Mark, have you looked into obtaining service manuals and the challenges of
working on your own Tesla? I get the impression (correct me if I'm wrong)
that Tesla discourages owners from doing anything but driving their cars.
And by "their," I mean Tesla, not you. From what I can tell, you don't ever
fully own a Tesla.
Many or most "options" seem to actually already exist in the cars' hardware.
They're just artificially disabled in its software until you pay for the
right to use them. This might be OK with you if you grew up with
crippleware commercial software and think it's just fine, but it really
grates on me.
Tesla effectively remains in control of the car you buy (or should I say
"acquire the rights to"?).
There are all kinds of nefarious things they could do with this capability,
and you're counting on them to be nice.
Like Apple did with Iphones, if they want you to buy a new car, they could
deliberately and gradually degrade your Tesla's range or performance.
If someday they decide they want more money from you, they could decree that
formerly free functions were "in testing mode" or something, but now you
have to pay a monthly fee to keep them.
If someday they shut down the computers that the cars phone home to, will
Teslas turn into 2-ton bricks? Or will they be like the 1950s Studebakers
and Packards that you can still restore and drive today?
It seems to me that if you don't fully control where and how you use a
product that you've bought, you don't really own that product. If you're
considering writing that big of a check, I think that you owe it to yourself
to look closely at what you're really buying.
\ / (R) Registered Rabbitmark
\/
['']
*/ \*
{ }
\ /@
^^
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
The phrase "May you live in interesting times" is the lowest
in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continues "May you come
to the attention of those in authority," and finishes with
"May the gods give you everything you ask for." I have no
idea about its authenticity.
-- Terry Pratchett
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
_______________________________________________
UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub
ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/
LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
