Posted on 09/10/2017 10:42:47 AM PDT by TigerClaws
Tesla has pushed an over-the-air update to some of its vehicles in Florida that lets those cars go just a liiiittle bit farther, thus helping their owners get that much farther away from the devastation of Hurricane Irma.
Wondering how that's even possible?
Up until a few months ago, Tesla sold a 60kWh version of its Model S and Model X vehicles — but the battery in those cars was actually rated at 75kWh. The thinking: Tesla could offer a more affordable 60kWh version to those who didn't need the full range of the 75kWh battery — but to keep things simple, they'd just use the same 75kWh battery and lock it on the software side. If 60kWh buyers found they needed more range and wanted to upgrade later, they could... or if Tesla wanted to suddenly bestow owners with some extra range in case of an emergency, they could.
And that's what's happening here.
As first noticed by Tesla owners on Reddit, the company has pushed a "temporary update" to vehicles within the evacuation zones that bumps the 60kWh models up to 75kWh.
On the road, according to Elektrek, this battery bump works out to about 30 miles of additional range on a full charge. If that little bit of range helps even one person avoid injury or get their loved ones out safely, I'd say its worth whatever work this required.
Alas, the upgrade won't stick around forever — Tesla generally charges at least $5,000 for the permanent equivalent. Members on the Tesla Motors Club fan forum report that the temporary update will be reversed on September 16th.
(Meanwhile, in case any gas-powered vehicle owners in the path of the hurricane end up on this page: GasBuddy has rolled out a tool meant to help Floridians find gas stations near them that still have fuel. And if you can get out, please do.) View Reactions (563) Stephen Todd Hoover
I just bought the last available non-electronic board model cloths washer. As of December this year the Feds have mandated electronic controls in all cloths washers.
Speed Queen
Honeywell did the same.
You said its a joke of a car. Its actually a fantastic car... for what its designed to do. And you clearly haven’t driven one.
This is exactly correct. IBM ships their POWER line of servers with anywhere from 4 to 40 physical CPUs (per Central Electronics Complex or “CEC”), and the number that are activated is directly proportional to the number the customer pays to license. Works pretty damn well when virtualization and scalability are important to the buyer.
Many of their OS’s, software products and other 3rd party software products that run on the system (i.e. Oracle) are also licensed by the number of activated CPU’s assigned to a particular workload.
“IBM used to sell a laser printer that went at five or six pages a minute. It was locked at that speed in software, as a more expensive version with the same everything went 10-12 pages per minute.”
IBM has been doing similar tricks since the 1960’s. I think that they called it upgrading.
Now basically every electronic company does it.
That means it can easily be hacked to be permanent, and Tesla just challenged hackers to do just that and upload the code to BitTorrent.
*************
I’d be parking that car in a metal building on the 16th so the update can’t be received... Tesla will have to send that update to downgrade the “60” model every few weeks to make sure they all get hit... and they will no doubt kill some where the customer paid for the upgrade.
But the battery power won’t last forever. The only vehicles that can be relied on in a storm are gasoline or oil powered ones.
A 60kw car should weight less than a 75k car. If not then the fuel efficiency will be worse. Lawsuit coming.
What govt giveth, govt can take away.
Subsidized Motors being oh, so generous, with our tax $$. /s
Most cars have engine options, you pay more for a bigger engine that is more costly to manufacture. It is reasonable and moral to ask for money to cover your increased manufacturing costs and also to profit for providing this wanted extra ability.
In Telsa’s case, you get the same battery with the same reserve capacity, which has the same manufacturing cost. Telsa has purposely degraded your battery, expending extra effort to do so, in order to reap profit by charging you to remove the harm they caused rather than adding any value.
That can’t be rationalized as customer service, it is unethical.
That’s what I want...
A battery powered car to escape an approaching killer hurricane.
= = =
Just put up an antenna to attract a lightning strike.
Your problems will be over.
Whats wrong with that? Computer companies do it all the time. They install a bank of memory or processing power, and if you pay, they switch it on. So two customers could have identical configurations, but one has more power than the other based on what they pay.
This practice has been going on for years. Why is it unethical if Tesla does it?
There’s always been feature layers in cars, the stripped down model, the mid-model, the full model. The only difference now is there’s a kind of car out there so computerized that some of the features you can pick from are controlled entirely by software. But the rules hold, you pick your feature set, you pay for it, and you get those features. These people didn’t pay for the extra range feature, how they don’t get the feature they didn’t pay for is immaterial.
If you only use 60 kwh maximum, from a 75 kwh capacity lithium battery — that battery will last for at least four times as many miles.
In effect, Tesla is giving people, who buy the 60 kwh model, an extra 15 kwh of capacity for free. That extra capacity allows their battery to last up to 4 times longer. I’d say that’s a good deal. Zero chance for a class-action suit (in a sane world, that is — no accounting for what the courts would actually decide).
If you tell people upfront what you are doing, and they agree, I’ d say it is ethical; did Telsa?
Does it matter? You pay extra, and you get more performance. Why does it matter how you get it? (Hardware vs software)?
I’ll give you another example. Lets say you buy TurboTax at the store on a disk. There are multiple version of TurboTax (basic, premium, etc.) The disks all have the same software on them. But the version you actually get to use is based on which version you purchased.
Companies do this all the time. Whats the problem?
Many products are upgradeable/expandable by purchased key, with the same core build. Like software packages, machinery like CNCs, automation products, lots of things. This is a nothingburger for the enlightened.
What this has written all over it is monopolistic behavior. If Tesla had actual competitors, it would be forced to sell the most performance it could deliver of the minimum profitable price.
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