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Tesla Temporarily Boosts Battery Capacity For Hurricane Irma (sfgate.com)
Slashdot reader mikeebbbd noticed this in the AP's Florida hurricane coverage: Electric car maker Tesla says it has temporarily increased the battery capacity of some of its cars to help drivers escaping Hurricane Irma. The electric car maker said the battery boost was applied to Model S and X cars in the Southeast. Some drivers only buy 60 or 70 kilowatt hours of battery capacity, but a software change will give them access to 75 kilowatt hours of battery life until Saturday. Depending on the model, that could let drivers travel about 40 more miles before they would need to recharge their cars.
Tesla said it made the change after a customer asked the company for help evacuating. The company said it's possible it will make similar changes in response to similar events in the future.
Tesla said it made the change after a customer asked the company for help evacuating. The company said it's possible it will make similar changes in response to similar events in the future.
Or maybe Tesla could just stop artificially crippling the batteries?
I wonder if they are also doing this so the battery pack lasts longer. A larger pack has more miles worth of charge cycles, so if it's sold as a 60 but really is a 75 it'll be capable of the same total number of miles of use. I'd actually like that.
The proof is the fact that they did it.
It's actually quite common for manufacturers to sell the same product at different price-points with different performance limits engineered in. They may justify it by the extra cost of supporting customers who demand the higher performance-levels. Or they may just be mercenary market-manipulating dicks. The point is, it's a common practice.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
If anyone, you should know that there may well be a reason to "cripple" hardware despite its possible ability to function at higher spec. CPUs and graphics card anyone? What happens when an i7 CPU doesn't quite pass the QA tests? Switch off the cores that didn't pass and sell it as an i3. How many here have "unlocked" cores of cheap CPUs to turn it into a more powerful one? Do you think Intel does that because they enjoy making CPUs then sell them cheaply with some cores switched off for ... reasons? Or could it rather be that they switch off the cores because they fail inspection and can't be relied on, and it's still more interesting for Intel to sell it at a lower price than to throw it away?
I could imagine the same applies to other hardware.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Wait, so Tesla vehicles have the same batteries, and are just limited by software? Sounds like there's some opportunity there for jailbreaking them.
Hello,
With Lithium-Ion batteries, they last longer if you don't take them from 100% capacity to 0% capacity all the time. If instead you charge/discharge them from 80% to 40%, they last a lot longer.
I think it's likely that Tesla limits the batteries for lifetime purposes. And that this temporary software change is trading a little battery life, for, well, maybe saving the life of the Tesla car owner by getting him out of dodge?
-
Thank goodness none of the companies in the computer business do this.
You are welcome on my lawn.
On the other hand, if you have to flee an emergency that isn't quite so highly publicized, anyone with an EV will be on their own.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Obviously they can afford to ship those batteries at the lower price point
Why is that "obvious"? The people that pay a premium for extra capacity are subsidizing those who don't. That doesn't mean Tesla would make money on the batteries if no one paid the premium.
My wife has a Tesla with a 240 mile range instead of the 300 mile range. That was our choice. No one "cheated" us. Whether it is more cost effective for Tesla to make two different battery configurations, or to make one with a artificial limit, is their choice. Neither option is more "moral" than the other.
Depends, is it really artificial? In terms of engineering, there's can be a good reason for the capacity to be capped when using either slightly recycled, or lower grade cells, to illustrate:
75kw battery pack can withstand 500 cycles, but if you charge it only to 80% (past that you must either slow-charge, or have really fancy chemistry), you can turn that into 800 cycles - and the battery is effectively 60kwh.
Now in this case you can indeed go over the 80% cap, but it will eat up battery life more rapidly if it were always used like that, hence why it makes sense to do that only in extraordinary situations.
Of course if they make the batteries all the same AND don't provide lifetime battery warranties, ie this is just software block, the company should be dragged through the mud for this indeed, as giving access to full charge is exactly zero cost for them.
The point is, it's a common practice.
So is human trafficking
You sure?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'm carbon... Resist!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Whoosh!
Yes, thank goodness the CPU I'm using right now is not the same die as a higher performance part, but with some cores and cache disabled. Not because of yield, but because they need to produce a certain number of each model.
The proof is the fact that they did it.
Not really--suppose they are not turning enough of a profit on the cheaper model to justify turning out the line. Then the cheaper model lets them increase economies of scale and also make the car available to more people (driving down the production cost of the more expensive model and possibly its cost if the external market forces are right), while the more expensive model pays enough to justify having the line and gives you an economy of scale to knock down the price of the cheap model a bit. If you sold just the expensive model to everyone it might then need to be at a higher price point than the cheaper model, which would make it unavailable to people who would otherwise be able to buy the cheap one and reduce the number of consumers able to purchase the car.
