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Tesla Issues Software Update To Extend Some Cars' Batteries Due To Hurricane Florence (electrek.co)
Tesla is temporarily enabling free Supercharging and extending the range of some cars' batteries for those in Hurricane Florence's path. "Tesla used to offer the option to buy a Model S or Model X with a 75 kWh battery pack software-locked at a capacity of 60 kWh," reports Electrek. "The option would result in a less expensive vehicle with a shorter range and the option to pay to remotely enable the longer range at a later stage."
Some owners on the Carolina Coast report that they've received a notification explaining the temporary new benefits: "We are temporarily enabling your car to access additional battery capacity, as well as free Supercharging, in preparation for Hurricane Florence. We hope this gives you the peace of mind to get to a safe location, and will notify you before returning your car to its original configuration in mid-October. Badging on your display may adjust during this period. Safe travels." From the report: This is a very cool move from Tesla. When they did it last year, it was misrepresented by many who focused on the software-limited battery packs -- saying that it means Tesla was screwing people over by limiting the battery capacity. The option was more about offering a less expensive battery pack without having to produce a different size pack, which helps streamline production. It gave buyers a less expensive option and they could always unlock the capacity later for a price. For those who decided to not unlock it, it now gives an opportunity for Tesla to let them have more range at a critical time by using Tesla's over-the-air software update capability.
Some owners on the Carolina Coast report that they've received a notification explaining the temporary new benefits: "We are temporarily enabling your car to access additional battery capacity, as well as free Supercharging, in preparation for Hurricane Florence. We hope this gives you the peace of mind to get to a safe location, and will notify you before returning your car to its original configuration in mid-October. Badging on your display may adjust during this period. Safe travels." From the report: This is a very cool move from Tesla. When they did it last year, it was misrepresented by many who focused on the software-limited battery packs -- saying that it means Tesla was screwing people over by limiting the battery capacity. The option was more about offering a less expensive battery pack without having to produce a different size pack, which helps streamline production. It gave buyers a less expensive option and they could always unlock the capacity later for a price. For those who decided to not unlock it, it now gives an opportunity for Tesla to let them have more range at a critical time by using Tesla's over-the-air software update capability.
Owners should have complete control of their software/hardware even if it is a car. The fact that they can change it any way, the fact that they can restrict your ability to change configurable settings with your device/thingy/car/anything is unacceptable. Sure put a warning on it that you may be changing things that affect the longevity of your thing. But its your decision and anyone having control of anything on someone elses thing that wasn't explicitly allowed by the owner is operating malware. Teslas come preloaded with malware that allows this.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
So we're not still mad at Tesla for software-limiting a sunk cost 'feature'? Seems odd. We should be. If they've delivered the car, you should have full access to what you paid for. If they don't want you to have bigger batteries, they shouldn't spend the money to give them to you. That's fairly ridiculous. You're suggesting that because it's "more convenient" and "lowers cost" for the manufacturing process for Tesla, that's sufficient, and in fact they should NOT pass on that savings to the consumers in the form of a lower price and a higher range, but instead, arbitrarily software gate-keep that functionality until you pay them more money for the thing they already sunk the cost in producing and delivering to you?
Tesla has even less ground to stand on here than software companies do. In their case, at least, the product is digital and the changes to add optional functionality also digital. This is an actual physical device delivered to you and you're told you cannot make full use of it because you didn't pay enough. You still get the whole football, but don't kick it on the left side.
What?
Say what you will about the recent public relations gaffes by their fearless leader; Tesla, and Musk, are typically at the forefront of exploiting the 24 hour news cycle to their benefit.
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What a strange age we live in...
Other than providing a less expensive SKU, one question I've seen is how they can afford to put a 75kWh battery in the car while only charging for 60kWh. There are a few reasons:
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
they made more 75kWh batteries than 60kWh ones and rather than sit on them put them in cheaper vehicles.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Elon is going to jail for securities fraud, RMS stinks and picks his nose, Satoshi is drowning himself due to bitcoin crashes, and hobos are shitting in the streets of nerd Valhalla
Time for a swirly, nerds
Every engine manufacturer in the world does this. They'll have an 'iron set' which is a fixed engine block, turbo, injector, etc combination and the difference between 300 and 400 HP will be a software upgrade.
