they f**ked up Tesla locked a customer's car out of 1/3 of its battery capacity for a $4.5k ransom

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, Spotty said:

Interesting. I'm not sure what agreements are made when purchasing a new Tesla, but the original owner might have entered in to an agreement with Tesla to allow them to make major changes to their vehicle remotely without their consent, however that agreement wouldn't apply to any secondary owners. I really wonder what, if any, legal standing Tesla would have to be able to do this. 

I don't own a Tesla, but I have at least one family member who does.

 

Those agreements change depending on what year it was originally purchased. Original Tesla's up to a certain year model have free access to SuperChargers for the life of the vehicle for example.

 

Do those transfer to the new owner? That depends. I'd say "life of the vehicle" applies to the vehicle itself, not the owner. To which any hardware upgrades made by the original owner should also apply to the vehicle itself. Even if it's Tesla's own fault. Retroactively removing things because the owner changed is scummy as it gets. It's not like a subscription to XM Sirius radio which many dealers have turned on when the vehicle is on the lot, and eventually just expires on it's own. There is no impact on the vehicle's operation of the XM subscription expires, regardless if the owner of the vehicle even knew they had it.

 

This battery capacity thing is right up there with making seatbelts and airbags software upgrades. That should never be the case that any critical operational part of a vehicle be soft-lockable. That's all you need is a potential hack or exploit to come down the pipe and render the "soft-lockable" feature unusable.

 

[LAwLz]

I feel like there are multiple things that went wrong and multiple things to view this, and I don't think you can really put the blame on any particular person/Tesla.

 

I totally understand Tesla's POV. The car was not authorized to have a 90kWh battery so they locked it down to 60kWh once they realized the issue. Honestly, I would even argue that they were in the right to do it. Someone had access to something they didn't pay for and thus weren't entitled to.

 

I think a decent analogy would be this.

1) I have some problem with Floatplane and contact LMG. LMG extends my subscription with 7 days because of the bug/issue I encountered.

2) I notice that the 7 day subscription is glitched. It's not just 7 days. It never expires. I got free, unlimited access to Floatplane!

3) I sell my Floatplane account to someone else as "One-time payment unlimited Floatplane account".

4) LMG notices the issue with the account and reverts it back to the regular "pay per month" account.

5) The one who bought the glitched account from me gets mad at LMG for disabling his "free unlimited" account.

 

 

The car was only authorized (the original owner had only bought) for the 60kWh battery so Tesla are in the right to lock it to that.

The issue is that the previous owner sold it as a 90kWh battery model which it just flat out wasn't authorized for. I would argue that this is very similar to selling a computer with pirated software on it. If I sell a PC with a pirated copy of Windows, then it is not Microsoft that are the bad guys if they decide to disable that copy. I think it will be hard to argue ignorance as well from the previous owner. He most likely noticed that he got a bigger battery by mistake and decided to profit from said mistake.

 

 

On the other hand, I can totally understand the people mad at Tesla.

Some people think that locking hardware that already exist through software is a dick move. I tend to agree, although I think those people are also a bit hypocritical when they then think selling software is fine. In my eyes, selling a license for the latest Battlefield game for 60 dollars is not really any different from BMW asking let's say 60 dollars to remove a software lock from their heated seats for example. In both cases, the manufacturer asks the customer to pay for something that technically is free to give away. It doesn't cost DICE/EA nor BMW anything to give away their software for free, yet people seem to be okay with one company doing it but not the other.

I don't really understand why people make the distinction. I think it's just one of those cases where people aren't used to it happening for one thing so they have become complicit with that, but now that it is happening somewhere else they are against it.

 

 

I think the appropriate thing that should have done was that the previous owner were held accountable, at a discount. Sure, Tesla messed up when they forgot to lock the battery, hence the discount, but it was still the previous owner that didn't inform them about the mistake and instead tried to profit from it.

