You’re usually paying FOR something — V-6 is cheaper than the V-8.
This is Tesla purposefully limiting the battery efficiency of a car consumers paid $100k+ to buy. Nothing is different other than the purposeful actions by Tesla to limit the battery range for its own customers.
Seems like a screw job to me...
Welcome to the world of software driven cars. You’re still paying for something, but that something now is a certain arrangement of 1s and 0s. You’ve been living in this world for 30 years without even knowing it, it’s just finally spread to cars.
Its not a screw job. Its brilliant actually. In a conventional car, you pay for a V-6 or a V-8, and the company has to produce 2 separate engines (costly), and then put the appropriate one in the car.
In the Tesla model (and what the IT world has been doing for 30 plus years), you produce ONE car, and control performance via software. You want better performance? You pay for it, and the software is adjusted accordingly.
Why is this a screw job? You get what you pay for.
It’s common practice for car manufacturers to “de-tune” the engines they put in less expensive models.
The engine in my car produces 10 hp more that the lower tier model, and 15 hp less that the model a tier above mine.
The engines are exactly the same, aside from the ECU programming. It helps manufactures sell the more expensive models, while also being able to meet efficiency requirements across their lineup as a whole.