it’s a car. it’s not an app. stop trying to apply subscriptions to everything. it’s wasteful to have unnecessary bloat for features people don’t want.
We, as an entire society, will have to stop paying for any of this shit to make that happen.
Yeah there would have to be a total psychological shift for society to fight the marketing
Maybe we, as a society of workers, simply eat the rich? Or at least feed them to hounds
As productivity increases, artificial scarcity becomes necessary to maintain pre-existing levels of inequality.
How the fuck is it cheaper to software lock than to assemble a smaller battery? Like aren’t the batteries expensive? You just put in fewer cells for a smaller battery.
It’s possible that these vehicles are already built and Tesla needs a way to entice budget conscious buyers to clear out their inventory.
That is insane. If it costs the same to make, then lower range isn’t a reasonable area to pitch a lower cost vehicle. Wanting to lower the cost is fine. Putting in cheaper/smaller components to get there is fine. If you are using the same components and just software locking them to nickle and dime the users later, that’s anti-consumer and should not be tolerated. I can’t believe how people look at micro-transactions in games and think “wouldn’t this be cool with IRL stuff?”
No different than BMW having heated seats but if you want to use them you have to unlock with subscription plan. This way BMW makes one model and consumer has a choice with paymwnt. Intel CPUs have this too now. Company running servers can buy low performing chip, if they want to expand capability then intel sells them a license code to unlock more performance
If people are ok with that then I guess it will stand, but it’s insane and anti-consumer in my book. A product costs what it costs, based on supply and demand, and if you can’t afford it you don’t buy it. This flimsy premise of “It lowers the bar to entry so users can upgrade later without having to replace!” will never come to fruition, and it’s too slippery of a slope to “put in a quarter to turn on your A/C”.
Oh I hate it. Like Toyota was offering remote car start but only if you subscribed online, otherwise your remote start button would get blocked by software. They walked it back because of consumer backlash, but not enough consumers complain. Meanwhile Ford pattented a drive home feature so if you miss a car payment it cripples your car, and further non payment the vehicle will drive itself back to the dealership
Collapsing dystopia into reality everyday
Imagine telling this to a time traveler from the 20th Century. “You have self-driving cars?” “Yeah, how else will they get back to the dealership when you miss a payment?” LOL fuck this timeline.
Toyota was offering remote car start but only if you subscribed online
That’s different - it relies on having an active cellular connection in the car and older cell towers (5G has improved this dramatically) could only handle a hundred or so active connections at once, so Toyota is absolutely paying a monthly fee to access the cell network. It makes sense to pass that on to the customers who wish to use the feature.
Those fees have gone down, since not only is 5G much cheaper per customer (for the cell network), everyone switching to 5G has taken the pressure off older wireless protocols so they’re almost never crowded anymore - so they can pretty much have as many cars connected as they want for near zero cost.
There is no need for access to a cell signal amd a server though, when you wamt to clicl start.from your living room… You can use the same fob tech as lock umlock your car like cars had prior. Or. you can buy after market remote start kits, Toyota waa juat frying to jump on the SaaS bandwagon
While I agree, I think that basic business model is pretty much ubiquitous across consumer goods.
Entry level product doesn’t cost much less to produce than their deluxe model, but they crank the profit margin to the roof for the deluxe version.
Yeah, these are software gated, but it’s essentially the same idea, just more infuriating because you already paid for the hardware that’s fully capable either way.
Has anybody jail broken these things yet? It can’t be that hard to do, but I’m not tech savvy enough to know where to begin. There has to be a way to circumvent that lock and still be able to manually grab software updates that the user deems necessary (e.g. recalls). Would it be legal? Idk, if I buy a battery, I think I have the right to use the battery. If I buy a seat warmer, I think I have the right to use the seat warmer. If it’s part of the car I bought, I don’t see why I wouldn’t be allowed to use it. Otherwise, what the fuck does ownership even mean?
It can be unlocked, and AFAIK doing so is perfectly legal, but then your warranty is void. And with a Tesla, you’re probably going to wish you had that warranty one day.
These are the guys that programmed their trucks’ front trunk to slam harder each time it detects something is in the way. The Smart left this place ages ago.
If that’s all it is, then simply charge less without making any changes.
It is way cheaper. two assembly lines to assmebly 2 packs, separate work orders, specific assembly per model ordered ( so customet doesn’t pay for low end amd accidentally get highend or vice versa ), CAD and data management of two variations. It is why ModelT only came in black, is streamlines the whole process. You see much simpler examples in other induatries ie. that use stock material. it is cheaper to stock say 3 foot precut lengths and if product only needs 2 feet you chop it off at assembly and throw away the 1 foot scrap, rather than stocking and inventorying 2 foot and 3 foot stocks. Unless you invest in an expensive atock feeder that cuts the stock to length typed in, but that machine isn’t mobile so neesa to be placed at the exact location of assembly. And if you need it two places you need two stock machines, so then you start weighing the crude method vs precise
And don’t forget about the local lots where you’re keeping the manufactured cars. If you’ve ever purchased a new car, you know how annoying it is to get car with the color, engine, drivetrain, and cabin options you want.
