It’s ridiculous how nowadays a lot of hardware car features are locked behind a simple software switch. Feels like both a massive waste of resources for people that don’t buy the upgrades, and like having to pay for a feature that is already physically present in your car. Software-only upgrades like full self driving are understandable, hardware upgrades locked behind a software gate aren’t.
Corey Doctorow calls it autoenshittification and wrote about it here … https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/
It’s cheaper to build identical cars than it is to add certain features to some and not to others.
Doesn’t make it any less scummy. Its just an artificial inflation of price.
If it’s cheaper then they should include it. It’s like being cheaper to make a more powerful engine then software limiting the car to only go to so many RPMs or speed. It’s that John Deere bullshit all over again.
Lots of car manufacturers already do that to keep models in line.
That will hold true until the manufacturers realize that there will always be someone smart enough to break their software lock, and on a car, there’s always ample incentive to do so.
Literally begging for people to hack your shit
Problem is there will never be a recall because of automaker’s greed, and that hacked software isn’t a danger to life … yet.
I wouldn’t expect them to recall. More likely that it will void all warranties and if you ever bring it to a dealership for anything they lock it and charge you for it. Or they go the DRM route and force cars to be always online to verify the software, and going offline locks out those extra features. Also possibly pushing for laws making hacking obscenely punishable.
Why would they charge a customer for a hack? It’s not like the customer has any control over the software/firmware the company uses?
The feature isn’t worth $15,000. They charge you that much to send a small, very specific sequence of bits to your car. That’s what you’re paying for because the feature’s already built in.
I feel a bit conflicted on this. On the one hand, charging for heated seats that are already there and which is a purely hardware feature is bullshit.
Other things like Full Self Driving aren’t as black and white. Sure, the sensors are there but those are relatively cheap. A massive part of FSD is the software, and developing this kind of software is extremely expensive.
Should everyone get a copy of Windows and Office for free because it’s ‘just some bits’ and the hardware is already there?
Calling it Full Self Driving is fraud, anyways.
I don’t think licenses and/or subscriptions should be allowable on cars. Selling the car means it might not transfer and there’s little way to ensure it has the software you need.
The windows analogy is almost there.
It’s more like, you pay for windows home edition, which would take up 24gb in your 128gb hard drive. But nope, it’s actually taking up 89gb. Why? Because it has all the features of Windows Ultimate edition, all locked away, taking up precious space in a hard drive that you’ve paid for.
So you’re worried about the hard disk space in your car ? Can you even access that as an end-user?
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What components are adding weight? AFAIK the components used by FSD are already in use by other features.
I’m not specifically talking about FSD, and if that is the case, then cool.
But when it’s shit like heated seats, then that’s bullshit. If you ever need to replace your seats, they will make you pay for the expensive model - with that disabled feature.
Anyway. Regardless, I’ll never buy a car with disabled features unless I pay a subscription.
Do you know what an analogy is?
Sure, but your analogy doesn’t make any sense. There is no downside to you because of this feature being in your car in a disabled state.
It’s not my analogy, but it does make sense if you even remotely think about it. The downside is that my car carries extra weight in the form of this additional hardware. Also depending on exactly what the hardware is, it can be an additional point of failure that could potentially cause things that I do have access to to break. Lastly, it’s fair to assume that the price of the car would be cheaper if Tesla didn’t have to install this hardware into every car even if it will never be used, so you are likely already paying for this in “hidden” costs that are just rolled into the total price of the car before even paying to enable the features.
I mean, people should be using open source software and Tesla should have its best software on every car for public safety.
Should programmers work for free? Will someone provide me with a free car to develop this on? Will someone provide me with a free test track?
The programmers who wrote the code were already paid, this argument doesn’t really hold up.
Also, the notion of people automatically not getting paid because open source is a farce.
The programmers who wrote the code were already paid, this argument doesn’t really hold up.
They can be paid because the company they work for charges money for what they produce.
The programmers who wrote the code were already paid, this argument doesn’t really hold up.
The idea that all, or even most, software should be open source is also ridiculous.
I think OSS is great, but it’s mainly suitable for a specific class of software. Specifically: software that everyone needs and where there is no point in having a lot of different implementations. If something is needed by everyone, then everyone should pitch in share the cost and effort. Take operating systems: everyone needs a general purpose OS, so having something like Linux makes sense. Everyone needs a HTML rendering engine, so that also makes sense as an OSS project. More specific software with a small target audience is better suited as closed software.
Should programmers work for free?
Most of the Internet as well as the Fediverse is built on open source software by people who aren’t working for free.
Will someone provide me with a free test track?
Should I be hit by a self-driving car by someone who didn’t pay extra to make it safer?
The pricing and resale structure for “full self driving” is insane and anti-consumer so I lean towards enabling the software with a jailbreak not being a horrible thing. I certainly would have no issue with this being done on a used car that had the paid “full self driving” software removed by the mothership.
EU needs to start targeting this DLC for cars bullshit.
Good luck on that. The EU has an incredibly powerful Automobile lobby. Many companies, particularly in germany, are eyeing “DLC cars” hungrily.
If you buy the hardware you should be able to turn it on. Jail breaking is fully moral in that situation.
The self driving is software that uses the hardware so should be paid for IMO. You should also be able to use your own software that’s open source on the hardware you own
Yes Hollywood. I absolutely fucking would download a car.
So they downloaded a car from a car?
“Music starts playing”
Wow, surprised that I hadn’t heard of THIS vulnerability that previously existed: https://electrek.co/2020/08/27/tesla-hack-control-over-entire-fleet/
Pretty wild stuff, and that was 6 years ago!
In before Elmo threatens with a lawsuit
While I dislike this model I understand it, in the past sometimes you needed to pay more for that brand new stereo or AC. What I find it annoying is that you bought the car with the upgrades already on it, just need to open the paywall.
And at the end of the day they won’t put it from their pocket, or you already paid for them or the people that bought the upgrades are financing the unused ones from others.
It really fucks with the resale market, too. As is the intention. People will be getting used cars and being told they need to pay full, new price to unlock features.
More reasons to want right to repair and adversarial interoperability. So that if Tesla refuses to reasonable implement features that the hardware fully supports, a third-party can do it instead.
$5 bucks that Elon is going to rename Twitter again or appoint David Duke as the VP of Operations or something just to distract people from this tomorrow.
I dunno, this is great but it’s also entirely possible Tesla retaliates by making your car ‘accidentally’ crash or something like that.
If Autopilot’s past performance is anything to go by, they don’t need to force it to do anything.
Are you talking about the toddler targeting vehicular assault package? That is some top notch programming, if we ever go to war with little kids, you can bet the DOD will buy up a fleet of Teslas in a heartbeat!
They don’t need to make it crash on purpose, it can do it just fine in normal operation.
