Tesla Fights Performance Hacks for Its Electric Cars (electrek.co) 240
Engadget reports:
You might not want to rush into installing an unofficial performance boost for your Tesla. Users on Reddit (via Electrek) have discovered that the latest software for Tesla's Model 3 thwarts an Ingenext mod that unlocks features like an extra 50HP and Drive Mode...
These features typically cost thousands of dollars to unlock through Tesla (such as a $2,000 Acceleration Boost), so there's a strong incentive for buyers willing to take the risk... [T]his suggests would-be performance hackers could be in for a challenge if they want to maximize the potential of Tesla's EVs without the company's blessing — they might not have more than a small window of time before Tesla clamps down again.
Electrek reports on the warnings their drivers receive: Tesla says that it detected "incompatible vehicle modification" and that it could result in a "potential risk of damage or shutdown." The notification apparently stays stuck on the screen like that, but the vehicle remains drivable.... That was kind of expected. It is basically a cat and mouse game between hacking the inverter and Tesla patching the hack...
I get why some people would want to do the hack since the capacity is already in the cars that they bought and Tesla claiming that it could result in damages is weird since they are basically using the same code as their own acceleration boost. But at the same time, you are also running third-party software.
Again, at your risk.
These features typically cost thousands of dollars to unlock through Tesla (such as a $2,000 Acceleration Boost), so there's a strong incentive for buyers willing to take the risk... [T]his suggests would-be performance hackers could be in for a challenge if they want to maximize the potential of Tesla's EVs without the company's blessing — they might not have more than a small window of time before Tesla clamps down again.
Electrek reports on the warnings their drivers receive: Tesla says that it detected "incompatible vehicle modification" and that it could result in a "potential risk of damage or shutdown." The notification apparently stays stuck on the screen like that, but the vehicle remains drivable.... That was kind of expected. It is basically a cat and mouse game between hacking the inverter and Tesla patching the hack...
I get why some people would want to do the hack since the capacity is already in the cars that they bought and Tesla claiming that it could result in damages is weird since they are basically using the same code as their own acceleration boost. But at the same time, you are also running third-party software.
Again, at your risk.
First sale doctrine.. (Score:3)
It was nice knowing you, you will be missed.
Re:First sale doctrine.. (Score:5, Interesting)
More detail on the first sale doctrine, for those interested (from justice.gov):
The first sale doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. Â 109, provides that an individual who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner. The right to distribute ends, however, once the owner has sold that particular copy. See 17 U.S.C. Â 109(a) & (c).
Further, the privileges created by the first sale principle do not "extend to any person who has acquired possession of the copy or phonorecord from the copyright owner, by rental, lease, loan, or otherwise, without acquiring ownership of it." See 17 U.S.C. Â 109(d). Most computer software is distributed through the use of licensing agreements.
Under the first sale doctrine, it's arguably not ILLEGAL for a Tesla owner to modify their copy of the firmware. It's also arguably not illegal for Tesla's software to display a warning when detects that the firmware has been tampered with.
Re:First sale doctrine.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Under the first sale doctrine, it's arguably not ILLEGAL for a Tesla owner to modify their copy of the firmware. It's also arguably not illegal for Tesla's software to display a warning when detects that the firmware has been tampered with.
It is also arguably not ILLEGAL for Tesla to kindly tell you to Go Fuck Yourself when it detects you've tampered with firmware on a device that is easily capable of killing people.
TL; DR - Do whatever the hell you want to "your" car. Just don't be surprised at the consequences.
Re:First sale doctrine.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First sale doctrine.. (Score:5, Informative)
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If you buy a tesla and pay for these to be unlocked, If you turn around and sell the car Tesla will disable them.
Tesla do no such thing for features that they have registered as enabled against the vehicle. The car in question was modified in a fashion not authorised for sale. Did you miss the massive story Slashdot ran on this? Features enabled for demonstration purposes, not part of the original car sale etc etc.
Telsas are sold second hand constantly and they don't go magically removing features of the car willy-nilly to extort more money out of buyers. Please put a bit more thought into your accusations.
Re:First sale doctrine.. (Score:5, Informative)
uhm. That's not what happened at all. They did go removing features that were paid for. Did you even bother to read the link?
They did not... I dug into this a bit when it was a huge story a few months back. IIRC.
1) Tesla sold vehicle to original owner with FSD, reflected in window sticker.
2) Tesla bought back vehicle !!!this is the important part!!!
3) Tesla removed FSD on their end prior to resale
4) Tesla sold vehicle at auction to a third-party dealer
5) Dealer noted vehicle had FSD enabled, original window sticker listed FSD, so they naturally assumed the car still had an FSD license and marketed / resold it as such to the victim.
