
Tesla will soon downgrade software on the entry-level Model 3 - mbreese
http://www.engadget.com/2019/06/08/tesla-model-3-software-downgrade/
======
gmueckl
So the trial period for the full version is over. Enjoy the features included
in the standard license.

I get market segmentation and having optional features in a car. But most car
companies don't actually integrate a seat heater if you didn't order one.
Lugging the weight of the extra hardware for these features around but being
blocked from using them at all feels wromg to me.

~~~
eljimmy
The Lexus IS300 and IS350 both have the exact same engine, only the 300 is
detuned to not be as fast. You can do an after-market ECU tune and end up with
the exact same performance as a 350.

I don't understand why they decided to make two models out of the same engine.

~~~
shereadsthenews
More powerful engines are less reliable. Motorcycle makers get twice the
specific power out of their engines compared to cars, but the engines won't
last 100k miles or even 50k and they require frequent major maintenance. Car
buyers are no longer willing to ever have their car in the shop so most
mainstream cars are very detuned. High-strung engines that need maintenance
are a niche market.

~~~
rolleiflex
Motorcycle engines are largely not scaled down car engines tuned for
performance at the expense of reliability. They are designs built from scratch
under different constraints. A mid-level motorcycle engine from a Japanese
manufacturer should last _longer_ than a mid-level car from a Japanese
manufacturer, all else being equal.

There are motorcycles that you buy facing the near certainty that it will most
likely outlive you, like KLR 650, or you can get a Ducati with a Desmosedici
Stradale in it, where you have to get valves adjusted (major service) every
2500 miles. But given timely service, no motorcycle will last less than 50k
miles, and most will last above 100 before an engine block rebuild.

Comparing cars to cars, or motorcycles to motorcycles, the logic holds though.

~~~
xref
Mid-level Japanese car engines can go waaay longer than 100k before an engine
block rebuild. I had a Mazda 3 over 200k with no major service (A/C died...I
left it dead)

~~~
mayamatrix
In Australia it's not uncommon for Toyota 22R engines to run for 400Kkm before
needing a rebuild.

------
kjksf
This wasn't Tesla's plan from the beginning.

This is the history of how that happened.

In 2016 Tesla announced Model 3 and took a risk by pre-announcing that the
price will start at $35.

In late 2017 they started making the cars and until early 2019 they were only
making the more expensive Long Range trim at $50k+.

Sometime late 2018 / early 2019 they introduced a Medium Range trim, which was
Long Range with smaller batter for $40-something k. This trim is no longer
available (replaced by SR+)

Around march 2019, after hard-core cost-cutting, they introduced the base
models as $35 SR (Standard Range) and $37.5 SR+ (Standard Range plus).

Compared to original plans SR/SR+ was better in that it included the panoramic
glass sunroof.

The SR+ was available immediately but SR had a 4-6 month lead time, presumably
so that Tesla can improve production / operational efficiency enough so that
they can make SR trim at a profit.

According to Tesla, few people were ordering SR so they decided to scrap that
trim. That makes sense because the fewer variants they have to make, the
better they can optimize the production process and the cheaper it is to make
the cars.

To fulfill those SR orders they decided to give people SR+ trim and limit
features in software. It took them a while to implement those limits hence for
a while people who ordered SR were able to drive SR+ without the limits.

This is not the end of story.

Soon after they decided to make $3k AutoPilot a standard feature and bumped
the price by $2k.

After that they bumped the price by additional $400, presumably to offset the
cost of Trump's tarrifs.

And that's where we are today.

Tesla just rolls with the punches. Making the cheapest version be a software-
limited wasn't the original plan but it's a reasonable decision given how
things progressed.

I think it's safe to say that at some point in the future Tesla will lower the
price if their production capacity outstrips the supply and they manage to
further improve operational efficiency.

