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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 12 2017, @11:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the interesting-implications dept.

Tesla remotely extends the range of some cars to help with Irma

As Floridians in the path of Hurricane Irma rushed to evacuate last week, Tesla pushed out a software update that made it a bit easier for certain Model S and Model X owners to get out of the state.

Tesla sometimes sells cars with more hardware battery capacity than is initially available for use by customers, offering the additional capacity as a subsequent software update. For example, Tesla has sold Model S cars rated 60D—the 60 stands for 60kWh of energy storage—that actually have 75kWh batteries. Owners of these vehicles can pay Tesla $9,000 to unlock the extra 15kWh of storage capacity.

But last week, Tesla decided to temporarily make this extra capacity available even to Floridians who hadn't paid for the upgrade to ensure they had enough range to get out of Florida ahead of Hurricane Irma. A Tesla spokesperson confirmed the change to Electrek. The extra 15kWh should give the vehicles an additional 30 to 40 miles of range.

Pay to unlock the full potential of your battery.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @11:41PM (17 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @11:41PM (#567015)

    I never really liked Tesla even though they make some pretty cool cars, now I incredibly dislike them. Was this a PR stunt?? Do they actually give a crap?

    Nothing worse than having hardware artificially limited. Fuxk them.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:06AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:06AM (#567021)

    I agree - same battery and then they software limit the hardware because of the size of the bribe? Goodbye Tesla. Not even near my shortlist ever again.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:25AM (6 children)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:25AM (#567024) Journal

      There may be an acceptable reason. Perhaps the car was programmed to not allow the batteries to completely discharge, as that can shorten the life. For an emergency situation like this, better to ruin the batteries than increase the risk of death. If that's what Tesla did, turn off programming intended to max out battery longevity, I'm cool with that. I have no problem believing the reporters twisted the facts to make Tesla look evil.

      But even if that's true, the driver ought to have the option to do that, a means to disable battery preservation mode. So, sort of cool, but definitely uncool if there's no way for the owner (the owner is the person who paid tens of thousands of dollars for a car, not the manufacturer) to unlock it. Also don't like the remote control that Tesla has over the car.

      • (Score: 5, Informative) by n1 on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:43AM (3 children)

        by n1 (993) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:43AM (#567026) Journal

        The article is correct, the 60kWh battery packs are the same but you can pay $9,000 to unlock it to use the full potential of 75kWh. This has been a 'feature' for as long as the cars have been out.

        The same applies for the 'Full Self Driving' and other driver assist packages. All the cars come with the hardware, you can pay to unlock it later if you don't buy it upfront.

        Still to be noted the FSD doesn't exist yet, but if you paid for it now, you'll get to use it if it ever does exist.

        • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday September 13 2017, @08:11AM (2 children)

          by Rivenaleem (3400) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @08:11AM (#567131)

          Frame Shift Drive?

          • (Score: 2, Funny) by liberza on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:01PM

            by liberza (6137) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:01PM (#567261)

            3... 2... 1... ENGAGE

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:36PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:36PM (#567277)

            With the way the FSD's velocity ramps up and down without warning, I can only assume it's based off of the Tesla autodrive software Mk1...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:09AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:09AM (#567035)

        I like the attempt to look on the bright side and give the benefit of the doubt, but no luck this time. Its corporate money sucking bullshit. Like getting a phone and having to pay extra to tether to your computer. You already pay for the bandwidth, so they restrict tethering just so they can charge more cause people will pay.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:16AM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:16AM (#567038) Journal

        but definitely uncool if there's no way for the owner (the owner is the person who paid tens of thousands of dollars for a car, not the manufacturer) to unlock it.

        Its the manufacturer that is carrying that warranty Not the Consumer.
        The Consumer gets what they are promised AND they get a long battery life.

        Not fully topping off or fully draining a battery leads to much longer battery longevity.
        Tesla's battery longevity is much better than others, such as the Leaf.
        http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1110149_tesla-model-s-battery-life-what-the-data-show-so-far [greencarreports.com]

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by requerdanos on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:09AM (6 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:09AM (#567034) Journal

    I never really liked Tesla even though they make some pretty cool cars,

    I did, but don't anymore. It's bad enough that my Samsung printers are told to die before the toner is out (and I consider this despicably evil, no sarcasm intended)--now Tesla is telling cars to die before the battery is out.

    No, no, no, no.

    If I own it, I have the right to use it, whether it is a small toner cartridge or a large battery. I own it==it's mine==the decisions over what to do with it are mine.

    • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday September 13 2017, @11:31AM (5 children)

      by FakeBeldin (3360) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @11:31AM (#567176) Journal

      Most sentiments here are so negative, completely ignoring that the owners got what they paid for: a 60 kWh battery. On top of that, that version has better battery life than a normal 60 kWh battery. On top of that, you can upgrade it to a 70 kWh battery for less money than a physical upgrade would cost.

      "Boo hoo, Tesla is so evil! Selling a 60 kWh battery instead of a 70 kWh battery!"
      Guess what: Tesla *also* sells the 70kWh version of that car. If you want that one, you're free to buy it.
      You bought a 60 kWh version? Congratulations, you're now better off than had you bought an electric car with a 60 kWh battery from a competitor.

      If I own it, I have the right to use it

      Again:
      1. You bought a 60 kWh battery car, you got a 60 kWh car. And yes, you get to use it.
      2. Moreover, you have the right to buy a software upgrade to gain more use from it. You most likely also have the right to rip out the battery
              and the firmware, and hook the battery up yourself with your own power management scheme to whatever you want to hook it up to.

      "Boohoo! My car can become better but I'd have to pay!"
      Well, you can also just obtain a different, better car. Likely you'd have to pay for that too.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @05:54PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @05:54PM (#567336)
        I'm curious, would you still be so adamantly on the manufacturer's side if it were, say, notebooks being sold with 128G of physical RAM, but you had to pay them extra fees to be able to access more than 96G of it?
        • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:04AM (1 child)

          by FakeBeldin (3360) on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:04AM (#567713) Journal

          If I had paid for a notebook with 96 GB in there, yes.

          Upgrading such a notebook would be much better than a notebook with 96 GB physically in there:
          instead of having to find out what memory fits, hunting online for what is a normal price for that kind of memory, buy 32 GB extra memory, wait for it to arrive, and then having to open the machine to physically install the memory (either myself or even going to a shop to have that done by someone else), I just pay money, do some clicks and tadaa! More memory.

          All sorts of incompatibility problems (DDR3 / DDR4 / EC / ...; but also compatibility with how the memory banks are currently used) avoided.
          Let me put it this way to you: if you could upgrade the memory in your current computer in two ways:
          1. get physical memory, install it
          2. a few mouseclicks and a reboot
          and the cost of these options is similar, would you go for #1?

          • (Score: 2) by Justin Case on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:55AM

            by Justin Case (4239) on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:55AM (#567745) Journal

            if you could upgrade the memory in your current computer in two ways:
            1. get physical memory, install it
            2. a few mouseclicks and a reboot
            and the cost of these options is similar, would you go for #1?

            Absolutely.
            1. There's more to life than simplicity. I am not afraid to learn stuff, like how to open the case or what's compatible with what.
            2. Physical memory can be redeployed in the future as circumstances change... because it's mine.
            3. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread and a thousand other places, when the owner (not you) of the device can change its capacity through software, the owner (not you) can also take away functionality capriciously or maliciously. You should not be giving that kind of power to the owners (not you) of your life for a spoonful of convenience.

      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:29PM (1 child)

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 13 2017, @10:29PM (#567512) Journal

        Boohoo!

        You can certainly sing the praises of defective by design; to be sure it is popular among many groups and there is no shame in doing so among wide swaths of humanity.

        Of course, that doesn't make it not defective by design, and doesn't garner support for it by those opposed to items that are defective by design.

        • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:10AM

          by FakeBeldin (3360) on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:10AM (#567715) Journal

          Strawman much?

          "Defective by design" is about lack of user choice. As I pointed out, there was plenty choice.

          You don't have to buy the reduced version, you can buy the full version.
          That's not defective by design, that's defective by user choice. And unless you're advocating removing choices from users, users are free to choose to buy lesser versions of hardware - and companies are free to deliver that in any way economically viable for them.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by rigrig on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:38PM

    by rigrig (5129) Subscriber Badge <soylentnews@tubul.net> on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:38PM (#567215) Homepage

    Was this a PR stunt?? Do they actually give a crap?

    I imagine some smart person at Tesla realised the PR nightmare it would be for a customer to get <headline>Stuck inside a hurricane because of battery DRM!!1!</headline>, and decided there was no good reason to take that chance.

    --
    No one remembers the singer.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by PiMuNu on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:51PM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:51PM (#567281)

    Software vendors have been doing it for years. The software is the same, you just get a different licence to unlock extra chunks.