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

Honestly, this whole OTA just allows car manufacturers to bring the software businness model of:

• Ship broken software with the excuse you can fix them later for cheap OTA
• Allow a "Car As A Service" businness model where features can be remotely locked to increase profitability
• Allow a "Option As A Service" businness model where features are installed because it saves cost in production to have fewer skews, but have the buyer pay to activate them
• Allow an anti-repair stance where third party spare parts will be flagged by the manufacturers and have the client incour in "contract breach fees"

The only case where OTA is pro consumer:

• OTA is used to fix mistakes, quick and silently, instead of bringing the car to the repair shop.
• OTA is used to collect anonymous telemetry on the car, and feedback is used to optimize the veichle design and functionality, things like torque curve, wheel wheight distribution, center of gravity, fuel economy, break/suspension balance, maintenance requirements, etc...

I would like for regulations to come in hard and forbid manufacturers from locking in functionality that is physically installed in the veichle.

[LAwLz]

5 minutes ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

I would like for regulations to come in hard and forbid manufacturers from locking in functionality that is physically installed in the veichle.

Why make the distinction for vehicles only?

Why should it be okay for some companies to lock things behind software paywalls, but not car manufacturers?

[Jurrunio]

5 hours ago, IkeaGnome said:

Someone steals your bike.

You have to prove it's "stolen" by law definitions first. It can't be stolen if the supposed owner (Tesla) gave it to the other person in the first place.

 

5 hours ago, IkeaGnome said:

He didn’t get billed for it. He was told he can either pay for it or go back to the capacity that it should have been. There wasn’t a surprise $4500 charge on his card. 

But there was a surprise 1/3 loss in battery capacity. You just don't touch someone else's property without their consent, even law enforcements need a search warrant to ignore the owner's consent.

[wanderingfool2]

35 minutes ago, mr moose said:

This is BS plain and simple.   It's getting absolutely ridiculous when a second hand (actually third hand in this case) product through private sales is held to ransom buy the manufacturer.   

It should be noted though that a major argument they used is that it was sold as a Model S 90, when in reality it was a Model S 60.

 

Actually, imagine a scenario like this.  Someone sells a house where the separated garage is on the right-of-way.  The original seller knows it's on a right-of-way but still sells the house as having a garage.  The house then gets resold, but now the buyer brings in the city to inspect for a fence.  City worker realizes the garage is on a right-of-way so they have it scheduled to be torn down.

 

The fact is, the car should have been sold as a model S 60, not as a 90.  The only way it should have been sold as a Model S 90, was if the owner had purchased the addon of it being a 90.   Actually I'm curious, back in the day Tesla had enabled the extended range on a bunch of vehicles when I think a hurricane hit...I'm wondering if somehow that might have been when the issue happened (they didn't apply the revert to all vehicles).  Or it could be a warranty repair, who knows...but lets say if it's the former, I'd say it's well within the rights to remove it.

 

3 minutes ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

I would like for regulations to come in hard and forbid manufacturers from locking in functionality that is physically installed in the veichle.

I'm against regulating things like "locking in functionality that is physically installed" because I still feel that most peoples arguments against it is the whole "I own it" mentality without the thought of what could come of it.  The part where I think should be regulated is that there should always be an out-right purchase option for a given feature

 

e.g. Having 2 SKU's means more cost, so lets say if the mandate was in place instead of heated seats installed and just charging those who use it, they instead now will just install heated seats in all and raise the base price (and guess what, that sort of already happened...Tesla announced heated seats are now the standard, and the the price got raised for the base).  Now those would have chosen not to have heated seats end up paying more because of it.

[Stahlmann]

24 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

On the other hand, I can totally understand the people mad at Tesla.

Some people think that locking hardware that already exist through software is a dick move. I tend to agree, although I think those people are also a bit hypocritical when they then think selling software is fine. In my eyes, selling a license for the latest Battlefield game for 60 dollars is not really any different from BMW asking let's say 60 dollars to remove a software lock from their heated seats for example. In both cases, the manufacturer asks the customer to pay for something that technically is free to give away. It doesn't cost DICE/EA nor BMW anything to give away their software for free, yet people seem to be okay with one company doing it but not the other.

I don't really understand why people make the distinction. I think it's just one of those cases where people aren't used to it happening for one thing so they have become complicit with that, but now that it is happening somewhere else they are against it.

I don't think the analogy that every software is technically "free to give away" makes a whole lot of sense. That would apply to ANYTHING because you can give anything away without charging a dime. But that's not how things work.