Fully discharging a rechargeable battery can reduce its life, at least with some battery technologies. If it's the same way with lithium, then such a discharge limit should extend the battery life, thus less chance of warranty claims.
Also means someone can suddenly decrease your battery power to zero. Are updates only possible when the car is off?
Exact same content.
Tesla is among many options for transportation. Buy another vehicle if don't like their software terms. Consumers should have ability to put their own software on hardware they buy. Warranties can be voided but options should exist. Pricing should separate much like the scams telcos did with long term service contracts locking devices.
I'm building affordable homes using Tesla's business model. We'll build 5 bedroom homes and sell them for full price, but on some of these homes we'll wall off a couple bedrooms so we can sell them as two bedroom affordable housing.
You are talking about whatever BS you did at Cat and are extrapolating it to every engine. The term "iron set" is something you and Cat pulled out of your ass. No one uses that- not even in slang. 0 google results. Not only that but you apparently haven't ever looked at a car engine. Most have exactly ONE option and on vehicles where there's a base and a performance model, it won't be the same engine- just like the other AC told you.
I know you love to argue, so go ahead and list us a car where you can swap it from the normal base model into the performance model with nothing more than an ECU flash. I don't care about your bulldozers and semi-trucks. We were talking about cars and you said "Every engine manufacturer" so you should be able to call me out. I don't think you can do it cause you're a habitual bullshitter.
This reminds me of years ago when Intel sold some processors that were deliberately crippled (not stuff disabled due to defects) but you could pay extra for an unlock code to enable extra L3 cache, Hyper Threading, processor speed or all of the above. Naturally it didn't go well with consumers and it was almost as quickly discontinued, mostly because it cost more for the processor + unlock code than it would for something that was substantially better like an i3 or even an i5.
File this under No shit Sherlock Bill
I can't be the only one to wonder what in the hell drugs are people smoking to allow a manufacturer to do this? What else can they do...
Are they able to kill the car too for non payment?
Weird world we live in...
Nope, if I want a Tesla, then I'll buy a damned Tesla and throw their shit computer system away. I've already done this to 6 vehicles, and I'm about to do it to a Subaru. I don't play that locked in DRM shit, and I don't play that conservative "get the fuck out" game either you're trying to push. Fuck you.
"The option would result in a less expensive vehicle with a shorter range and the option to pay to remotely enable the longer range at a later stage."
Can you imagine if a real automotive manufacturer pulled this shit? Imagine if Ford, for example, offered to sell you an F150 with a 32 gallon gas tank, but had built-in software in the Engine Control Computer Module that would cut off the fuel pump and shut down the ignition system whenever it detects only 6 gallons of fuel, or less in the tank, in the hopes that you'll get good and sick and tired of the reduced range, call them up, and pay them some more money so they will remotely change the software so that you're able to drive until the fuel is literally completely exhausted?
Meanwhile, the whole time you're driving this thing around, you're carrying around a bunch of dead-weight, (which sounds, in the case of the "Tesla" car, something like 20% of the battery's not-insubstantial-weight,) which you can't access without coughing up extra money. In the meantime, the extra weight means your car uses more energy per unit distance traveled, extra wear and tear on your "car's" bearings, wheels, brakes,... basically the entire suspension, propulsion and braking systems, making it harder for you to stop, (increasing the odds of a front-end collision, by the way,) just to fuck you for a little more money.
What a great way to screw and nickel-and-dime your customers. Remind me never to buy one of their piece of shit cars. They're basically overpriced toys with Bonus, Premium 'DLC'.
Fuck 125% of that shit.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
"Tesla used to offer the option to buy a Model S or Model X with a 75 kWh battery pack software-locked at a capacity of 60 kWh,"
The option was more about offering a less expensive battery pack without having to produce a different size pack, which helps streamline production.
Can somebody explain how a 75 kWh battery pack in the 60 kWh version is cheaper than the 75 kWh battery pack in the 75 kWh version? If they are both the same 75 version... how is one 'cheaper' than the other?
Something that you can simply put into the trunk (or frunk if you will), or something that you can pass to driver in need who ran out of electricity. Does something like that exist? If no, why not?