~~~
patrick5415
Honestly, nobody(except the fanbois) cares about the story or Tesla’s original
intention. All that matters is what they are _actually_ doing. And what
they’re actually doing is skeevy.

~~~
Gibbon1
Reading the parent makes it sound exceptionally skeevy. I tend to distrust a
company that will spend money to make sure that their customers 'don't get
something for free' when the cost is already sunk.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
This expectation of yours does not sound reasonable. If a bakery has made 100
croissants, should they give them for free after breaking even, because the
cost has been sunk anyway?

(Yes they can give them away for charity if they want, but that is charity,
not business)

~~~
mantap
Generally there is an expectation in business that mistakes made by the
business are to the benefit of the customer.

For instance, if you order 3 croissants but the bakery puts 5 in your box and
seals the box, and then you walk out the shop, what would you do if the bakery
employee comes running down the street after you and demands you open the box
and return the extra 2 croissants? Well this would never happen, the business
would just write it off and let the customer have the two extra croissants.

~~~
BuckRogers
Tesla didn't make a mistake. It's more like a trial period in software.

------
Urgo
Really not sure why everyone is up in arms over this. The person buying the
car knows exactly what they are buying when they order it. They just got some
upgrades for free that they didn't pay for to try for a little bit. I think
its great that Tesla includes them and is able to unlock them via software.
The alternative is if you bought the low end car and later decided to upgrade
you'd have to bring your car in, they'd have to tear apart seats/etc to
upgrade the hardware, remove an old battery to put in a new one, etc. The
system as it stands now may seem a little weird that you actually have
hardware you didn't pay for but it's not unlike upgrading to get more features
on some other service.

The fact of the matter again is the people who bought the cars after this
update will get exactly what they paid for. If they want the upgraded version
they could have either bought it from the start, or they can still upgrade.

~~~
userbinator
The fact that Tesla can effectively modify "your" car _after you bought it_ ,
to disable things that it can clearly do, is what's really troubling here.

~~~
Urgo
They can also modify it to add features. I have a Model S I bought before auto
pilot was released. I had prepaid for it though so when it was ready I got it.
And over the years other features that weren't even announced I also got for
free. It goes both ways. So is it troubling they can modify the car to add
functionality?

I get it if they are modifying it to remove something you paid for, but that
is NOT the case here.

~~~
patrick5415
Whether the updates are beneficial or enervating, the ability to modify what
should be my car is precisely the reason I will never own a Tesla.

~~~
Urgo
Your loss. Have had a Model S for almost 4 years and it is absolutely amazing.

Also I probably should point out that when the updates come out it is still up
to the user, at least to some extent on whether they want to upgrade or not. I
think it turns into a snooze game though but I know there were people that
held out for years on software updates because they liked the old UX better.
So you don't HAVE to update, its just pretty much universally preferred to
upgrade.

------
steelframe
For those who haven't had a chance to read it yet, Richard Stallman's "The
Right to Read" from 1997:

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html)

There are some striking thematic parallels with the current state of
automotive technology -- in particular Tesla.

~~~
userbinator
Cory Doctorow's "Car Wars" is also very relevant:
[http://this.deakin.edu.au/culture/car-
wars](http://this.deakin.edu.au/culture/car-wars)

------
dehrmann
This is a case where Tesla would be better off owning up to its failures. They
shipped a product slightly better than customers ordered. That's on them,
especially when they're doing the downgrade a year+ later. Imagine if a
dealership came back after a year and told you "actually, you didn't pay for
the package with the heated seats."

Not sure what Tesla PR was thinking on this one, especially when the cost (but
not opportunity cost) is $10 per month for the music. All I've got is that
Tesla's looking between the cushions for cash.

~~~
disillusioned
How would this be different from, say, a SaaS tool provider realizing I was
being charged for their "basic" plan I signed up for, while inadvertently
receiving their "premium" plan, and emailing me to inform me they've noticed
the error and are correcting it?

~~~
dehrmann
The main difference is the sense of possession you get with something you paid
a one-time fee for. The -aaS model is a fee for _service_ model, so you expect
to be billed accordingly.

------
sudhirj
There was a tweet by pg that Tesla is really a software company - that seems
to be playing out more and more. They're basically making the car hardware
only for sake of vertical integration, same as with Apple's phones. Both
companies are also developing chips for the same reasons, with the same
revolving door of employees as well.