 

I'm also no friend of locking down hardware using software. There are rare cases where i agree with this sentiment but normally i'm against that. Disabling built-in heated seats for example doesn't benefit anyone but the car brand. Making LHR GPUs for example at least had the benefit of lower 2nd hand prices for some people, wheter that was intentional by Nvidia or not. Plus, you typically have to pay for heated seats upfront in a german car. Adding a subsription to something you already paid for in advance is another can of worms.

 

I'd argue this battery thing is one of these cases where Tesla should just "eat it". There is no harm to them now and moving forward if this particular car user just has the bigger battery and they actually had to go out of their way to lock it down. Doing this just resulted in negative publicity and ultimately caused damage now.

[Jurrunio]

17 minutes ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

I would like for regulations to come in hard and forbid manufacturers from locking in functionality that is physically installed in the veichle.

I wouldn't mind about locking function out as long as I know I don't receive it before the deal is made and never got it by official means. You could say it's wasted potential (or even wasted material), but that's not something capitalism nor the law cares.

 

I mean look at GPUs with disabled processors/compute units, of course there are working units that are disabled in order to stay inline with some that have less working units sold under the same model name. Yet people never seemed to have an issue with that?

[Avocado Diaboli]

25 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

On the other hand, I can totally understand the people mad at Tesla.

Some people think that locking hardware that already exist through software is a dick move. I tend to agree, although I think those people are also a bit hypocritical when they then think selling software is fine. In my eyes, selling a license for the latest Battlefield game for 60 dollars is not really any different from BMW asking let's say 60 dollars to remove a software lock from their heated seats for example. In both cases, the manufacturer asks the customer to pay for something that technically is free to give away. It doesn't cost DICE/EA nor BMW anything to give away their software for free, yet people seem to be okay with one company doing it but not the other.

I don't really understand why people make the distinction. I think it's just one of those cases where people aren't used to it happening for one thing so they have become complicit with that, but now that it is happening somewhere else they are against it.

Eh, I personally make the distinction between paying for software that enables use of the software and paying to remove a specific lock put into software that restricts use of something I already own. Sure, any game dev / publisher could give away their games for free. But the development wasn't free. The purpose of the development of the software is to recoup the costs it took to make the software in the first place + whatever profit margin they're aiming for. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know here. But a software lock isn't that. It's there to restrict access to components I own. As in legally I am the owner, it's not just in my possession, it's my property. Just how the battery of that car was the property of the first owner and became the property of the second owner when it changed hands. 

 

Basically, the distinction for me comes down to the intended outcome: The former is about giving me access to something I don't already own (the game), while the latter is about giving me access to something I already own (seat, battery, etc.). Now I admit that it's a bit flawed at the moment because software companies operate under the assumption that customers aren't buying software, merely access to software. I hope legislation will eventually catch up to that and really make the copy of a software that I buy wholly my property to do with as I please and to resell if I want to without any artificial restrictions like Valve claiming that erasing a game from my database and adding it to someone else's is this insurmountable task.

 

But then again, I also would welcome legislation that forces smart device manufacturers (and let's admit that modern cars basically fall under that term) to have contingencies in place when the time comes when they're no longer interested in supporting a device. That means publishing source code, server tools, whatever. In fact, I'd also welcome policy that would basically force all companies selling smart devices that require access to some kind of cloud database to offer a self-hosting option for anyone who doesn't trust those companies with their data or reliability and would rather run an instance of their software on their home server to be autarkic.

[wanderingfool2]

4 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

But there was a surprise 1/3 loss in battery capacity. You just don't touch someone else's property without their consent, even law enforcements need a search warrant to ignore the owner's consent.

Cable companies were legally allowed to enter your property and change the filters on your house back in the day of analog TV.  Also, it seems as though he was using Tesla features which I'm pretty sure means he has to consent to things like automatic updates.  Just like how they require updates to be installed in order to maintain warranty.

 

6 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

There is no harm to them now and moving forward if this particular car user just has the bigger battery and they had to go out of their way to lock it down

I mean it could very well depend.  We can't really know all the details, but lets say if the battery was still under warranty (like if the previous owner had purchased a new battery pack...so it got a new 8 year warranty), then it could become an issue if they ever have to warranty the pack.  If the owner is under Tesla insurance, the insurance cost could be different.  I do think they probably should have offered him a discount, but I doubt this press is actually is doing much harm to them...they have had much worse articles (that people believe that turned out to be false) against them.  They still have like a 6 month wait list to purchase a vehicle, I doubt they are too worried about this kind of optics at the moment.