Or suppose that they could sell the cheap one with a cheaper battery at the same price point, but by including the bigger battery they make it cheaper to produce due to economies of scale. The customer is still getting the cheaper car but with it being easier to upgrade than it otherwise would be, and the company is producing it more inexpensively. Because of the easy upgrade, the customer actually has a benefit as compared to if the company had decided to sell it with 100% control of a smaller battery.
I understand the urge to hate companies that introduce unnecessary structural monopolies into the marketplace and are unnecessarily hostile to the right to repair or the right to fully control your own property--but just because a decision sets off our radar about that doesn't mean the decision is necessarily harmful to consumers.
Real lawyers write in C++
PopeRatzo was being sarcastic.
Alternatively, let's have Tesla offer two or three different battery hardware configurations and increase the price for everybody! Hooray!
Beware of the Leopard.
They probably warranty the battery for a certain number of years.
Battery life is dependent on many things: number of cycles, how high it's charged up, how low it's drained, the temperature at charge and discharge, the rate of charge and discharge, probability of manufacturing defects, etc.
With Lithium-Ion batteries, limiting the charge and discharge greatly extends the battery life, so if Tesla allows the batteries to be charged more and discharged deeper, they are most likely increasing their warranty returns, which costs them money.
If a customer figures out how to unlock their own batteries, I think that's awesome. But I also think Tesla is well within their rights to limit or void the warranty.
You left out the tag.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I would be annoyed if I have to pay for the electricity to lug around a bunch of batteries that I can't use everywhere I drive. If the offer made it clear that I'd get a software-crippled battery rather than just a smaller battery, that would be OK (I've no idea if this is the case or not).
right to repair is fighting EULA's that ban 3rd parts from doing repairs.
You car is carrying battery weight it does not need and cannot use
The unused extra capacity increases the life of the battery. So it is not useless.
So it's a kind of Day-One DLC?
I have a question. Do some of the people buying the lower capacity battery actually receive a lower capacity battery that exactly meets what they are paying for? If that is true then I presume, for reasons of mass manufacture and inventory availability, some people paying for the lower capacity battery receive a higher capacity battery but they cannot access the entire capacity.
Better known as 318230.
You mean people actually controlling the devices they own and deciding for themselves how that device should be maintained? Why that's completely unknown territory for automobiles, computer software, and so many other things. Oh, the horror of freeing oneself from corporate control.
Digital Citizen
If Apple or Sony did something like this with the iPhone or PS4, the comment sections would filled with people screaming boycott.
But when Tesla did this, yay, what a good guy!
Yep, this is the rampant fanboism in /. This is basically no different from mindless left/right, R/D, creationist religious nut that /.ers like to look down upon.
How do you know they don't? How do you know that the only difference between a 64GB and 128GB iPhone isn't that they blow a fuse at the factory to restrict the memory when they sell the 64GB model, but it has the exact same storage hardware? And if they do this, do you care? You paid less for the 64GB phone than the 128GB phone.
Hey, Mister Break My Wallet fanboi, your nose must hurt like hell scraping on the ceiling so much.
BMW's drivers tend to be pretentious snobs who don't mind paying $200+ for a starter and couldn't turn a wrench if they had too.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
The proof is the fact that they did it.
Selling a product at a particular price doesn't prove that it's sustainable to do so.
They could even be taking a net loss on the car, and still be better off if by using the larger batteries they can sell them faster. It can be better for a company's financial situation to earn $60K today for a car that cost $65K to build than to earn $65K when you can sell it in 6 months when the smaller battery is in stock. And if you lose orders when customers are forced to wait longer for their cars, you could lose much more money by waiting and not selling at all than by selling at a loss.
Nobody said it was sustainable. They did it, and they're not filing for bankruptcy, therefore they could afford it. QED, motherfucker.
Nobody said it was sustainable. They did it, and they're not filing for bankruptcy, therefore they could afford it. QED, motherfucker.
But they didn't do it. They didn't ship 75KWh batteries at the same price point as the 60KWh hour batteries. They shipped 75KWh batteries downrated to 60KWh to preserve the premium 75KWh model -- if they didn't do that, then no one would pay extra for the larger battery.
Some paid less, in that scenario, but all dollars were equally worthless until they were spent. Both the buyer and the seller can think they're holding the upper hand. Likewise, they may walk away only to see their efforts rewarded with a hand full of sand. While it serves everyone right for living like insects feeding on a corpse, it serves us better to expect an entire different life awaiting those that manage to stay both alive and inspired while ripping through masses of decay.