If this perspective normalizes it's quite possible that we'll see cars that
offer in-app upgrades / features on subscription as well. You could rent
extended range for just your trips, and Tesla has already been known to
temporarily enable it for everyone in the case of emergencies.

~~~
carlmr
Putting unnecessary hardware in cars may be costly, which is why traditional
car companies don't do this, or at least rarely do this.

At the same time Tesla doesn't produce enough cars to make it worthwhile to
make the production process that flexible. There are costs associated with
having different parts to manage and streamlining your assembly line to handle
it. Additionally you have to develop, test, produce these additional parts
which also costs money. If they become one of the big car manufacturers at
some point it will become worth it to specialize the hardware more. Right now
software is easier and cheaper.

------
OJFord
> Customers might also lose access to Tesla's onboard music streaming service
> and heated seats, among other upgrades, though they'll have to wait until
> the software lock comes out to know which ones they're losing for sure.

Heated seats disabled in software?!

~~~
toomuchtodo
My goodness! Next you’ll tell me you’re paying more for more GHz from the same
processor just because of QA/bin sorting! /s

Anyway, price differentiation without a hardware delta is how you meet your
margin forecasts. Legitimate business strategy.

~~~
reitzensteinm
That's a poor analogy; when you pay more for a processor that's more highly
binned, you are actually getting something physically superior. Tesla bins
their motors (or did at one point).

If you're going to do the sarcastic reply thing, at least make it insightful.
Or funny.

~~~
tntn
> actually getting something physically superior

Sometimes, sometimes not. What you are getting is a chip that passed more
rigorous tests. That the lower end products have (or would have) failed those
tests is not guaranteed. Companies can and do sell identical silicon as less
capable products.

~~~
reitzensteinm
Yes, sometimes the yields are too good and there are an overabundance of chips
that can be sold as high end. Pentiums with cache defects are sold as
Celerons, but in a pinch, a Pentium might be sold as a Celeron.

Intel at one stage dipped their toes in the water of what would be a close
analogy; your chip comes with half of its cache software disabled, and you pay
$50 to unlock it.

They stopped pretty quickly, but I don't think it was from the inevitable tech
community backlash. It was that it economically made no sense at Intel's scale
- the alternative was to fab a new line of chips with less cache to start
with.

[https://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to-
charge-50...](https://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to-charge-50-to-
unlock-stuff-your-cpu-can-already-d/)

------
wanderer2323
Feels really weird. These are the earliest customers for Model 3, wouldn't it
be good & cheap PR for Tesla to say "these customers got more than they paid
for, but we'll 'grandfather' them into the perks"?

I would expect the positive EV (expected value) on the 'grandfather' option to
be obvious, unless Tesla is really strapped for cash.

~~~
sliken
These are not the earliest customers of the model 3. These are the ones that
waited an extra year or so for the cheapest model. They were informed about
the features they would get, but ended up with free, but temporary upgrades.

~~~
p1esk
Did the earliest customer get something that others didn't? But yeah, Tesla is
tight on cash these days...

~~~
sliken
Yes, free supercharging for one. But as Tesla matures and starts entering
markets with lower profit margins, things need to be more cost efficient.

I don't think of Tesla being hard on cash, just that they are pouring every $
they have into expansion. They could just slow down and being profitable would
be much easier.

Personally I'd slow growth and take out less loans, but they would slow down
the transformation of the automobile industry from ICE to electric. It does
seem to be working, with the competition continuing to claims "You can't make
a competitive electric car", then "you can't make a competitive luxury sedan",
then "you can't make a small sedan at a lower price point". Now pretty much
the entire industry is chasing Tesla. Sure now there's some competition from
Chevy (the bolt), Jaguar (the i-pace), Audi (e-tron), Mercedes, Porsche, and
many others. None particularly competitive... yet.

Even if Tesla implodes tomorrow, they have pushed the market to an amazing
degree. Personally I'm most impressed with the model 3 performance. Small,
fun, fast, tons of storage room, very efficient, and often wins against a BMW
M3, not just at 0-60 (a strong point of electric cars), but also on the track.