[Stahlmann]

1 minute ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

like Valve claiming that erasing a game from my database and adding it to someone else's is this insurmountable task

Wow i actually never thought about that. Valve could even add a small margin and make heaps of money with this. I alone probably have hundreds of games i'll probably never play again and could comfortably sell for a few bucks. But it opens another can of worms, as "used" software isn't different from new software, so how does one decide if he buys a used game or a new one on the steam store?

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

16 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The part where I think should be regulated is that there should always be an out-right purchase option for a given feature

I would be fine with this type of regulation.

My point is that a service is something that require ongoing costs from the manufacturer. An online service requires paying for a server and developers to patch it, making it a service. An heated seat does not have recurring costs. It gets installed, and it heats. Maintenance and Repairs are covered by warranty, to ensure manufacturers ships a durable product, and paid for by the users outside of warranty.

 

Manufacturers are abusing the Service businness model extending it on things that are not a service to get more money out of customers. This is why I welcome harsh regulation in the space.

18 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Why make the distinction for vehicles only?

Because the topic is about cars and it's easier to fix small thing than fix big things.

 

I would like for sweeping broad regulations that say what is and is not a service, and what can and cannot be monetized with recurring revenue. Also I would like for right to repair regulations that codify that if something IS a service, manufacturers HAVE to have a contingency in place when they discontinue the service. Release code open source, allow third party cloud providers, allow the device to work without OTA, etc...

 

I mean, imagine all "smart" IoT device that cease to work at all because the company went under or because the guy maintaining the AWS service changed company without passing the baton.

[Spotty]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Other similar things, if someone has MS Office on their second hand computer but MS disables the license because it was part of a batch of keys that were grey-ware. 

Only if it was a Microsoft surface laptop and the software & keys were installed by Microsoft at the factory... This was a Tesla Technician that installed an official Tesla battery, but did so incorrectly. It wasn't somebody installing a 3rd party battery or trying to hack the free 90kWh upgrade (that is already in the car but just artificially locked off).

 

9 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Do those transfer to the new owner? That depends. I'd say "life of the vehicle" applies to the vehicle itself, not the owner. To which any hardware upgrades made by the original owner should also apply to the vehicle itself. Even if it's Tesla's own fault. Retroactively removing things because the owner changed is scummy as it gets.

It reminded me of the discussion LegalEagle had in his Crypto video where he briefly discusses car manufacturers rights over secondary owners. ~6:55 mark

Quote

What can Ford do against the person who bought the car from John Cena? The answer is absolutely nothing because there's no contract between Ford and the person who bought the car from John Cena. The second buyer is said to not be in privity with Ford. John Cena and Ford are in privity they have an actual contract but there's nothing linking Ford and the downstream purchaser.

So I'm wondering what authorisation Tesla would have to modify this customers vehicle if they were never in a contract with them that permitted Tesla those rights.

Wanderingfool mentioned that the car was likely connected to Tesla's network and the new owner would have had to form some agreement to access that, but I'm not sure if that also includes granting permission for Tesla to modify the battery without notice. It'd be pretty weird if in your agreement to access features like the infotainment system it also includes a clause that says "I agree to allow Tesla to make remote modifications to the battery system of my vehicle", but then again it is Tesla so who knows.

 

 

3 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The fact is, the car should have been sold as a model S 60, not as a 90.  The only way it should have been sold as a Model S 90, was if the owner had purchased the addon of it being a 90.   Actually I'm curious, back in the day Tesla had enabled the extended range on a bunch of vehicles when I think a hurricane hit...I'm wondering if somehow that might have been when the issue happened (they didn't apply the revert to all vehicles).  Or it could be a warranty repair, who knows...but lets say if it's the former, I'd say it's well within the rights to remove it.

According to the tweets in the source article the battery was replaced by Tesla under warranty.