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
IIUC, repeatedly charging the battery completely reduces overall battery life. By keeping charge below the maximum battery life is extended and the battery warranty and replacement costs for Tesla are reduced. This isn't necessarily just an arbitrary limit.
...is not Tesla increasing/decreasing capacity, it's Tesla selling a 75 kWh car over price when their own economics clearly demonstrates that they could produce and sell it for the same price as a 60 kWh car.
It's not only screwing over customers, it's screwing over everybody -- environment, planet, resources, just about everything.
that's what i really hate about this, you already have the hardware, but it is restricted through software..
Warning: enabling this setting will allow your battery to drain past what is safe for extended lifetime of the vehicle,
Read again the summary.
The batteries are actually 75kWh batteries.
But when buying the car it's possible to ask them to be artificially limited to 60kWh and get a rebate.
Draining them to 75kWh is in no way unsafe to the batteries themselves, they were designed for that.
It's just Tesla offering to temporarily disable this agreed limitation, for free.
Whereas under normal circumstance, the user is free to ask it removed, but needs to pay (conceptually: needs to return the rebate).
It's a way to pay less now, and then get more further down the line by paying the extra at a later time.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Whether its using the full 75kwh or software throttled to 60kwh, its still the same battery and Tesla's manufacturing cost is exactly the same. If they can sell the car for $xxxx with the battery artificially limited to 60k then they can sell it for the same price without the limit.
It's a bit more complicated than that :
- market segmentation is a thing. read-up on that.
The demand/offer balance you've been hearing in school is a gross over-simplification. Items aren't simply sold at the price the market can bear.
As a company, you don't just want to sell at the perfect price point. As a company, you actually want to cover as many diverse price-points at possible. Because otherwiese you'd be still missing all the money that the "poorer" customer would be okay to throw at your product, and customer who'd be willing to pay you even more will only pay a lower price.
Thus you segment your market. You invent alternative "Deluxe" and "bagrain" offers targetting the lower end and higher end segment. And you try to make these product distinctive.
Tesla is doing that by, at one (higher) end offering bigger battery (batteries which are actually 100kWh under the hood) that they sell fur much more, and tons of high-margin options (there no way that the camera for the autopilot cost a total of 5000$).
At the other end, they also need to sell cheaper car for those who are only willing to pay less. The simplest way to do it, is to offer to limit the battery in exchange of a rebate - I works not so bad, because the potential buyer won't be feeling to be missing out by not going for the more expensive option : they can still pay at a later point to get the full battery ( <- this makes the people not wanting the expensive model even less reluctant to settle with the cheap option)
On the other hand, compared with Microsoft who is selling 20 different variations of Windows - which are all slight different configuration parameters (actually yes, just register the same DVD with a different product key and you get a different set of software based on what tier of Windows is that key for) - each sold at a different price, Tesla is pretty much tame.
- profits
Tesla isn't a government run plan to bring you the cheapest possible EV.
Tesla is acompany, and they are allowed to make money.
Even more so, if you squint a bit, you'll notice (given the invested money) that the current business of Tesla is *building manufacturing capabilities for EV*.
They are basically in the business of building factories but in order to offset the costs of the factory, they'll sell you an expensive lithium-battery, and for that price, they'll bolt a complimentary (relatively cheap) car body on that battery.
In the current phase Tesla needs as much money as possible to throw on their factory building (that's why some are accusing them of being unable to make money).
They'll do every single possible trick for that :
- they'll segement the model S market as much as possible to be able to sell even more units
- they'll currently only sell the high-end variations of Model 3, because they are a higher-margin, and only sell the cheapest variations later.
Thus make even more profits (on the cars) and get a little bit more on the precious financial ressource they need to finish building their manufacturing capability.
Once again we see money-grubbing Jews {...}
For your information, Elon Musk happens to be non-religious.
in action, always trying to squeeze the customer for more money.
a.k.a. pretty much standard variety capitalism.
If you're not happy with that, vote with your wallet, don't buy a Tesla.
Go see instead what Renault is collaborating in Portugal for a more state sponsored (more socialist / less capitalist) approach to EV. Go buy a Zoé instead.
(But beware, these only come with up to 44kWh battery with around 200-somethingish range (a.k.a. "400km NEDC"). On the other hand you don't need to buy the battery, you can also rent)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I'd imagine fewer warranty issues with a throttled battery
actually, nope. with the currently available numbers it seems that the battery management system of Tesla is doing a wonderful work.
even when used at 100% they age very well.