Electric cars get rid of pretty much all the compromises of a sports sedan. No
loss of storage space with the transmission hump that divides the car in two.
No increased friction and substantial weight increase for AWD. No huge hood to
contain a large engine. No terrible gas mpg. Low center of gravity means no
punishing suspension to try to keep the car from rolling in the corners. No
loud noises from performance oriented tires, engines, and exhausts. Basically
you can get a practical every day driver that matches the best BMW on the
track.

------
CriticalCathed
This is the first thing I've seen Tesla do that was shitty with regard to
customers. Tarnishes their image.

Something about selling someone a car with all of the physical hardware
required for something and then locking it out sometime after the sale using
software seriously bothers me. Who owns the car, really? Is it Tesla or is it
me?

Stupid move. They stand to gain almost no money from this.

I may be ignorant about Tesla's business practices if there's worse. I also
own a Model S not a 3.

~~~
sudhirj
It's unfair not to do it - there are customers who paid extra for the upgrade,
it's not fair to give it to everyone for free, but a trial period seems
reasonable.

~~~
CriticalCathed
The thing is it was not a trial period. There already exists trial periods in
Tesla vehicles. They're explicit and give you time remaining. You know exactly
what is happening.

Instead, what happened is Tesla couldn't provide the configuration of cars
that people wanted because it wasn't economical for them to do so. So instead
they sent them another model of the vehicle with different hardware. It was a
stop gap solution. It appears that many people were unaware either by their
own lack of attention, or because they were mislead, or because Tesla didn't
make it clear enough what was happening.

So:

1\. Tesla offered to sell a product.

2\. People bought the product.

3\. Tesla realized it was not economical to sell the product.

4\. Tesla decided not to manufacture the product that they offered.

5\. Tesla gave the customers a different product in order to retain the sale
rather than cancel the orders. (Even to the degree that the sales
documentation refers to the product as SR+ and not SR.)

6\. Months pass.

7\. Tesla develops software that will after-the-fact modify the product that
customers were provided.

Tesla is part and parcel of the problem here. This "it's not fair" rings
hollow to me.

~~~
sliken
Tesla could have made customers wait, cancel the product, and upsell them....
which would be quite unpopular.

Instead they told users, we can sell you a better car today, but then at some
point it will behave just like the car you ordered.

Seems less than idea, but seems like Tesla made the best of the situation.

The problem is they brought out two cars at $35k and $40k and tried to predict
how many people would take both options. Turns out way more people took the
nav, traffic, streaming audio, better range/battery etc. So much so that it
wasn't worth making a custom car for the few people that bought the $35k
model.

So instead of cancelling orders they decided to software limit the $35k car,
and people got what they ordered with a bonus till the software got updated.

------
Animats
Tesla promised a $35K car, and took orders for it. But they can't make one
that sells profitably at that price. They really, really don't want buyers
ordering the base model.

~~~
sliken
No car manufacturer does. It's much like going to a fast food place and
ordering just a hamburger. The profit on the burger is very low, but the
profit on french fries and soda is sky high. So the fast food places push the
meal bundles.

Because of the profit on options is sky high (often a few $$$ of materials can
cost $1000s), it's getting increasingly common that a cars options can
substantially increase the cost of a car.

Luxury cars have been feeding this cycle and it's actually refreshing that
Tesla has so few options. BMW drove me crazy with an incredible and quite
complicated system with numerous incompatibilities designed to upsell you.
Things like the tires/wheels being linked to the steering wheel upgrade, which
is linked to the performance seats, etc. What was maddening that features on
lower end cars (like power lift gate, bluetooth, and decent headlights) are
many $1,000s in a luxury vehicle. NHTSA recently blasted various luxury car
makers for lousy headlights unless you upgraded to the $$$ version. Amusingly
the top stock headlight they tested was from a Toyota Prius! Quite a few
luxury cars were rated poor for headlights.