The 60kWh battery was replaced by the first owner under warranty, however Tesla didn't have a 60kWh battery available to perform the repair as it was apparently not being produced at the time and instead provided an equivalent or better part to complete the repair with a 90kWh battery. It's a shitty thing to install a 90kWh battery and then limit it to 60kWh, but shitty or not Tesla would legally be within their right to do so as it would fulfil the equivalent requirement for the warranty repair. I can understand Tesla not wanting to give out free 90kWh battery upgrades as that might just encourage more people with 60kWh batteries to try and get them replace under warranty in the hopes of getting a free upgrade. But really if they don't want to be giving out 90kWh batteries they should have kept stock of or kept producing the 60kWh batteries for warranty repairs that they would have known they would have needed to provide, or just eat the cost of providing the more expensive 90kWh batteries which obviously they are prepared to do since they're installing them regardless.

It is good that Tesla reinstated the 90kWh mode on the vehicle, but it shouldn't take people on Twitter with pitchforks for that to happen.

 

27 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

-snip-
I think the appropriate thing that should have done was that the previous owner were held accountable, at a discount. Sure, Tesla messed up when they forgot to lock the battery, hence the discount, but it was still the previous owner that didn't inform them about the mistake and instead tried to profit from it.

Let's say Person A bought a PC from Dell a few years ago and it was advertised as including a GTX 1060, but the technician assembling the PC that day made a mistake and accidentally shipped Person A a system with a GTX 1080 in it.

A few years later Person A sells that PC as it is and Person B buys the computer with the GTX 1080 in it. Should Dell have the right to then show up at Person B's house and take the GTX 1080 out and replace it with a GTX 1060? Is it Person A's fault for selling the computer as it was in its current condition? Should Dell take Person A to court years later demanding they pay for the difference in price for the GTX 1080? Or should Dell just realise that one of their employees made a mistake which cost them a relatively trivial amount of money and raise the issue with the employee and provide better training to their employees to prevent it from happening again in the future.

[Stahlmann]

9 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

but I doubt this press is actually is doing much harm to them...they have had much worse articles (that people believe that turned out to be false) against them.  They still have like a 6 month wait list to purchase a vehicle, I doubt they are too worried about this kind of optics at the moment.

Still, this is not a long-term way to stay in business. Even if i have enough sales right now, doesn't mean that negative press won't hurt in the future. Just a small example: Due to all the negative press i hear about Tesla the chances are getting smaller and smaller that i'd recommend one to any of my friends. Sure, it's just "a drop in the bucket", but this can snowball into something much bigger.

 

Influencers and enthusiasts are a great way to market your product with comparatively low (influencers) or even no cost (mostly enthusiasts). Fuck them over enough times and you have to resort to different methods to market your products.

[LAwLz]

15 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Eh, I personally make the distinction between paying for software that enables use of the software and paying to remove a specific lock put into software that restricts use of something I already own.

But you didn't own it. If you buy something and both you and the seller are under the assumption that you are buying one thing, but then it just so happens that something else was in the package, then you are not rightfully entitled to said thing.

Likewise, if I buy a car second hand and it turns out the seller accidentally forgot something in the trunk then I can't just go "sorry, those gold bars you forgot in the trunk are mine now".

I am not sure what the laws are in the US, but in Sweden we actually have laws that states keeping things in these circumstances are illegal. Likewise, if some employer accidentally pays you too much salary then you are legally required to give the money back. Hell, I am fairly sure you are legally required to report to the employer that you were paid too much, and then give the money back. I am not sure if the laws are like that in the US, but I think they should be. It is the right thing to do.

 

 

I don't "own" a copy of Windows just because I illegal downloaded it and the bits are physically on my hard drive either.

Likewise, the previous Tesla owner didn't "own" a 90kWh model of his Tesla. He owned a 60kWh model, but that through software functioned like a 90kWh model.

I can make Windows 10 Home work as Windows 10 Pro through software as well, but that does not mean I "own" Windows 10 Pro, for example.

 

Likewise, the gold bars someone forgot in the car I bought are not "owned" by me either. They exist in my car, but since I obtained them under false pretences I don't actually own them.

 

 

 

 

26 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

Sure, any game dev / publisher could give away their games for free. But the development wasn't free. The purpose of the development of the software is to recoup the costs it took to make the software in the first place + whatever profit margin they're aiming for.

