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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.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 13 2017, @12:25AM (6 children)
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)
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)
Frame Shift Drive?
(Score: 2, Funny) by liberza on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:01PM
3... 2... 1... ENGAGE
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @04:36PM
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
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
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.