Similarly to other car markers, the Tesla model 3 base model has very low
profit. But if you buy the higher models a large part of the price difference
is profit. So the $35k Tesla only made sense if most buyers actually got the
$40k model (or higher). So many picked the $40k model, that tesla decided to
not make the $35k model and just software restricted the $35k model.

------
RyanShook
No better way to alienate customers than make them pay for features they
already had access to.

~~~
Whatarethese
But they got features they didn't pay for in the first place?

~~~
reitzensteinm
In terms of UX, I'd argue shipping the cars software locked in the first place
would have been strictly superior to shipping SR+ and downgrading it after the
fact.

The rational part of your brain understands why, but I think some pretty
fundamental loss aversion emotions kick in when a product you own is
downgraded, even if you chose not to pay for the extra features.

Of course, that may be exactly what Tesla is banking on, considering you can
just get your credit card out to get it back. I wouldn't be surprised if
future SR models come with a one month trial even now the downgrade has been
developed.

Parent has a point, IMO, and your reply doesn't really address it.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
They needed some time to implement the software locking. So it was a choice
between delaying delivery by a few weeks vs delivering with extra features and
turning them off later.

------
prepend
I recently bought a car and seriously considered a Tesla, but ended up buying
another. At first my thinking was about the support costs and maintenance
(cheaper service vs absurdly expensive accident repairs), but what did it for
me was this kind of stuff. Shipping a car with heated seats but only enabling
them if they are paid for is very annoying. And not allowing me to write
software for my own car is annoying.

I’ve always disliked DLC and seeing it move into other areas turns me off.

Lots of people don’t mind this, but I think it’s unethical to ship hardware
that is enabled by software that is forbidden for the owner to modify.

~~~
aetherspawn
What other brand of car can you write software for?

~~~
prepend
Twenty years ago I was writing EEPROM stuff for my civic to increase hp.

I don’t know any car with an SDK, but most cars sold allow aftermarket
software changes.

~~~
aetherspawn
Right, but if you broke it then Honda wouldn’t reflash it for free. And they
don’t give you EEPROM flashing cables and SDK documentation.

So is there really a tangible difference? I’d be surprised if Honda provided
you with anything beyond what Tesla provides (ie nothing).

~~~
prepend
You kept the original eeprom and put it back in for service.

This is not possible in a Tesla because of the way they designed connectivity.

I’m not asking for an SDK and official support, I’m just asking for it to be
allowed. Tesla actively prevents this, Honda doesn’t.

------
zaroth
I’m blanking on the term d’art, but I see this similar to the common practice
of blocking out features in an MVP where you let users click on things that
aren’t implemented yet in order to measure which features you should actually
go and build next. It’s a neat way to quickly get real-world data on what
people will pay for and what features they want.

The alternative would have been waiting to ship these customers their new cars
until the software was ready. Shipping it early with the explicit notice that
eventually the software will arrive which will limit access properly is a win-
win for everyone. Customers get their new car sooner, they get free access to
a bunch of features they didn’t pay for, and the option to upgrade is always
there if they do want it in the future.

Clearly these owners are getting a software _upgrade_ , which is implementing
new software checks to provide the correct functionality as ordered based on
their SKU.

In my past company we also shipped features to customers without all the
software limits enforced in firmware in order to get the build out to the
field. I imagine it’s a fairly common practice, as we tend to code those
features last, as nothing depends on them, and you can always ship without
them when the sales guy is selling based on the price sheet, not whether the
software actually implements the check. As long as customers don’t start to
believe the check will never actually ship, the bug sat Unassigned.

~~~
throwaway2048
>Clearly these owners are getting a software upgrade, which is implementing
new software checks to provide the correct functionality as ordered based on
their SKU.

that is some pretty absurd spin

~~~
zaroth
Hardly; it precisely describes what is occurring. Calling it a _downgrade_
seems to me to be the absurd spin. It's clearly not a downgrade, as the
feature checks weren't even implemented in the previous versions.

I understand what the headline is trying to say, but it's a total misnomer to
call it a downgrade.

~~~
throwaway2048
Only in a very pedantic sense that nobody cares about except people that want
it to look better than it is.