It's just that Tesla is accepting to sell at a lower margin if it can make them sell more car (more profits at the end, and they need the money badly to invest into building their manufacturing capability).
And put the software limit as a way to keep the higher-margin car more desirable.
And making it a software limit, so that users wanting to pay less are less reluctant to pick the cheaper variant, because they know they can reverse at later point of time by paying (conceptually, returning back the rebate they have)
Basically :
Tesla : here's this car, it cost XXX ...but we can make you a deal. You pay for half a car now (as long as you promise to use it only as a half car), and you pay the other half later (when you feel like using it fully)
User: Hum, it's expensive. Can you sell me only half a car for less ?
Tesla : Well, we can't make only half a car...
User: bummer!
Tesla :
(except that, given the money involve, it's actually a battery you're buying from Tesla, with a cheap complimentary car body bolted-in on the top)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I do still see a benefit in artificially limiting the available battery capacity. As rechargeable batteries age, they are unable to hold as much of a charge. So selling a 75 kWh battery pack artificially locked to 60 kWh should allow the car to retain the ability to recharge to 60 kWh capacity for longer than if it was a 60 kWh pack, right? Unless I misunderstand something about batteries, which is entirely possible.
In a big over simplification: yes.
Except that :
- it happens that the BMS (battery management system) of Tesla is doing a marvelous job beyond any expectations, current in the wild data seem to show that batteries haven't aged as dramatically as some have expected. (The oldest would be at 70kWh by now, still more than the 60kWh capacity)
- charging less is also a life extending feature on batteries (a battery locked to 60kWh will probably have only degraded to say 72-73kWh).
to the point that the "lock" is a user-accessible setting. Any user can decide to only use 50kWh of their battery if they want - only the max ceiling is artificially limited for some.
Metaphorically:
every car comes with a slider going 0 to 10 deciding how much deep you'll discharge a battery (for battery longevity purpose).
If you let Tesla screw a bolt that blocks the slider going higher than 7, they'll give you a rebate.
If you want to unscrew the bolt, you return the rebate.
(If you only want to use half of the battery, you're allowed to pay only half for now. Pay the other half to use the rest).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
That sounds like a useful feature. Can the owner of a 75kWh pack set it to 60 kWh ?
Yes. Any Tesla cars allows you to choose not to do 100% deep discharge, but only shallower cycles.
This is supposed to help even more on battery longevity.
Metaphorically, every single cars comes with a slider going 0 to 10 that sets how deep the cycle go.
Tesla can give you a rebate if you let them screw in a blot that blocks this slider going above 7.
You can metaphorically pay the rebate back if you want to be able to use all the slider range up to 10 if you end up wanting it after all.
Figuratively you can pay for only half a battery if you want to only use half a battery.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
When you look at it :
- you want to use only half a battery, and you paid half a battery.
- because there's no such thing as half a battery for now, Tesla gives you actually a full battery, but you both agree that you will only use half of it and tesla will only bill you for half of it.
So basically, the battery is co-own, you own (and have paid) for your half of the battery, the half you use, Tesla owns the other half which you didn't pay for.
You can buy back the other half at a later point (great agument for those customer who were reluctant to only have a real half-battery).
During huricanes, Tesla happily lend you their half for free.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Intel underclocks and locks cores because if they didn't do the practice called binning, they'd have to throw out those chips. Binned products cannot be run at full spec because of manufacturing defects. If you override that, you are taking the huge gamble that your processor will fail in odd ways.
In theory yes.
In practice : not quite.
Due to how law of offer and demand work in market segmentation, they might end up binning a little bit more thing in the lower bins, if it helps them sell more SKU at more profit. (Rather than selling all SKU at their "true capability" at a lower price)
Mostly due to the high-end SKU being targetted at :
- extreme enthusiasts (people with more money than brain and/or who'll throw any money required to get the fastest thing possible)
- big corporate customers building HPC centers (entity with enormous budget, who won't shun throwing a bit more money to buy the best hardware they can - specially given that this price isn't that much impressive when compared to the support contracts, operating costs, etc.)
