance out.

PinguTS 12y ago

That is called chip-tuning and being done since years. The only think is, no OEM does this officially. It is only done by more or less shady third parties. Officially it is done eg. by Brabus for Mercedes, Alpine for BMW, …. But then not part of a retrofit but you have to buy the whole car from them. You can buy it as retrofit from some Russian or other alike. It is also very common in the industry that the very same engine is used with different algorithms resulting in different PS. Like my Volvo S60 2001 Model uses an engine which was available with 140PS, 170PS and 210PS. The very same engine was used by Ford at that time in different Models with different PS.

shiftpgdn 12y ago
I wouldn't really call APR or COBB tuning shady. APR has their own private race track for testing & development.