Software limitations purely for the purpose of profit are evil. No if's, and's or butts.
The entire point of capitalism is to convince the manufacturer to provide the most product for the cheapest price.
Here we have a situation where the company can sell a better product for the same price but instead chooses to screw their customers. I understand the concept of variable pricing, the general idea is to convince each consumer to pay the most they are willing to pay for the same product.
But you are supposed to do this via overpriced addons, coupons, marketing and sales. Basically, you REWARD the customer, rather than punish them. That's how capitalism is supposed to work.
What Tesla is doing is Mercantlism. Using a government provided monopoly (you can't legally replace the limiting software) to charge more money.
This is disgusting and Tesla should not get any credit at all for temporarily being non-disgusting during a crisis. Especially when they return to the old system after the crisis is over.
I used to think Tesla was getting screwed by Texas and other states. Now I think they deserve it.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Samsung tried something similar with the Galaxy Note 7, but that caused a hurricane.
Table-ized A.I.
Many companies make a thing on a single assembly line because it's less expensive then running two or more lines, and then artificially limit its capabilities when a version of it is sold as a lower-end model.
That's absolutely fine provided that anyone who purchases their product has the legal right to enable the full functionality themselves assuming that they can figure out how to do that. This is what ultimately limits this sort of behaviour. Unfortunately, all the modern DRM laws have killed this balance by making it illegal in many countries to develop and/or share methods to turn on blocked functionality.
You're getting extra unnecessary weight to carry around, which will reduce your battery life.
Those who paid extra for the higher capacity are getting a less reliable product with an inferior lifespan.
If they wanted to offer an over specced but artificially limited battery in order to improve reliability then those paying extra for higher capacity should receive similar levels of reliability.
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I wouldn't want my car being accessed remotely like this. Same reasoning as when Samsung borked their update. God forbid Tesla bricks your car.
Don't kid yourself. Tesla is making a profit on every battery pack sold. They'd be out of business if they weren't.
Agreed. Tesla cars have just gone from desired items to never buy. I had profound respect for that company, and it's gone in a flash. I will not buy from a company that charges more for access to hardware I've already purchased, nor will I support the "Windows 10" mentality of the manufacturer being able to push out any changes they want to something I own. I had even considered buying some of Tesla's latest issue of bonds simply to support the company. I'm glad this came up now.
It's no wonder all the manufacturers and governments have hard ons for electric cars. It has nothing to do with the environment, they haven't cared about that past providing lip service any time in the last century. It's because of the level of control they afford.
Or maybe because there is a warranty on the battery, Tesla is the one who gets screwed with a less reliable product, and they price it accordingly.
Don't kid yourself. Tesla is making a profit on every battery pack sold. They'd be out of business if they weren't.
Business doesn't work that way. You have development costs, capital costs, and marginal costs. In aggregate, you need to be able to cover all these costs to have a viable business, but an individual sale only has to cover the marginal costs to be profitable. So you can make plenty of profitable sales, but still go bankrupt because you aren't covering your interest and overhead. To do that, you need to find a way to price differentiate, and convince enough of your customers to pay a premium.
Personally I'm less bothered because it makes the car love longer. If cannons cameras became more reliable and robust while those features were off and gave that up to turn them on, people would care less.
The battery will be a pack of small cells, not a single unit... Even if it's sealed inside a single case, internally it will consist of any number of cells.
Producing a pack which contains less cells would provide a lower capacity, while also providing less weight. Or even make the packs modular, so each 60kWh car contains 4x 15kWh battery packs while a 75kWh car contains 5.
Adding more batteries increases the range, but also the weight so you can't keep adding batteries to gain increased range. You'll eventually reach a point where the extra capacity is exceeded by the energy requirement to move the extra weight.
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Except Apple don't charge you extra to disable that function...
All ipods and iphones refuse to boot with a low battery. That's a safety/longevity feature.
If they charged you extra to circumvent this, then it would be profiteering as it would show they are doing it purely for profit and arent concerned about longevity.
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Because several people have dismantled the phones and looked at the internal components. The smaller capacity models contain lower capacity (or in some cases less) flash chips, so apple at least has intentionally manufactured them at a lower capacity using different (cheaper) components to do so.
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Batteries do reduce in capacity over time, it's an inherent weakness of the current technology which people know and accept.
But the fact is tesla sell you the SAME battery, either with or without an artificial restriction imposed on it in software. If indeed the capacity restriction increases the usable life of the battery then those who paid extra to not have this restriction imposed aren't going to be happy with their less reliable (and more expensive) product.
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http://jalopnik.com/teslas-hur...