6) Car eventually receives OTA update reconciling FSD license status with Tesla's backend and victim is sad.
Note : In step #3 Tesla once again fully owned the car. They can do whatever they please with their property. They can set it on fire. They can paint it pink, rip out passenger seat, and replace the upgraded rims with cinder-blocks prior to auction. The window sticker is nothing more than a historical artifact past the original sale.
So the only germane fact, which nobody actually bothered to investigate AFAIK, was whether or not the auction in step #4 was represented to the third-party dealer as having FSD. This dictates whether the dealer has a course of action against Tesla / Auction house. Otherwise the victim's beef is entirely with the third-party dealer which sold them the car.
That being said, Tesla PR should have done everything in their power to squash this issue immediately. You don't want the mis-informed take-away message from this whole mess to be that Tesla can capriciously take away features from owners.
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2) Tesla bought back vehicle !!!this is the important part!!!
3) Tesla removed FSD on their end prior to resale
4) Tesla sold vehicle at auction to a third-party dealer
5) Dealer noted vehicle had FSD enabled, original window sticker listed FSD, so they naturally assumed the car still had an FSD license and marketed / resold it as such to the victim.
You don't see 4 and 5 as the most important part of the sage? Tesla sold the vehicle with the feature enabled--that is not in dispute. Tesla later disabled the feature after sale.
While analogy is always suspect, your point is analogous to "sorry, the alloy wheels we sold the vehicle with were for demonstration purposes only, so we drove up in the middle of the night and replaced them with steel wheels."
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uhm. That's not what happened at all. They did go removing features that were paid for. Did you even bother to read the link?
Yep. I read the link the first time it was posted. It doesn't make it any less incorrect.
By the way President Trump is black. There you go. It's official now because someone can link to this post as "evidence" on the internet that it is a fact.
Life doesn't work like that. The story was heavily investigated by media the world over looking for a juicy story, and unfortunately no they didn't disable a feature which was "paid for" (in this case payment going to Tesla for a feature of their car). Tesla sold the
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Yes their primary motivation is probably the financial loss but those other things are significant too.
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You don't actually believe that Tesla is worried about people being killed by these hacks, do you?
Killed? No. This is America we're talking about. Sued by survivors? Absolutely.
Re:First sale doctrine.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you serious?
Imagine that just 1% of all Tesla owners install an unauthorized 'Speed Upgrade' that oops, disables your brakes. Newspaper headlines will be full of "Innocent three year old wonder kid killed by out of control Tesla car!" No one, neither the newspapers nor the readers, will CARE that it was an unauthorized hack; the kid was killed by Tesla.
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TESLA CARS can be HACKED to kill your CHILDREN!
There, now we're both right.
Re:First sale doctrine.. (Score:5, Funny)
Having deaths associated with your product is bad for business.
Kinda depends on the product and who died. I mean, if you're selling electric-chairs or lethal-injection equipment, etc... to prisons, then it could be a good thing. Just sayin'.
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If the death is in a car running hacked firmware, Tesla can blame it on the hack and come out with far less bad PR than had it happened to unmodified car.
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Barely so. A pale shadow of what they used to be before smoking was linked to lung cancer.
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Under the first sale doctrine, it's arguably not ILLEGAL for a Tesla owner to modify their copy of the firmware. It's also arguably not illegal for Tesla's software to display a warning when detects that the firmware has been tampered with.
It is also arguably not ILLEGAL for Tesla to kindly tell you to Go Fuck Yourself when it detects you've tampered with firmware on a device that is easily capable of killing people.
TL; DR - Do whatever the hell you want to "your" car. Just don't be surprised at the consequences.
The law should uphold how you use potential lethal weapons you own (cars, guns, bags of fertiliser, ...) . Not vendors like Tesla.
Otherwise they had better be also watching for when someone changes the wheels, adds a spoiler or does any other 'everyday' modification that could result in different performance that could result in injury/death. If they aren't concerned about that, they are showing they are only concerned about the $.
Re:First sale doctrine.. (Score:5, Insightful)
tesla really doesn't care about the implications. they really, really don't. after all tesla is the company that hacked a line assist warning system into an "autopilot" system and gave 0 fucks while doing so that the sensor package provider objected to the stupid hack because the sensor package was not good enough or meant for doing that, even though technically it's a very easy hack to just hack the line assist values to steering input which is 1000000% exactly what tesla did.
so they're kinda hypocritical with that right there.
----
even more so because they sell the performance upgrades themselves. look it's one thing to void the warranty on the motor/inverter for doing so but it's a whole another thing to mess with the vehicle otherwise via a patch pushed after the thing had been done already.