So lowering the price of the high-end SKU might make Intel lose on the extra money they could make of that market, which is where mostly this SKU are sold.
From that point, they could :
- trade out the unsold extra high-end SKU on special market (mostly education : such as universities building HPC centers. You know, you need to hook them while they are still young^H doing their PhD, so you give them their first shot free^H give them their first HPC cheap.) (Then they'll insist to having the same toys once they graduate and start working in the corporate world)
- put a bit of the extra unsold extra high-end SKUs in the lower bin right underneath. They'll still make a magrin on them, just a lower than the high-end high -margin one.
i.e.: keep artificial scarcity to rake up artificially keep the price, if the end result is that they'll make more money this way, rather than lowering the price to sell more units.
Thus, unlocked and overclocking is also an extra gamble : maybe, you processor was a "down-binned" one and you can overclock it beyond madness.
Back in the Celeron era, it was popular to buy a bunch of CPUs, to find the overclocking unicorn hidden in the middle and return the remaining to get your money.
That is different from Tesla because they don't bin their battery packs, in fact you can pay the more money later and unlock the higher capacity.
Same with the mad overclockable Intel CPUs, except Intel doesn't ask you any money for that.
It would be like buying a three-cushion sofa recliner, but you can only use it as a non-reclining love seat until you pay either the reclining fee or the third-cushion-unlock fee.
...in a context where the furniture manufacturing plant is unable to make sofas without the recliner part for technical reasons (would be to expensive to have it installed optionnally on demand, rather than on every product).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
>We hope this gives you the peace of mind to get to a safe location
Instead of freaking you out that Elon Musk can screw with your battery remotely.
Owners should have complete control of their software/hardware even if it is a car.
Not unless they paid for the privilege. They agreed to the deal when they bought the car. If they didn't like that deal they can buy something else. And there is nothing preventing a technically competent person from taking control of the hardware and software if they decide to do so. This would obviously void any warranty support not required by law or contract from Tesla but they are free to make that choice.
The fact that they can change it any way, the fact that they can restrict your ability to change configurable settings with your device/thingy/car/anything is unacceptable.
Unacceptable to you maybe but obviously not to the people that bought these cars. I understand your objections and I support free software too but part of freedom is having the right to make bad choices too. There is no bright line distinction between having the ability to enable/disable features remotely versus doing so by flashing firmware without a network connection by a dealer during service. It's the same action at the end of the day and the car maker isn't allowed by law to change things you didn't explicitly agree to in a contract. You didn't decide what the engine mappings were for the car you are driving now are and that's no different. You can change them yourself if you want to but the maker of your car is under no obligation to support that decision or the consequences of it. Tesla sold a vehicle with a particular feature set. You can change it if you want but Tesla is only going to support the vehicle under the terms they sold it. The buyer of the Tesla agreed to these terms at time of purchase.
But its your decision and anyone having control of anything on someone elses thing that wasn't explicitly allowed by the owner is operating malware.
It was explicitly allowed by the owner when they bought the car. You can be 100% certain that they signed a document agreeing to those terms.
No it's like if you buy a house with a 3 rooms but when you move in you notice there are actually 4 rooms but one of them is locked and you don't have the key. When you inquire about this fourth room from the seller he says that he can open it for you a price of course.Seems kinda shady doesn't it?
No because there is no secret room like in your example. The owners of the cars signed a contract explicitly agreeing to the deal and the terms when they bought the title to the car. They were under no duress to agree to the deal so both parties were fine with it. So no it isn't shady at all.
The problem with Tesla is that obviously the price for the 75kWh battery is much higher than it needs to be if you can sell the higher battery for less money and still make a profit.
And what exactly is wrong with making a profit? If the buyer is willing to pay the extra amount then that is fine. Charge what the market will bear, same as literally every other company on the planet. If Tesla was asking too much then they would get more people refusing sales which is how it is supposed to work.
The correct solution for this would be to lower the price for the 75 kWh battery so that you can sell it at the actual manufacturing price but not at the fake made up price.
Your argument is based on the false notion that there is a causal relationship between costs and prices. The price ANY product is sold to you is a completely arbitrary decision made by the party selling the product. Generally it's a number larger than the cost but there is nothing that forces this to be the case for any given transaction. The seller can ask any price they want and if the buyer agrees to it then by definition it is a fair price as long as there is no coercion in the process - and nobody is buying a Tesla with a figurative gun to their head.
