The implications of Tesla’s recent action against a used car buyer are all at the same time dastardly, expected, and possibly a sign of nefarious things to come. Tesla, run by Elon Musk who is as close to Tony Stark we are (unfortunately) going to get in the real world, made headlines again this week. The story goes that a Tesla Model S was sold at auction recently, and then sold again by the auction goer at their dealership. The purchaser was promised a Model S with the works. Tesla, who offer a broad range of services from sending us to space to creating the most appealing electric vehicles on the market, decided that this was a mistake, and that since the current owner didn’t technically pay for the upgraded model, they didn’t deserve the features. Tesla then used the car’s ultra-connected features to strip away said features, such as the much touted auto-pilot, and left the user with a car worth essentially $8,000 dollars less than what they were promised.
This marks the first time that a car was connected enough that the maker could punish consumers for aftermarket sales. While this is the first time this story has made it’s way into the auto space, I have seen it before in other categories. Microsoft, for instance, caught flak bake in 2013 when they announced the then much anticipated relief console to the Xbox 360, the Xbox One. The company shared a long document after the official announcement at that years video game trade show E3, hidden within was a message that detailed their new policy on used game sales. That is, games that were played on one console would be locked to said console. This meant that consumers could no longer play used games, a huge portion of the market at the time, on this new device. There was, as you might expect, outrage at this notion. So much so that their competitor Sony released a commercial mocking the announcement, where they detailed how to share used games on their own console. The commercial consisted of two of the higher-ups at Sony standing in a room. One handed a game to the other, and the man answered with “Thanks!”. The commercial was a huge hit and certainly helped bolster the companies position over Microsoft with their friendliness towards used games. Microsoft buckled, and would eventually allow used games on their console. When it comes to Tesla, we may not be so lucky.
The implications of a company being able to remotely remove features as they see fit is abhorrently anti-consumer. I believe we, as computer scientist, should work to not just protect consumers but have the users of our creation’s best interest in mind at all times. Tesla flipped this on its head this week, going as far as to tell the new owner of the virtually stripped down vehicle that they would happily let him purchase the upgrades at full price. There is not enough space on this page to begin to talk about the perceived worth of virtual goods, but this feels entirely different. The performance of the car was purposely lessened by Tesla with the intention of forcing the owner to pay them for features they had already paid for. For me, there is no question. Tesla is wrong in this case. When you buy something, you expect to get what you are promised. Monetary value is prescriptive. Tesla may very well believe they are within their rights, but it is ultimately their duty to provide ways to improve their product when found. Since it’s release, Tesla has pushed out updates that have even improved their 0-60 mph times and one time even botched an update and ruined braking for some models. This is both impressive and daunting, and the pressure should be on Tesla to not continue their research into making their product the most functional it can be, but to offer these updates for free. The fact that they expect you to pay $8000 dollars to update to a better firmware is absurd not because it’s a new process, but simply because we all know it is unethical.
Article Source: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update
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