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It is also arguably not ILLEGAL for Tesla to kindly tell you to Go Fuck Yourself when it detects you've tampered with firmware on a device
They don't even have to do that. Tesla's firmware division is under no obligation to ensure backwards compatibility with all third party hacks.
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This would be the issue I would have with doing one of these 3rd party hacks - you spend thousands of dollars, and basically you MUST disable over-the-air updates or you lose that money when Tesla eventually changes the software enough that either the hack no longer functions, or if they actually go out of their way to squash it.
Usually you can get away with hacks like this in other engines because the ECU doesn't ever get updated once installed in the vehicle. Tesla updates their shit all the time, so you
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This is as bad as Apple or Microsoft where they seem to truly believe that you don't own your own car, it still belongs to Tesla.
This crap is why we had to have laws mandating the availability of diagnostic equipment to third parties, otherwise you would have no choice but to get your car fixed by the dealer. No voiding your warranty because you fitted unapproved tyres or changed the bulbs yourself.
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It is also arguably not ILLEGAL for Tesla to kindly tell you to Go Fuck Yourself when it detects you've tampered with firmware on a device that is easily capable of killing people.
TL; DR - Do whatever the hell you want to "your" car. Just don't be surprised at the consequences.
Moss-Magnuson was written specifically with the auto industry in mind.
What you call “tampering”, others call “making improvements to my personal property”.
And most devices are capable of killing people. They
Nuances (Score:3)
A little bit more complex in practice:
It's also arguably not illegal for Tesla's software to display a warning when detects that the firmware has been tampered with.
Tesla Model 3s are also *cars* that travel on *public roads*. Thus Tesla Motors needs to make clear that unauthorized modifications of the car might render it not street legal.
If some tweak are in risk of making the car dangerous (pushing some component beyond spec), there should be made that Tesla Motors can't be held responsible for such modifications.
Tweaks to the autopilot driving assistant would be an obvious example of where things can go dangerous.
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"Tesla Model 3s are also *cars* that travel on *public roads*. Thus Tesla Motors needs to make clear that unauthorized modifications of the car might render it not street legal."
Uh oh, you better rush out and tell every manufacturer on the planet for the last 100 years that they need to make it clear that unauthorized modifications might render it not street legal ! You better let everyone know right away before... uh... oh right...
https://koenig-performance.com... [koenig-performance.com] ...
https://www.hotrod.com/how-to/... [hotrod.com]
https://ruf-automobile.de/en/ [ruf-automobile.de]
http://tech-racingcars.wikidot... [wikidot.com]
https://www.shelbyengines.com/ [shelbyengines.com]
http://www.northjerseycustoms.... [northjerseycustoms.com]
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Most Americans don't have safety inspections. Californians have what are essentially tax inspections; if you've changed anything between the air filter and the catalyst (and any sensors downstream of same) then you need a CARB EO number for it. A few states do have safety inspections, but they are fairly limited affairs.
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Not reasonable to expect Tesla to enforce those rules though, especially when they also sell competing performance upgrade products.
This is just another "unauthorized ink detected" error message designed to force you to buy Tesla products at inflated prices.
Re:Nuances (Score:5, Informative)
People have been modifying cars for as long as cars have existed, there are thousands of resources available providing information on how to modify cars and plenty of commercial vendors selling equipment specifically for the purpose of modding cars in various ways.
There is also plenty of legal history showing that the car owner is responsible for keeping their car road legal if they want to operate it on public roads, and it is well understood that the manufacturer is not liable for modifications they didn't provide.
Cars have been available in multiple trim levels for a long time so for the same basic car if you pay more you get more features, better sound system or a more powerful engine etc. There are also many third party vendors out there that will offer upgrades equivalent to or in some cases superior to the higher trim offering from the manufacturer and usually a lot cheaper than the manufacturer's options.
The difference here is that the upgrade doesn't actually cost anything to provide, as all the necessary equipment is already present in the stock model and it's artificially restricted from being used. Personally i would hate the idea that a product i purchased was artificially restricting my usage of it and i would actively seek ways to make full use of the purchased product.
Since what they're doing is enabling a feature that is present in a factory model, there is no way this modification alone could render the vehicle non road legal.
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Since what they're doing is enabling a feature that is present in a factory model, there is no way this modification alone could render the vehicle non road legal.
In this specific example yes. However the method and degree of modifications are not known in great detail. It's one thing to flip a bit that enables "fast" version, quite another to e.g. put it in some kind of developer mode that gives access to other features that may not be standard.
How much do you actually know about what this complex software does?
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Utter irrelevant - the owner owns the car , he can legally do whatever the hell he wants to it and if that involves hacking the software thats entirely his lookout.
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Legally as in "he won't be arrested for doing that". Yes.
Legally as in "he can drive the car on a public road afterwards without consequence". No.