I attended a public talk by a representative of General Electric at a university. Such talks are often in connection with recruitment of graduates to work at that company.
The speaker explained warranty contracts with the airlines for jet engines that he called "power-by-the-hour." The purchase of an engine is hence not just "for an engine" but rather for a certain amount of useful life out of the engine under specified operating conditions.
The speaker further explained the concept of a "power rating" of a jet engine, stating that "the pilot doesn't get to do just anything with the throttle levers." It was explained that a key wear and maintenance item in an engine is the first row of turbine blades exposed to the most heat, and the maximum power used on takeoff exposes them to heat that expands them to wear against their casing. A specified "rating" instructs the pilot to advance the throttles to no more than an upper level of a temperature gauge or RPM reading, essentially giving the amount of thrust intended to operate the particular aircraft. The same engine on a heavier version of the aircraft may be assigned a higher rating that puts more stress on the engine, but the airline pays more money to operate the engine in that service.
I interpret this to mean that in an emergency, a pilot may "firewall" the throttles to exceed the rating and void the warranty or perhaps incur contractual penalty payments to the airline, but when life and property is in danger, you don't worry about the extra expense.
It may seem like it complicates operation of an airplane that the crew needs to observe an "engine rating" and not operate the engines past the redline for the contracted service condition -- the pilot is supposed to worry about terms of a financial contract with the airline when flying the airplane? But that is the "culture" of aviation -- the pilot is trained to fly the airplane according to the handbook and manufacturers instructions but there are no governors or restrictors or limiters -- the pilot can exceed those limits if emergency conditions warrant -- like Kirk ordering Scotty to go faster when the Klingons are chasing them.
That could be the situation with Tesla, only Tesla and not the driver is enabling operation past the limit. On the other hand, it could be like the jumper on the 1970's era mainframe computer, where you paid serious money for a technician to unplug the jumper and give you a higher clock rate.
Without some enormous improvements in technology -- range and charging time -- a country full of electric cars is going to be a big problem when a significant disaster strikes.
A country full of gasoline powered cars is a big problem with significant disaster strikes. The only difference is the exact details of the problems.
Anyway I can charge any electric car with a generator OR with grid power. Good luck refueling a gasoline powered car with grid electricity if gasoline isn't available. If anything EVs are actually more resilient in this regard with a tiny amount of advanced planning. Generators can be powered with gasoline, diesel, natural gas, propane, etc. Plus if the power goes out I can (in principle) actually use my EV to power my house or equipment for a substantial period of time. Gasoline powered vehicles are generally less helpful in this regard.
One thing I'm baffled by is why EV manufacturers aren't pushing the capability of using the huge traction battery in EVs as a means to power homes in the event of a power outage. I get there are some technical and legal challenges but these are comparatively minor and easily overcome. My Chevy Bolt EV has a 60kWh batter which could power my house for several days in a power outage if I had a means to do connect it. I would think this would be a HUGE marketing advantage over gasoline powered cars. I'm mildly surprised Tesla hasn't worked this angle yet.
Given that this is a story about the hurricane and the need to evacuate, it is a good time to bring up something I've pondered.
For those people saying the future is self-driving ride shares such as Uber/Lyft, etc. How would those get allocated when evacuating an area due to a hurricane.
That would give a whole new meaning to "surge pricing".
It's like on-disc DLC for cars.
The Golden Rule of marketing is to price a good or a service at what each individual customers is willing to pay, and yes, the "options racket" is a way of charging customers different amounts for nearly the same thing.
The airlines have gone into this in a big way, not only with the system for offering cheaper tickets for advanced purchase, inconvenient times, or having to change in Atlanta, but also the upgrade fees for checked bags, extra legroom, or being the first person to exit the plane in case it catches fire after landing.
Oracle is moving towards segmenting the market for the Java JDK/JRE, where it remains free if you are on the treadmill to use only the latest version with security updates (and no more 32-bit X86 either), otherwise you pay. And there are no posted prices as you are supposed to call Oracle to be asked, "How much are you willing to spend?"