"Earlier this week, Tesla remotely upgraded select Florida Tesla ownersâ(TM) cars to expand their mileage capacity in an effort to ease and assist with Hurricane Irma evacuation efforts. The move was praiseworthy and appropriate, but at the root of the gesture lies a terrifying prospect of our automotive future..."
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
No. This is what the modern business industry wants you to believe. It's all smoke and mirrors to justify millions of MBAs, CPAs, financial lawyers, analysts, etc. jobs. All of this is crap. If you make more money then you spend, you are profitable. I don't give a shit about CAPEX, OPEX, maginal this, derivitive that, it's all crap. If you make more than you spend you are profitable.
I thought Tesla was profitable. Looking at their financial statements has made me realize they're not. They are selling their products at a loss.
No. That is one way to do it. The other way would be to not sell your products at a loss so that they cover your costs.
I absolutely understand the feeling, the gut reaction, that somehow that just isn't fair.
> If Tesla can sell the same hardware at different price points and still make a profit then the higher price point is simply profiteering.
"And still make a profit", you say. Newsflash - Tesla is not making a profit. They lose money on every car.
So our gut reaction at first of "that doesn't seem right" tells us we should look into it more. Looking into it, we find the situation is more complex than our initial, visceral first impression accounted for.
That seems to be a common thing. Often, our gut, based on first impressions, tells us one thing, but upon further analysis we find out that our first idea would be counter-productive. For example, commenting on the Equifax story, several commentors immediately said "automatically levy huge fines against any company that bgets hacked, and throw the management in prison. That'll fix it." At a guy level that feels good. Actual historical information shows us that what that does is create a huge incentive to hide any breaches. To make things safer, high penalities for accidents don't work - defining and enforcing safety standards BEFORE something bad happens is what works. Penalize companies and people for being reckless, those who fail to follow preventative safety practices - whether or not they get lucky and there is no major damage.
In the case of price differentiation, such as here, what it boils down to is that a few people who want the luxury of a little bit extra choose to pay a lot for it, therefore subsidizing the lower cost for the standard model most people get. It reduces the cost paid by the average buyer.
This happens also on regular petrol cars. The 1400 cc 16 valves turbocharged petrol engine made by Fiat is available in three versions: 120 HP, 145 HP and 170 HP. You can reprogram the ECU from a 120 HP to a 175 HP version quite easily and It will works for some time. But transmission, brakes, air manifold and exhaust are different. This is the official FIat upgrade kit So you can for a moment overboost the petrol engine power, but without changing other components you'' get a coffin on four wheels. I suppose that the power capacity difference could be linked to some different parts for the car that coul do the work ok for some times but can't be span the same lifetime if used on higher power.
No, they just have to make a profit on all the battery packs sold, not on each individual one.
You car is carrying battery weight it does not need and cannot use
So? Was that not known about up front? What will the Americans do when they realise that Chinese drivers end up on average with lower weight in their cars? Plus you're missing the benefit a gentler charging cycle provides on battery life.
you will wake up at some point to realize how your being screwed there
By getting exactly the product that was advertised with the specs advertised and at the price advertised? Also having a battery last longer as a result of low cycling ranges, and the ability to upgrade a product without having to take it to the garage to modify?
Oh wows me. How horrible!
Your bar for getting screwed is quite interesting here. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
There was third-party downloadable firmware which would unlock some features which Canon artificially restricted to their more expensive cameras.
They did no such thing. The third party firmware merely incorporated features in software which weren't part of Canon's firmware.
In other news it's a dick move that Windows 10 Home can't act as a domain controller. Or that my GoPro doesn't produce raw video files.
Not providing the best possible firmware with all the features of your top device for your bottom device is not a "dick" move. It's the basic economics that makes your cheap device cheap. Sure you could provide an all singing all dancing firmware but then without performance differentiation the only result is that cheaper products will start being priced up with their more expensive competitors.
Wasn't there an article here on /. about how someone began programming their Tesla...and Tesla rolled the sw back, and locked him out ?
Grr... It's the same fucking battery! Therefore the same cost to them. They did it, they obviously could afford it. and now Musk cucks like you are somehow arguing that they couldn't afford something that they already fucking did. What's wrong with this picture, asshole?
...and yet, for any given model, you can look up the total weight of the car, battery capacity/range, charge time, etc etc. Essentially, even if they put a bunch of bricks where the battery would be, you still get all the information you need to make a buying decision.
What they don't tell you, and in fact what no manufacturer tells you is how good or crap their GPS maps are, or how good/crap their directions will be. Or how much you're going to hate trying to do on their entertainment system. If you want somewhere to get angry about, I'd start there, personally.
