Well, why don't they just let the car contact the owner directly then?
Probably easier to have one non-changeable email/phone number in the firmware than have to modify/update it for every person they sell the car to.
Plus, it means the company gets to have a personal connection to all of their users, and when you're talking about a $100k buy-in, that might be the sort of attention a lot of these owners are expecting.
Re:Tesla responds to "bricking" issue
by droithomme on Friday February 24, 2012 @05:42PM
(#3631442)
Same reason Apple doesn't let you copy individual files from your iPad to your iMac, you have to let Apple servers be the intermediary.
Which is presumably why they're doing this:
> Starting with Roadster 2.0, owners can also elect for their car to contact Tesla headquarters once the state of charge falls below a specified level, and we can then contact the owner.