You could say that the 15K for the basket of options is "pure profit", but how do you know that the 30K for the baseline car is offering the car "at cost"? Running a car company, you basically are paying salaries, hourly wages, fringes and money to suppliers of parts, your factory and insurance utilities, and then you have money coming in from the sale of cars along with income streams from your captive leasing and financing subsidiary for customers not paying in cash up front. If the money coming in exceeds the money going out, you are "cash flow positive" and you are running "a going concern."
But what if the stamping presses need to be changed because after a couple years your car "is stale" to your customers and you need to "freshen it" by changing a few curves in the car's outline? What if government emission regulations will require major engineering changes to your powertrain by 2025? How are you going to pay for that -- take out loans that require interest payments? Sell more stock to investors expecting either cash dividend payments or a level of paper "returns"?
So you don't really know what it "costs" to build the base car let alone the "options." If no customer bought the 15K options package that costs you little to add on, is your company going to "go under" in a few years for the reasons given above? So maybe the 30K base car is "sold at a loss" to the cheapskates who forgo the "extras", but it "segments your market" and maximizes revenue from your line of cars?
This is the dilemma that Tesla is in especially because they or no one else really knows what it costs to make their cars, especially when they are incurring heavy "cap-ex" spending to grow their production of cars to meet burgeoning demand. The cash coming in from all of those Model 3's rolling of their line, however, will have to pay off the large amount they owe suppliers along with some big loan payments coming due, and if they don't synchronize the march of money in the door with money going out the door, poof!, Chapter 11 bankruptcy and that 40-50 billion dollars in share holdings at around $300/share last time I checked vanishes.
But no one really knows what it "costs" to make a Tesla -- it is all accounting formulas, that is, until they stiff someone they owe a large payment and the whole thing collapses, or they squeak through and they dominate the world automotive market.
It's not about what you do.
It's about what you CAN do.
How long before the FBI are insisting that you silently include a way for them to do the same and bring any Tesla they want to a halt or track it's location? They're doing it for everything from ISPs to encryption, you think they never would want to stop a car? Or that they wouldn't insist you do it under a serious NDA?
I have a 2016 model Ford. I know that the car can't talk home because it just doesn't have that capability. Without the capability, it can't be made to do anything, by anyone. Nobody can remotely apply its brakes or disable its engine. It just doesn't have that level of technology.
Hell, there's an option. I could buy a 3G dongle and connect it to the net and that might well let it talk home and thus be able to do those things. But why would I? And why would I have that dongle all ALL THE TIME?
Like with government controls, ID cards, etc. etc. it's not what you ARE doing, it's what you COULD do if you so desired, and hence what - say - a dictator, rogue intern or enemy state could do if they wanted. Your girlfriend works for the FBI or Tesla? Better hope they don't allow her to see the map data that rats you out, or cut your braking power remotely.
If you don't have the CAPABILITY to do things like that, they can't be misused.
A lot of modern ICE vehicles have cylinder deactivation, for example where a V-8 will run on only 4 or 6 cylinders to improve fuel economy.
Maybe these companies can take a page from Tesla's book, and sell their V-8 powered vehicles, but software limited so they only use 4 or 6 cylinders all the time unless you pay for an upgrade to extra functional cylinders.
Or not. Probably the buyers of normal cars and trucks are smarter than that.
How is Tesla able to tell anyone how long to run an electric engine? Is this embedded into the chip or something, does the motor shutoff?
Think about the implications for this. If they can increase range for a natural disaster, what's to stop "them" from decreasing the range or even preventing you from driving at all for whatever nefarious reasons you can think of? Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.
And then the manufacturer saying "hey we can toggle this bit here to turn on 2 more cylinders for the tidy sum of $5k". Very scammy for this, for locked cpus, gpus and basically anywhere where this mechanism is allowed and implemented
Battery capacity is somewhat nebulous. Operating the battery at a lower capacity extends operating life
Yeah, I totally agree with that. (And Tesla apparently have settings allowing the and user to artificially limit the battery to shallower cycles to extend their life).
But the parent AC poster was saying that forcing a 60kWh vehicle to pack 75kWh was pushing it past what is safe for extended lifetime of the vehicle,.
Whereas 75kWh on these vehicle is still safe. They weren't limited to 60kWh for safety issue. They were limited for rebates.
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