If there are lots of variations of a vehicle platform, then dealers and stores will use often their space to stock a little of everything, or maybe a lot of the popular config and next to none of some other configs.
Less variation means dealers and stores are not shipping inventory around as much, and they have more stuff on hand for impulse purchases.
Making variants of things is expensive. You have to keep more inventory on hand for the manufacturing components and the final manufactured vehicles. You also have to spend time / energy / space in the plant for variants of things.
And for final point of sale, if you don’t have enough final inventory in one area, you’re forced to spend a shitload of money shipping inventory across country to fill gaps.
It’s a pretty common problem in product development. This is why Henry Ford was so revolutionary. Variation of components increases a ton of manufacturing and logistics costs.
That said, Telsa should’ve just sold the car at one fair price and not software locked this. This was shady AF.
Multiple variations means multiple factory configurations. Unless you’re selling a lot of cars it may not be worth the cost of having those production line changes.
deleted by creator
Also, Broadcom with VMware products. Fuck those pricks.
Letting rich people have access to the internet was a mistake. This shit is begging for regulation.
One more thing that makes Tesla hacking a profitable skill.
From the article…
Over the years, Tesla has periodically offered cheaper vehicles with shorter ranges, and rather than building a new vehicle with a smaller battery pack, the automaker has decided to instead use the same battery packs capable of more range and software-locked the range.
I can see business wise why they would want to do that, but P.R. and public perception wise, that’s one step forward, two steps back.
It’s tricky. It’s not like BMW locking heated seats, a trivial feature, to nickel and dime the owner out of $300.
Reducing the battery capacity severely alters the value of the car possibly dropping it into the range of more budget conscious buyers.
There are benefits too. Less wear on the battery by not using its whole range, faster charging to “100%,” and more potential value when it comes time to sell should the buyer want to unlock the extra range.
Leave it to Tesla though to bungle the PR and completely lose the narrative.
If I own the car then either those are all my cells or someone else has abandoned their property in my car.
You don’t have to buy the car. People aren’t getting conned here… They would buy a more expensive version of the car with a higher range if they thought that would suit their needs.
You don’t have to buy the car.
If it’s a profitable decision then it has the potential to become the de facto standard, so simply not buying it isn’t enough.
The manufacturer using software to lock use of hardware in people’s own cars is an attack on ownership rights.
When it comes to things that are trivial to include but locked behind exorbitant paywalls (i.e. heated seats), I agree.
However, range/battery capacity is the primary price differentiator for EVs and also the primary cost for manufacturing. Finding a way to offer options that suit the needs of different people at varying prices just allows more people to enter the market.
to become the de facto standard
I feel like it might be nice to have a sliding scale of ranges available for people who have a sliding scale of needs. If I need a second car strictly for my 20 mile commute, it might be nice to have an option to pay less for 100 miles of range over 200. And I assume if a market is established for low-range EVs, manufacturers will compete with each other on how to deliver that for the best price. Perhaps if the market is large enough, Tesla will find it better to actually remove the extra batteries and put them in other cars.
If manufacturers made parts available for longer (or perhaps at all in some cases?) then 2nd-hand cars already make for a cheaper option.
I believe artificially limiting hardware is an unacceptable for a health society because proprietary software gives the developer power over their users. Even people with good intentions will be tempted to use that power at the user’s expense. A software update could suddenly make that 20 mil commute no longer possible unless you agree to pay more for some subscription, or accept a new terms of service where you agree to forced arbitration if you don’t want to lose access to even using your vehicle.
proprietary software gives the developer power over their users.
Agree here, but that’s a much larger issue than just this particular pricing structure.
You are 100% right it improves the lifespan, and when selling it, a battery in better condition makes the car worth more.
I think somehow some people misunderstand your post? Or they don’t get how it can be an advantage to have a bigger battery than you pay for?Mind you I don’t condone this business model, which to me feels like cheating.
It’s funny how frequently this business model is used in the digital space, but when it comes to physical hardware, people freak.
Like look at movies. Does anybody really think it costs substantially more to deliver the 4K version of a product over the HD version? Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is $12 on Blu-ray on Amazon. It’s $20 on 4k UHD.
The movie was mastered at 4k or higher, so why not just give you the UHD version with the Blu-ray version? The physical disc can’t cost more than a few cents to manufacture.
It’s because some people have decided they don’t need 4k and are happy to take a shittier version of the product for a lower price.
Don’t get me started how much people hate when content is included on the game disc locked behind a paywall yet somehow have less of an issue when there’s day 1 downloadable content also locked behind a paywall.
Perhaps typical people can more easily understand how a physical device might work. People probably understand gears and electricity more so than “software” (never even heard of source code or binaries).
“Software-locked” is a weird way to say you need to install Linux to get it all working properly.
Well, at least there’s no rare earth metals in Tesla batteries that are sourced from countries with exploitative labor practices. Might as well waste a few to create an artificially shittier product.
Good news is that now people have decent options for non-Tesla EVs.
Now we just need to make sure those cars have access to widespread and reliable charging. NACS is a good start, but NACS cars will only have access to less than a third of Telsa’s network.
I’d be game for ads if it took $5k off sticker lol