You don't think developing and manufacturing a car costs money?

You don't think companies like Tesla are developing this software to recoup the cost of developing their product + whatever profit margin they're aiming for as well?

It is exactly the same situation. Again, it feels like people are just making the distinction because they are used to it happening in one case, but not in another.

 

Tesla is using software to lock hardware features for the same reason a company like Microsoft are using software to lock software features. Hell, in the cases of for example RAM Microsoft is literally using software to lock hardware features. You need to pay them extra to use above a certain amount of RAM, regardless of how much actually exists in your PC.

[Jurrunio]

28 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Cable companies were legally allowed to enter your property and change the filters on your house back in the day of analog TV.  Also, it seems as though he was using Tesla features which I'm pretty sure means he has to consent to things like automatic updates.  Just like how they require updates to be installed in order to maintain warranty.

Unwelcomed updates dont necessarily have to be accepted by the customer. Check numerous scandals during serious Intel exploit fixes that tank performance hard, cases can be made to go on court so there is room for argument.

[Jurrunio]

8 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Likewise, the gold bars someone forgot in the car I bought are not "owned" by me either. They exist in my car, but since I obtained them under false pretences I don't actually own them.

Oh, actually you do own the gold bars, the FTC made this rule so scammers cannot send random stuff out to people then charge them for money.

 

It would be nice of you to.return the gold bars that you morally dont own, but nothing could really stop you from ditching morals and hug the gold bars.

[LAwLz]

24 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Let's say Person A bought a PC from Dell a few years ago and it was advertised as including a GTX 1060, but the technician assembling the PC that day made a mistake and accidentally shipped Person A a system with a GTX 1080 in it.

A few years later Person A sells that PC as it is and Person B buys the computer with the GTX 1080 in it. Should Dell have the right to then show up at Person B's house and take the GTX 1080 out and replace it with a GTX 1060? Is it Person A's fault for selling the computer as it was in its current condition? Should Dell take Person A to court years later demanding they pay for the difference in price for the GTX 1080? Or should Dell just realise that one of their employees made a mistake which cost them a relatively trivial amount of money and raise the issue with the employee and provide better training to their employees to prevent it from happening again in the future.

In a perfect world, I would say that Person A is held accountable and has to pay.

Dell made a mistake, yes, but as I said earlier we have laws in Sweden, which I think are very good, that states that if a mistake like this happens then you have to return the product. Person A should be held responsible for selling a product he didn't actually buy. Person A never bought a GTX 1080 and even though he has one, he didn't pay for it. He paid for a GTX 1060.

 

If someone sells me a car and I notice something they obviously forgot to take out then I shouldn't just be allowed to keep it. I should inform the seller and give it back if they want. The seller might be nice and say "oh, that was my mistake but I'll let you keep it", but that is up to the seller to decide, not the buyer.

 

 

 

Edit: I looked up the Swedish law and apparently you are not required to inform the seller. I think that is the morally right thing to do though and it can save you a lot of trouble. However, if the mistake is caught and the seller contacts you, you HAVE to give the product back if requested. If you refuse, and keep the product anyway then you are breaking the same law as if you just flat out stole something.

 

 

 

In your example, I think Person A should be held accountable. Obviously the overhead of such a legal dispute would be way more than the item in question is worth, but let's say we are talking about a perfect world where such a legal battle took literally 1 second and didn't cost anything. Then yes, Person A should be held accountable. He accidentally got access to a product he didn't own, and then sold that for profit. When asked to return the product he refused, thus committing the act of stealing.

 

The seller making a mistake does not entitle you to exploit them. Likewise, someone not locking their house does not entitle you to walk in and take their TV. 

[leadeater]

51 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

But there was a surprise 1/3 loss in battery capacity.

So reverse loot box? Is there an EA Exec on Tesla's board? lol

[LAwLz]

12 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Unwelcomed updates dont necessarily have to be accepted by the customer. Check numerous scandals during serious Intel exploit fixes that tank performance hard, cases can be made to go on court so there is room for argument.

The lawsuit wasn't about the updates, and just because something goes to court does not mean the accused broke a law.

