How can the extended range be controlled by a software feature? For me it is seems deeply unethical to limit the how long a mechanical device can operate via software. Imagine a printer that had a software limit of only printing 5 pages at a time.
In your hypothetical, you had a choice between buying a printer with unlimited concurrent printing and a cheaper printer that only prints 5 pages at a time.
You did your homework and decided to buy the cheaper one.
Where's the un-ethical part?
It just seems scummy to sell the same hardware to people at different price-points and enable/disable functionality purely in software - because the hardware is yours - you paid for it - the only reason you can’t use it to it’s fullest extent is a bunch of bits in a flash chip inside your car. The fact it was willingly sold to you at a lower means it’s very likely anything else paid on-top is just pure-profit. It’s difficult to morally justify withholding heated seats to a buyer (esp. one in a cold climate) simply because they didn’t give you more profit even though you willingly sold them the hardware capable of doing that.
It’s just about disrespecting the customer, plain and simple.
This is exactly right.
To flip the “you got what you paid for” argument on its head, the manufacturer willingly sold me this hardware at the agreed-upon price and shouldn’t complain if I enable “extra” functionality using non-manufacturer-approves means. Unfortunately, companies that engage in this business practice want it both ways.
A car owner discovered the "existence" of the 3 by poking around in the firmware.
Tesla's response was to 1) downgrade his firmware to a version that had no reference to the 3, 2) disable future firmware updates for that vehicle, and 3) for a final fuck-you, disabled his vehicle's Ethernet port, too.
You've completely switched your argument to what happened when instructions were posted about removing software imposed limits on a printer, not what happened (or might happen) in a similar situation with Tesla. Printers do not carry human occupants on a public road system which is heavily regulated and requires certification of vehicles for roadworthiness & safety, including regulation of owner made vehicle modifications.
If you have technical chops to do it, are irresponsible enough to patch complex software that controls a death machine and willing to accept that you're voiding your warranty, then go for it.
But don't call hacking software a "repair" or a free speech issue.
You want stuff but don't want to pay for it. Greed is all there is to it.
Which leaves us with just "it's better for the company (more profit)".
The cheaper Tesla wouldn't be possible with these kinds of cost optimizations.
The alternative in this situation isn't an ICE, it's the non-limited Tesla.
And in your argument, those other drivers should be pissed off, because you're saying they're getting worse value for money with less lifetime, for more cost.
At $30k it's the limited tesla (with rebate) or an ICE.
Both the limited and unlimited tesla owners get a benefit. Higher volumes and more cars to amortize R&D over.
I don't get your point though. The limited range version still gets the promised range, even though the car is heavier.
The unlimited range car gets more for the money because tesla can sell a higher volume of cars, which makes it possible for tesla to sell at such low price points.
EDIT: FWIW, there is a metric ton of software and firmware that is crucial to achieve the advertised range. So if it makes you feel better you can think of it as not the mechanical product operating differently, just the software product.
You should gladly by this product thats artificially limited since the cost to enable that new feature is theoretically lower and faster with less chance of things going wrong. They are able to offer you a better product with more price points by engaging in software-gating. If they did not do this it would be difficult to maintain so many different SKU's and youd wait longer to get your car. Servicing it would be more work and youd be less satisfied.
I think what rubs people the wrong was is that _most people_ would assume there is a higher capacity battery in the extended range version as compared to the standard range version. That's the expensive part here, the battery. It would make sense to have to spend more money to get a bigger battery. But to find out that both models have the same battery and there's just a damn software lock differentiating the two? Come on.
Most inject printers have exactly that. There's a chip on the ink cartridge which tells the printer how much it can print, the printer then decrements it as prints occur until it reaches 0.
Often ink cartridges will be 1/3 full and refuse to print because they're "empty." You used to be able to bypass this by blocking a contact point on the chip, but no longer.
All that is partly why I drive a car without any software control --- it's not really environmentally friendly, but I enjoy knowing that there's no "hidden gremlin" that will disobey me, no DMCA-ish laws to worry about, and the freedom of having complete ownership. ...and I consider the power/torque, (real) sound, and cheap parts to be a side-benefit.
Otherwise it would just be the vehicle's normal driving range.