~~~
zaroth
I think a fair headline would be “Tesla Finally Implements Software Limits for
Base Model 3 Package”. Or perhaps, “Free Ride for Base Model 3 Owners Comes to
an End”.

I think it’s interesting and newsworthy that Tesla shipped the cars initially
without the limits. I don’t think it’s fair to present this as a downgrade.

What they actually did was give some customers something extra for free for
several months.

------
userbinator
How long until someone finds a hack...?

This is one of the reasons I really don't like "software defined cars"... that
you don't really own.

~~~
SheinhardtWigCo
If you brick a car and you can't convince Tesla that you were doing legitimate
security research, they will refuse to reflash it. That's if they don't
effectively brick it for you by blocking your VIN from getting parts and
firmware updates when a future update detects unexpected features being used.
Hacking these cars is an expensive and risky endeavor compared to just
coughing up the money for the extra features.

~~~
p1esk
But this is hacker news, isn't it? What you said is equally true about the
iphone, yet people did hack it...

~~~
userbinator
There are also apparently farmers hacking the firmware on their equipment,
which costs many times more than the most expensive Tesla:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994)

No one who hacks expects the manufacturer to help or even agree.

~~~
oska
I'm sympathetic to farmers who hack their John Deere tractors which they only
use on private land. I'm much less sympathetic to people who hack the software
of cars they drive on public roads.

~~~
whenchamenia
All my 7 cars are hacked. Sorry you feel that way.

------
dhuramas
Lots of hate in the comments- but I feel this is a good thing. I think of it
as my free trial to JetBrains IDE expiring - yeah it sucks. But I got what I
paid for(or didn't pay for)- and it was good while it lasted.

Besides they had a clear communication about the matter- it's not as if the
customers had the rug pulled off their feet. They have been informed well in
advance.

------
bgorman
How can the extended range be controlled by a software feature? For me it is
seems deeply unethical to limit the how long a mechanical device can operate
via software. Imagine a printer that had a software limit of only printing 5
pages at a time.

~~~
kjksf
The customer got exactly what he paid for.

In your hypothetical, you had a choice between buying a printer with unlimited
concurrent printing and a cheaper printer that only prints 5 pages at a time.

You did your homework and decided to buy the cheaper one.

Where's the un-ethical part?

~~~
AlexandrB
The unethical part is where I follow trivial instructions online to make my
printer do unlimited, concurrent printing but the printer company successfully
lobbies the government to treat publishing these trivial instructions as a
felony to protect their business model. Stripping me of free speech rights and
a “right to repair”.

~~~
oska
You're demonstrating one of the (many) weaknesses of arguing from analogy.

You've completely switched your argument to what happened when instructions
were posted about removing software imposed limits on a printer, not what
happened (or might happen) in a similar situation with Tesla. Printers do not
carry human occupants on a public road system which is heavily regulated and
requires certification of vehicles for roadworthiness & safety, including
regulation of owner made vehicle modifications.

------
asjo
This is similar to Windows licensing
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison_chart)),
where "Windows 10 Home" allows you to use 128 GB of RAM, while the various
"Pro" versions allows up to 2 TB, and "Enterprise" up to 6 TB.

The limits used to be lower - I seem to remember laughing out loud at a Stack
Overflow podcast, where they talked about having to purchase a new Windows
license to be able to expand the RAM of a server.

~~~
cheerlessbog
It likely took some work in the OS to support the larger RAM... grow some data
structures, tune caches and heap managers, test on new hardware. Yes it's
price segmentation but it's not totally arbitrary.

~~~
asjo
Well, you bought a new license and they the RAM was used. No installation of
anything but the license. At least that's how I remember the podcast
explaining it.

------
segmondy
I have always coveted a Telsa and waiting for the right time, but this
behavior is the precise reason why I'm cancelling them out. I know they are
desperate for cash, but this is truly terrible.

~~~
MattRix
Are you sure you understand the situation? The buyers knew up front that this
was just a trial, there's nothing underhanded here.