 

 

  

6 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Oh, actually you do own the gold bars, the FTC made this rule so scammers cannot send random stuff out to people then charge them for money.

 

It would be nice of you to.return the gold bars that you morally dont own, but nothing could really stop you from ditching morals and hug the gold bars.

Do you have a source? I don't really see how some law regarding "changing people" applies here.

It's not about sending out random stuff and then asking people for money. I get that you can't do that. But in my scenario someone sold someone else a car and then forgot something in the trunk, and then asks for it back. It's a completely different situation.

[leadeater]

10 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

However, if the mistake is caught and the seller contacts you, you HAVE to give the product back if requested. If you refuse, and keep the product anyway then you are breaking the same law as if you just flat out stole something.

Thing is Tesla was not the seller and Tesla does not own the car after they sell it, no matter any agreements except for if it's a lease agreement rather than a purchase. So even in your own country Tesla has no right to demand anything from this unassociated person that has nothing to do with the original mistake or original sale, the original sale of which has nothing to do to with the original warranty repair.

 

So the situation is simply a lot more complex than we could hash out in this forum because I have no doubt it would be a total mess in court in any country one chooses to frame it around.

 

Also unlike most products demanding the return of a vehicle like this simply is not justified, I would tell them to jump of the closest cliff and take legal action if they wanted. To forcibly remove someone's transportation without compensation or replacement, yea nah there is no situation where that is justified.

 

Edit:

Also just fyi if a car manufacture issues a recall notice for a vehicle for a fault they have no authority to seize the vehicle either, in fact in most situations you as the owner have the right to ignore a recall completely unless the issue makes the vehicle illegal to be on the road because it's no longer at warrant of fitness requirement (if your country has this, which most do).

[LAwLz]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Thing is Tesla was not the seller and Tesla does not own the car after they sell it, no matter any agreements except for if it's a lease agreement rather than a purchase. So even in your own country Tesla has no right to demand anything from this unassociated person that has nothing to do with the original mistake or original sale, the original sale of which has nothing to do to with the original warranty repair.

 

So the situation is simply a lot more complex than we could hash out in this forum because I have no doubt it would be a total mess in court in any country one chooses to frame it around.

 

Also unlike most products demanding the return of a vehicle like this simply is not justified, I would tell them to jump of the closest cliff and take legal action if they wanted. To forcibly remove someone's transportation without compensation or replacement, yea nah there is no situation where that is justified.

In Sweden, Tesla would have quite a lot of legal ground to stand on actually, and I think the law makes sense.

 

Let's say I sold you my car. We both stand next to the car, shake hands, sign the papers and then say good bye. But, I notice that my wallet has slid out and is currently lying in the seat of the car.

Would you honestly say that the law should allow you to keep my wallet? I think the law should say that the wallet was obviously not part of the deal and thus I am allowed to take it back, even if it was accidentally in the car when you bought it. We both understand that the wallet was an accident and that I should get it back. You didn't buy my wallet or the contents of it, you bought the car based on the information and price I provided you with. 

 

Likewise, I am sure the original owner understood that him getting a 90kWh battery even though he only paid for a 60kWh battery was a mistake. But he chose to profit from the mistake in the same way you would have profited from just keeping my forgotten wallet.

[Avocado Diaboli]

10 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

But you didn't own it. If you buy something and both you and the seller are under the assumption that you are buying one thing, but then it just so happens that something else was in the package, then you are not rightfully entitled to said thing.

Likewise, if I buy a car second hand and it turns out the seller accidentally forgot something in the trunk then I can't just go "sorry, those gold bars you forgot in the trunk are mine now".

I am not sure what the laws are in the US, but in Sweden we actually have laws that states keeping things in these circumstances are illegal. Likewise, if some employer accidentally pays you too much salary then you are legally required to give the money back. Hell, I am fairly sure you are legally required to report to the employer that you were paid too much, and then give the money back. I am not sure if the laws are like that in the US, but I think they should be. It is the right thing to do.

I guess this comes down to legislation. But I don't feel that just because you sold something without realizing what you sold somehow entitles you to anything.

 

Take for example a painting. Let's say I've got an old painting I'm selling to you at a flea market. After some time you decide to put that painting up for sale on a public marketplace where I can see it. It just so happens that what you possess is some obscure but priceless painting by a very famous artist. I can see the price go up into the hundreds of thousands. Neither you nor I knew of its apparent real value when we made the original transaction at the flea market. Am I entitled to a share of the profits?

