"Tesla extorts thousands of dollars from customers to get their electric car to work efficiently."
But they THOUGHT it was good PR...
I think Wranglers used to offer a larger capacity gas tank (20 vs 15 gal. ?) as an option. The tanks were the same, but the fill tube was different. Apparently easy to achieve with a little rework at virtually no cost.
So when my family finally gets the hybrid car we all want, are they going to scam us on the tank and/or battery of that car too?
Whoa. People who were paying thousands of dollars for the higher capacity battery were just paying for a software update on the cheap battery.
Refunds will be in the works. Dumb PR move.
I doubt it. This has been common practice in many industries for years. You sell a single “box” and enable / disable features on the box for a price. Also common in plain software with no hardware component. Tesla made the feature well known and set a market price of $5,000 for the key to unlock the extra 15 kWh capacity.
There would be grounds for a suit if the key were secret and only available to white males, brown females or Clinton voters, but I doubt that’s the case.
Software is the biggest threat to private property. We are in dire need of laws that specify owners’ rights and the manufacturer’s liabilities and limitations concerning hardware products with software embedded in it.
Most modern autos are capable of better performance, mpg, etc, with engine tuning software, mostly from third-party vendors.
What a ripoff, limiting actual capabilities.
Since taxpayers built Tesla, you’d think everyone would get as much capability for their money as possible.
What kind of fool would use an electric car to escape a disaster? Once the battery is dead it takes hours to get it recharged. Throw a couple of gas cans in the trunk of your gas powered car and you are good as gold.
That’s what I want...
A battery powered car to escape an approaching killer hurricane.
So the range of these cars was limited because Tesla didn’t update them sooner?
That means it can easily be hacked to be permanent, and Tesla just challenged hackers to do just that and upload the code to BitTorrent.
What a freaking joke of a car (and car company).
This is what that Nazi (seriously, look it up) company IBM used to do. Sell an upgrade and flip a switch.
Why? Well know by Tesla owners.
This is actually commonly done. For example, in the printer industry, they might have a product line that ranges from 45ppm to 65ppm. But actually, the parts inside are all the same. All the equipment has a max speed of 65ppm. It is only firmware that limits some some of the models to lower speeds.
But the battery power won’t last forever. The only vehicles that can be relied on in a storm are gasoline or oil powered ones.
What govt giveth, govt can take away.
Subsidized Motors being oh, so generous, with our tax $$. /s
If you only use 60 kwh maximum, from a 75 kwh capacity lithium battery — that battery will last for at least four times as many miles.
In effect, Tesla is giving people, who buy the 60 kwh model, an extra 15 kwh of capacity for free. That extra capacity allows their battery to last up to 4 times longer. I’d say that’s a good deal. Zero chance for a class-action suit (in a sane world, that is — no accounting for what the courts would actually decide).
Many products are upgradeable/expandable by purchased key, with the same core build. Like software packages, machinery like CNCs, automation products, lots of things. This is a nothingburger for the enlightened.