~~~
segmondy
I do understand the situation, it's not about what the buyers know, but the
fact that the car actually has features disabled by software. Why in the world
will you reduce range with software? I can understand if different models have
different range because of different battery capacity. Make no mistake, this
will be hacked, it's only a matter of time.

Occasionally we see software about John Derre and how they use software to
limit what can be done to their tractors. We all agree and talk about how evil
that is. Tesla doing the same thing is pure evil.

------
yarg
I'm not sure how this will go down in America, but in New Zealand at least I
believe that this will breach the Consumer Guarantees Act.

Edit: there's a clause in the act that says once the buyer owns the product,
they own the product. I believe that this change would breach that clause. I
believe that the Model 3 has not yet shipped - so this isn't a retroactive
downgrade, and the act might not apply.

~~~
drusepth
How would Teslas get any updates in New Zealand if updates breach CGA?

~~~
netsharc
Presumably software updates that improve stuff/add features are allowed, but
not if they make things worse. E.g. VW is being sued in Germany because their
"removed dieselgate software" update makes fuel economy worse than advertised.
It might fix the emissions to as advertised, but the owners aren't getting
better emissions as promised, because the promise was a lie.

If that is the case for NZ Teslas, a cute hack would be to trick the car to
think it is in New Zealand. Calling the Ukrainian hackers...
([https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-
farme...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-
hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware))

~~~
yarg
Good luck doing that without breaking mapping.

------
telltruth
Tesla seems to be desperate for cash flow, _any_ cash flow. First they
shutdown stores and now they are trying to squeeze out existing customers.
Looks like Musk called meeting with top leaders and charged them to find any
way whatsoever to get extra cash.

~~~
ripdog
Read upthread. This change was always promised to the buyers of the cheap
model 3 on purchase, as the software to restrict these features was not
complete then. It is now, and is being applied.

------
gumby
This reminds me of IBM which would rent the same hardware and then charge you
for "performance upgrades" which were typically provided as jumpers.

~~~
colanderman
That the hardware was rented makes the practice feel less egregious to me. You
are after all essentially paying for a service when renting.

But paying someone to unlock physical functionality of a device which you own…
that feels like crossing the line toed by IBM's practice (and that of others
mentioned in comments such as Intel).

------
rbrbr
That’s all so ridiculous. I mean people buying those cars know what they are
buying in to. I would never support such practices.

I do understand if an engine is throttled to increase its life time. Apple
does it with the cpus in their computers. But just omitting a feature for the
sake of selling it additionally is a ridiculous business practice nobody
should support.

------
fencepost
WTF is Engadget doing these days with ads? Attempting to go to the site in
Firefox with uMatrix gets me an immediate redirect to
"[https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers"](https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers")
with a session ID attached.

------
gnicholas
If they can remove the feature via an OTA update, why do you have to go into a
service station to get the features back?

~~~
Urgo
Guessing its due to the features of the car being locked into some part of
memory that can not be updated over the air and bringing it in will allow them
to update it so future OTA updates will give the correct update.

Basically change the car's version from being a M3 SR to M3 SR+

------
projectileboy
Seems like a dumb move. This affects a (relatively) small enough number of
customers that had they just let it slide, the public at large would not have
noticed. This isn’t that bad of a news story in the grand scheme of things,
but at this point I don’t think Tesla can afford any bad press, at all.

------
dheera
How is range determined by software? Isn't that purely a function of how many
amp hours of battery you have?

~~~
rcw4256
It's artificially capped in software.

~~~
dheera
That's just wrong. If you own a physical resource, such as a lithium battery,
you should be able to use it to its full potential.

If they want to sell lower-range cars they should just load them with smaller
batteries, and have the upgrade be the battery pack, not the software.

Gas cars don't do that. Whatever gas you put in, you can use. These kind of
shenanigans only make people love gas cars more, which is honestly not in
Tesla's best interest if they want to increase adoption.

~~~
aetherspawn
One reason they may have done this is because there was a time when they were
looking at battery swapping. Standard batteries (with just software limiting)
between all M3s would make this logistically so much easier.