 

However you answer that question should also guide your credo vis-a-vis the discussion of whether the current owner of that Tesla bought a 90 kWh battery that he gets to fully use or not. Because ultimately, since this was a warranty replacement, that usually states you have to remedy the issue either with an equivalent or better. If Tesla can't do the equivalent, they'll have to settle for better. You mentioned that returning the gold bars is "the right thing to do." Well if we want to morally judge the actions here, we need to do so for all of them, Tesla included.

 

Tesla replaced the battery under warranty, which typically states that they have to provide at least the equivalent of what you owned. If they can't they'll have to give you something better. The 90 kWh battery is obviously better than the original 60 kWh. So let's deviate from the actual thing that happend and hypothesize a bit. Let's assume that battery swap went through as intended and Tesla put in that 90 kWh battery but soft-locked it to 60 kWh. Here's where the moral question comes in: Did Tesla do the right thing by putting in a 90 kWh battery and eating that loss of a more expensive battery but at the same time also restricting their customer afterwards instead of just eating the loss and letting the customer have the free upgrade because they couldn't have met their minimum required replacement otherwise? I personally would say the right thing to do is let the customer have the upgrade.

 

After all, if you send back your faulty iPhone under warranty and get a completely new replacement device from Apple, they don't ding the frame from the 2 or 3 times you dropped your original phone to make the new one equivalent to your old phone. You get a completely new device without scuff marks. That's the freebie you get. It's strictly better than what you sent in, Apple don't go out of their way to make it perfectly equivalent. Because that's the right thing to do.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

Honestly, this whole OTA just allows car manufacturers to bring the software business model of:

• Ship broken software with the excuse you can fix them later for cheap OTA
• Allow a "Car As A Service" business model where features can be remotely locked to increase profitability
• Allow a "Option As A Service" business model where features are installed because it saves cost in production to have fewer skews, but have the buyer pay to activate them
• Allow an anti-repair stance where third party spare parts will be flagged by the manufacturers and have the client incur in "contract breach fees"

Imagine if you wanted to catch a crook by compelling an insider at the vehicle company to "break" the vehicle remotely.

 

1 hour ago, 05032-Mendicant-Bias said:

The only case where OTA is pro consumer:

• OTA is used to fix mistakes, quick and silently, instead of bringing the car to the repair shop.
• OTA is used to collect anonymous telemetry on the car, and feedback is used to optimize the vehicle design and functionality, things like torque curve, wheel weight distribution, center of gravity, fuel economy, break/suspension balance, maintenance requirements, etc...

I would like for regulations to come in hard and forbid manufacturers from locking in functionality that is physically installed in the vehicle.

The way I see it, there are technical or legal reasons to allow the manufacturer to do things, particularly if it assists with asset reclamation, or tracking/unlocking the vehicle itself.

 

But it's a two way street, anything that can be used for good, can also be used for evil purposes. Imagine if you're a car thief with a connection to someone on the inside. The insider tells the thief where the cars are when they're unattended, remotely unlocks them, and then the thief drives off with the vehicle while disabling the manufacturer's tracking. Vehicle then gets chopped up and no evidence is left behind. I'm sure there's big money if stealing lithium batteries.

 

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

In Sweden, Tesla would have quite a lot of legal ground to stand on actually, and I think the law makes sense.

They would if they had anything at all to do with the sale, which they did not. Would any other company be allowed to step in in any such way for second hand sales of items? Is Smeg patrolling around garage sales and pissing off used oven buyers? I don't think so and I highly doubt your laws allow them to.

 

9 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Let's say I sold you my car. We both stand next to the car, shake hands, sign the papers and then say good bye. But, I notice that my wallet has slid out and is currently lying in the seat of the car.

This is not the situation at all, lets get this issue abundantly straight because this is not the situation so you have to end this here now if you want to be talking about what actually happened and not something else in theoretical land.

 

3rd party unrelated entity came in and did something in your above example, so please do explain what legal right this 3rd party would have, far as I would understand totally zero.

 

Tesler was not the seller