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Tesla Remotely Extended the Range of Vehicles So Drivers Could Escape Hurricane Irma

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

takyon writes:

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.

Original Submission

 
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  • (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.

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  • (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...