There are always pros and cons of this. Enterprise hardware does this as well. Licensing/purchases is where a lot of manufactures make or recoup their money. You have two options, buy hardware that is maxed out but leaves no room for growth, or buy hardware that is constrained by licensing/software. In the second case, you can buy an new license and get access to more hardware/performance without having to physically change anything (no rip and replacement, no labor, etc). That makes for a nice upgrade when you finally have the money or need to upgrade, but yes you have hardware that is 'idle' until you license it.
The other side is that you have full access to the hardware, but when you want more life you now have to buy hardware or take it in for labor to modify the hardware to have the new capacity you want. That requires cost on top of the new hardware, as well as your time when you won't have it. Certainly people may feel 'ripped off' that they bought hardware that they don't have full access to, but it's really dependent on your view point, and if one makes you grumpy, don't support that style/manufacturer.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I'm surprised at the people upset about Tesla charging to unlock more of the battery's potential. Differential pricing (or whatever you prefer to call it) is as old as commerce. Think about the good old days of coupon clipping: The supermarkets are betting that people with plenty of money won't bother (and will pay a higher price), where as people with more time and less money will clip coupons (and pay less). The goal is to maximize your overall profit by selling the same product at different price points.
This also helps reduce your costs. You may even lose money on the lower prices, but the increased volume keeps your production costs lower (on a per-unit basis).
Finally: Note that this is done in the software world all the time. How many products out there use license keys? License keys restrict the functionality of the software. Theoretically, every customer could have full access to all functions, but the software seller blocks functionality for people who pay less. People who pay more, get more functionality. The software remains the same, regardless.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
This gives 'range anxiety' a complete new flavour and intensity.
I really hope there is an Easter egg in the Tesla software that does a "I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that", and then locks the doors menacingly...
I'd be pissed if I found out that Tesla (or any other manufacturer) had been holding back stuff from me the owner that MY (i.e. NOT their) car can otherwise already do,
but I'd be seriously pissed enough to go to court if they ever remotely turned it off again without my express permission.
Its all hypothetical though because I'd never buy a Tesla for this and many other reasons like it.
Tesla's ability to remotely adjust battery capacity (and other car parameters) scares me. Even though Tesla is a force for goodness and non-evilness in today's world, what happens when the company is confronted with a government request to boost capacity to zero for undesirable people? Or when the company finds that artificially decreasing capacity over time leads to greater corporate profits? Or when someone cracks the security code and starts blackmailing car owners.
While I'd love to buy an electric car, I'd never buy a Tesla - I think they're overpriced and feel vaguely douchebaggy (I'm more of a Chevy Volt / Nissan Leaf kinda guy).
Nevertheless, I'm puzzled by the hate on for Tesla in this thread. It's a free market. If you don't like Tesla's sales / marketing tactics don't buy one. No one is forcing you to buy a Tesla.
Another good reason to never buy a Tesla.
I know this is common practice for a lot of companies, but it's still a horrible practice and I avoid supporting it whenever possible.
You've just officially declared that Tesla controls how you use your own car, when you can charger it, and for how long. But people are trying say that this is someone a GOOD THING, that Tesla was 'kind enough' to allow the 'peasants' to charger their car to their specs. Not that I'm ignore that the ONLY people that buy Tesla are morons with too much money anyway. But the very fact that people are just happy about this revelation shows how stupid a lot of them are.
Also: you think gasoline shortages are bad... wait until morons start BLOWING THE GRID trying to fast charger their electric cars every time there's a hurricane. So yeah, go post that capacity Tesla. Do your best to show people the real problems with your technology.
It seems somewhat immoral to me given the fact that the whole basis of tesla is to be environmentally friendly, and that stuffing hundreds of pounds of extra lithium in an electric car to be driven around indefinitely and not used is quite absurd and wasteful. (I understand the extra batteries could still be cycled in and out of the charging mix to lengthen the packs overall life, but is there any information this is true? It would seem not as then anyone one with a bigger battery pack is actually paying for a lesser life pack.)
The problem with that theory is they will unlock the extra capacity if you pay them.
First sale doctrine means you can do what you wish with something you purchase.
It may well do that but the problem is very few people have the time or money to fight the small army of lawyers that a large corporation will fling at you to make you stop doing it because they can probably make some sort of dodgy argument under the DMCA. If they can do that then it won't matter whether it was wrong because the price of justice will be more than you can afford.
and my laptop is still 0% plug in not charging! Unlike those Tesla products, I will never have to think about the performance limits when I unplug the power!
note to self: don't commit any crimes while driving a tesla.