You think it's bad when Tesla do it just wait until the states get API access and deactivate your car over an unpaid ticket that doesn't actually exist because all these databases are filled with crap.

Reminds me of the story about the "NULL" license plate. The story where they got all the tickets assigned to cars where the plate reading failed.

They can already do that, considering that most (normal) cars have anti-theft systems (aka remote kill switches). The only thing missing is the API access, like you mentioned.

I can understand that Tesla can strip features when you sell the car back to Tesla, but are they doing it as part of private party transfers?

I've seen lots of articles about different cases, but this one is dominating the Google rankings right now:

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-remotely-removes-autopilot-featur...

The car was bought from Tesla, but the features was disabled AFTER the sale, and indeed, after a resale had been agreed to. So it's not quite with no involvement from Tesla here, but I've seen ones in completely private resales too; just can't find them right now.

I would returned the car to their dealer... through the window.

Edit: Autopilot didn't engage, that's weird...

Tesla's reasoning for disabling FSD on some of their buyback cars is so they can sell it for a lower price and give the user the option to one-click purchase FSD in the future without needing a service appointment.

For the private sell situation, this is close to what you might be thinking of[0]. Supposedly the story is: Tesla bought a car back, however then sold it to an auction house and enabled FSD as a "demo". The auction house mistakenly listed the features as being enabled, and when the car sold Tesla never disabled the FSD demo. When the user then privately sold the car to a new owner, the new owner performed the ownership transfer, however either a human or some automated system saw that the FSD demo was enabled and disabled it.

0: https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-disables-autopilot-on-...

I think you'll find that nobody can provide a source for that scenario... because it never happened.

The closest thing you'll find is that Tesla sold a used trade-in that originally had Autopilot. The car was not advertised to have Autopilot in the used listing, which is kind of a key point that people "forget" when citing the case. Tesla apparently semi-frequently disable features in trade-ins and resell the trade-in as a lower-spec car (for less money).

Tesla made the mistake of not disabling autopilot before delivering the car to the second owner, who believed they hit the lottery and got free autopilot. Recall that the car was sold used as a non-autopilot car. Tesla later corrected the mistake, and it generated a shit-storm.

I agree it's creepy that they can turn off features of a car that has left the factory, but they don't routinely do it for features that people has paid for.

The story is a little bit different, since it involved a third-party sale. A CAR DEALERSHIP sold a Tesla car with autopilot advertised to the end buyer. It was disabled by Tesla who had sold it to the dealership apparently without that advertising (the dealership presumably checked the car over, and sold it in the state it was in; not an unreasonable thing to do). But that's besides the point. No one is arguing your Tesla overlords are unkind right now.

The difference between a license/lease and ownership is who has that power.

Yahoo was an awesome company for the first few years. Companies change. Amazon and Google are not exactly in an upwards trajectory right now either, although for many years, they could do no wrong.

I 100% believe Tesla will treat its owners well while it's in the exponential growth startup phase, and doing well. It's counting on word-of-mouth for continued growth. If I buy a car which I have licensed from Tesla, I'm hedging on that continuing. Once growth stops, companies enter the phase where they start to milk existing customers. If a company runs into financial problems, it enters a phase where it needs to exploit existing customers.

That's for one person. If we all buy a car from Tesla, we're all giving up power as consumers for the long haul.

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/03/23/tesla-removing-content-f... - This article lists two cases.

Yes. I recall reading about a man who sold his car with Autopilot activated, and when Tesla got wind of the sale, they deactivated Autopilot on the new owner.

I'd really like to be able to disconnect my car from the internet.

Connected cars using a data communication module (DCM) are going to be required in every market eventually. The EU has already mandated this. In Japan, Toyota rolled out its Connected Cars initiative to all its vehicles in 2018. In the USA, Toyota put a DCM in select cars for telemetry almost ten years ago and this year they stated all their remaining vehicles will get them. All the luxury brands such as BMW and Porsche have a DCM for telemetry, safety, and service support.

States that use fuel taxes to fund road improvements will need to find other ways to tax electric vehicles and data derived from DCM will help them. Plus, autonomous transport will need to communicate.

> The EU has already mandated this.

Are you thinking about eCall? That is only supposed to be activated during an emergency.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/security-and-em...

If communication module is mandatory even only for emergency, it makes easier entire car to be connected.

The EU requires the module to be powered off except in an emergency. So it's not in contact with cell towers all the time, except when it needs to make an emergency call. It's easy enough to detect the transmissions with simple hardware.

Taxes sound like a lame excuse to have mandatory tracking. From odometer readings at inspection to registration charges it is neither the only nor the most efficient way to charge for road usage. Especially since it would in practice regress to a 'max theoretical charge' as an opt out for taxation purposes - even if bounded changing for some absolutely ridiculous assumptions like your car spends all year going in a free loop at the maximium safe speed 24-7 while loaded to maximium capacity.

I am _so_ happy the newest vehicle I own is a 2004 model, and only 1 of my 4 vehicles is "modern" enough to have fuel injection - on all the others the most sophisticated electronics are the spark/ignition timing black boxes (for which there are aftermarket and even open source alternatives...)

I'm not sure I'll make the rest of my time out without buying something newer and "digital", but I fully intend to keep my stone age motorcycles for at least as long at I can legally ride them...

Great, the EU has picked up its surveillance effort of citizens again.

Long time ago. Ford and Toyota already stream real-time telemetry in the EU.

I think the GDPR would make an opt-out requirement mandatory. Still you can always physically disconnect the module and likely there will be an aftermarket solution to disable whatever warning lights come on.

> I'd really like to be able to disconnect my car from the internet.

Someone needs to create a database of 1) what cars contain LTE modems and 2) how to modify the car to disable/compromise them (e.g. how to unplug or block the antenna).

I would love to see this.

But your over-the-air updates!

You can do this with a Tesla of course; either disable remote access (leaving open firmware updates and traffic analysis to the mothership) or remove the Wi-Fi and cellular antennas. While a bit involved, it is entirely possible and will leave you with a perfectly "working" Tesla.

The car doesn't require connectivity. Although it sure is nice being able to pre-heat or pre-cool your car before you go drive it.

There are also jailbreak options for Teslas.. you too can run a virtual machine inside of your entertainment computer.

We should get it right (vs the banking shitshow) this time and mandate FRAND access by third parties at the network-car interface.

And ban auto companies from offering first-party, non-vehicle services.

They're welcome to spin off divisions, who can compete with everyone else.

At least this time around we already have OAuth.

Buy a car from the 90s or early 00s that doesn't have such features.

If you get one with an old unpatched firmware, you could root it and you patch it to take it offline...

Where is my Tesla-homebrew?

Soon there will be no cars that you can own. BMW is thinking of a software subscription system for cars: https://www.businessinsider.com/bmw-subscription-model-for-f...

Yeah. This is how I feel too. I think eventually there will be enough lobbying that you'll be forced to take your car to a dealer for regular maintenance, but it'll mostly be a scam to generate recurring revenue. They'll sell it as a safety issue, but it'll be closer to charging you an exorbitant amount of money to rotate the tires and check the fluid levels.

Between that and DLC style options, they'll price anchor everything so the only option that makes any economic sense is to lease. Watch for 2nd and 3rd owner leasing options in the next 20 years IMO.

You mean what the Simpsons had a gag on in Season 10?

Customs is the answer, there are custom EVs already.

Also they like to disable supercharging.