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Tesla

From Consumer Action Taskforce
Revision as of 04:33, 15 January 2025 by 194.32.120.85 (talk) (Added example about how Tesla removed the radar functionality in a mandatory OTA update even though customers had already paid for the radar hardware. And two more examples. Please improve.)
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Tesla is a company founded in 2003 and taken over by Elon Musk between then and 2008. Elon Musk has taken the company in radical directions since and started on a foot of trying to follow in Apple's, from a consumer protection standpoint, controversial steps with things like requiring subscriptions or just flat-out being a Tesla technician to fix 2012's Model S, and then going beyond that and truly waging war on consumers, whether it's the continued denial of adding Apple Carplay or Android Auto to their vehicles, putting an expiry date on their cars and leaving people woefully at the whims of Elon Musk choosing what can and can't be done with their vehicles; or making a $100,000 "utility" vehicle whose warranty is void by a simple carwash.

Tesla was early in holding functionality hostage that the car owner had already bought and paid for, when Tesla decided to "offer an acceleration boost" that made the car accelerate faster once the "acceleration boost" software change was bought.

Tesla advertised how good and useful it was that their Tesla Model 3 cars had a hardware radar installed. A few years later Tesla decided to no longer include the radar hardware in their Tesla Model 3 cars they build from then on. But Tesla kept including the radar hardware in their more expensive Model S (and maybe also Model X?) cars. Shortly thereafter Tesla released a forced software OTA update that disabled the radar hardware in all older Tesla Model 3 cars too. One consequence of disabling the already bought radar was that the older cars now also had a forced TACC (Traffic-Aware Cruise Control) following distance interval reduced from 1-7 to 2-7. Another consequence was that those cars now also had a lot worse ability to be aware of traffic around them which made their autopilot decisions much worse, such as panic braking for no apparent good reason.

Tesla regularly removes car features that everyone takes for granted nowadays eg. their Ultrasonic Sensors (parking sensors)presumably to save Tesla money, but when they remove such features, they don't advertise that they are missing clearly which is immoral because their customers pay for a car that they reasonably assume will include such essential and common hardware. Tesla also has removed their hardware rain sensors for similar reasons and similar consequences.