~~~
dheera
Logistically fine, but if it makes financial sense to even manufacture and
ship full sized batteries to everyone, you might as well let people use them.
Otherwise it's purely wasteful, which contradicts their first principles of
existence as a company to have unused and will-never-be-used lithium cells
being trucked around by thousands of cars the country.

Software upgrades should only provide better software, not unlock precious
resources that would otherwise be wasted.

Also, writing software to deliberately cripple hardware is counterproductive
to advancement of technology. It also highly incentivizes people to reverse
engineer your system, hack your system, unsubscribe themselves from updates,
and IMO they have every right to do so. It would be in your best interest to
NOT incentivize this type of behavior. If I buy 5 batteries from you, you have
no right to walk into my house, install a safe, and lock up 1 of them for a
ransom, which is exactly what they are doing. It's childish at best and
unethical at worst. If you did that, I will destroy the safe and recover the
5th battery. It's my property that I purchased and I have the right to use it.

~~~
aetherspawn
Right, but it’s not like they’re selling and voltage-limiting like a lead acid
battery or something like that ... the battery is full of software to measure
the discharge current, temperature of every cell, etc. There’s massive
engineering complexity in the battery monitoring system.

It’s no different to software providing both free and premium versions in the
same binary. What are you paying for? Not the number of bytes.. the R&D hours
behind it.

So for the battery, what are you actually paying for? Not the physical
battery, but the capital they had to put into designing the system - a system
they designed and determined was cheaper to produce at mass with a standard
battery layout and configuration (hence the same voltage range, fuses, battery
discharge profile etc)

Now if you start messing around with the battery layout then suddenly all your
hundreds of sensors, fuses, etc need the ability to achieve remapping and you
have to do independent testing, charge profiling etc on the new design..
possibly even design new inverters if you have to change the maximum voltage.
So their approach ends up being basic subtraction and scaling on the state of
charge. This can be implemented in literally an hour vs. many months and
supply chain headache involving hundreds of new PNs.

Disclaimer; I design power systems for a Tesla ‘rival’ kinda.

~~~
rcw4256
> It’s no different to software providing both free and premium versions in
> the same binary. What are you paying for? Not the number of bytes.. the R&D
> hours behind it.

I think the reason people tolerate this arrangement with software is that they
are not actually buying ownership of the IP that this R&D capitalizes; they're
buying a license to use that IP.

Here, they're purchasing ownership of an actual car. Tesla is actively denying
them full use of something that they own.

------
notaki
However you feel about it, the bigger point is that none of big auto could do
this even if they wanted to

------
m463
The question I have is: Were these features accidentally turned on, or were
they on "free trial"?

I drove a rental model s once, and it had the autopilot features turned on
like navigate on autopilot, but there was a warning "Trial period ends in 23
days" or something like that.

~~~
kjksf
Neither.

Tesla sold those cars before they finished the software that enforces the
limits.

From now on this will be in the car from the beginning.

------
brianobush
So you have seat heating elements, but software has disabled them? Nice. Feels
like a multi-core processor with half of the processors disabled.

------
lasky
happily driving my gas guzzling “on-prem, perpetually licensed source” model
of ownership instead of dealing with that bs.

------
xedarius
Queue the market for Tesla hack garages where all upgrades can be turned on
for £100.

------
skunkworker
The title feels like partially clickbait, customers who paid for the standard
range have been getting the extended range for free and soon this will be
software locked.

"Your Model 3 will soon receive new software that matches the Model 3 Standard
Range configuration you ordered. As we communicated in April, this includes a
limited range of 220 miles, and the removal of several software features. To
continue experiencing the extended range, faster acceleration and Autopilot
features of Model Standard Range Plus, schedule a service appointment through
your Tesla app."

~~~
pdxww
Regardless, this is a bad PR and they are losing potential customers. No one
wants their car to be trimmed down just because the manufactures chose so. No,
it doesn't matter what's written in the fine print.

------
m0zg
They should offer the steering column as an additional, beautifully machined
$999 option. The clientele will understand.

------
LifeLiverTransp
There will be a tesla pirat and tweaker scenen in 10 days.