Same as all mods, for every car.
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I don't know how true it is, but someone else here said that this dongle works by intercepting and rewriting CANbus messages. If true, this is certainly in an area where the car can be severely affected.
It only has to rewrite one incorrect message, rewrite it incorrectly, not keep up with software updates that the car is automatically applying itself, or delay a message by a fraction of a second for it to have potentially disastrous consequences.
As such, though an owner is quite within their rights to, say
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Clearly Tesla consider the extra performance to be a perfectly reasonable and within-spec use of the vehicle, as they are willing to provide that feature to anyone willing to pay extra for it.
The fact that vehicle owners have had to jump through hoops to try and enable functionality that is already present in the car they bought should be blamed firmly on tesla. If they weren't trying to squeeze their customers in this way, the feature could be made available to every customer to simply turn on through the
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I'd also be interested what insurers think of this. I remember years ago it wasn't uncommon to open a car magazine and be greeted with adverts
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The problem I see (IANAL) with the software is just licensed and not subject to the first sale doctrine argument is that the software/firmware that controls the car is inseparable from car itself. You can't simply return the Tesla software if you don't like the license agreement and keep the car. Someone (the Government) needs to decide what takes precedence and either the car *and* its software are sold or licensed. Tesla / Elon can't have it both ways.
Yeah, but so what? (Score:2)
Agreed, that seems a reasonable argument to me.
If we accept that, it's not illegal for the owner of the car to change the firmware. So Tesla can't sue the owner.
And it's not illegal for Tesla's firmware to detect it's been tampered with and display a prominent warning.
One could argue it's not illegal for the Tesla boot code to decline to drive a car with tampered firmware, which may have been set to make the car automatically go full-throttle ten minutes after startup. Once the boot code recognizes (from
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It is illegal, if you install a piece of software at your cost to achieve the result you want with the hardware and software you bought. Basically Tesla is consciously and actively destroying the value of the code you bought and install, on purpose, they destroyed the property you own, on purpose. That is vandalism and theft, both prosecutable and considering the value of the vehicle in it's entirety, that is the value they are vandalising, a felony.
So it would be a computer crime for Tesla to wilfully dest
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Modification of copyright code on a firmware that's part of a car would not fall under 1st sale doctrine. The courts have routinely found that the copyright holder still holds right to the copyrighted code.
I suggest you consult the cleanflicks precedent where it was found that first sale is irrelevant where copyright is concerned.
Copyright has always been a way around first sale doctrine and it's why the move to software controlled vehicles will likely remove the owners rights to modify the vehicle or even
Re:First sale doctrine.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Your final comment "...in the US" is quite important here. Huge companies have tried to abuse copyright to prevent things like resale of software in other places such as the EU, and have sometimes lost high profile lawsuits about it, setting precedents that certain actions aren't restricted by copyright in that way, whatever the licence agreement says.
The issue of enforcing control over hardware products by abusing copyright in embedded software is only going to become more prominent as more of the manufacturers try to lock down their products in user-hostile ways. I have some hope that the right-to-repair movement will prevail. This is not only because I personally think it's a bad principle to allow that kind of behaviour, but because pragmatically these measures are being used to push unpleasant behaviours that users won't like, from spying on them to forcing changes they don't want to, most importantly, costing them extra money in ways most people would probably consider unfair. But I think it's going to be an uphill battle and probably take quite a few years before the legal dust settles.
Good & Bad (Score:5, Interesting)
On the one hand, I hope this is a battle that Tesla looses. We have enough devices in our lives where the manufacturer is ignoring what final sale means as they grasp for more micro-transactions. We really need, as a society, to punish this sort of behavior and review how to change the laws so corporate types can't make changes to your hardware whenever they want.
However... I am not thrilled with the idea of untested, uncertified code going into a vehicle and the liability issues that will stem from it. Then again, who can say how much testing Telsa's own code goes through? At least if they send a patch to your car and it explodes, you know who to sue. Although I suppose if someone runs you over because a bug in the darkweb software they loaded borked their steering assembly, the driver will be the focus of liability. That doesn't get that bad code off the web or make sure it gets fixed though.
OIL change lights in cars that may have an dealer (Score:2)
OIL change lights in cars that may have an dealer only reset code can be the same thing and law thing we need an some DMCA BS to sue jiffy lube to stop useing then. So the dealer can force into $250 oil changes.
Re:Good & Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
However... I am not thrilled with the idea of untested, uncertified code going into a vehicle and the liability issues that will stem from it.
I hear you. But really, the code running on the car really is Tesla's code. This is just unlocking that code.
In my vehicle, the community has found a bunch of software features that are available in the cabin control node but simply not available to customers. There are various OBD packages that can enable those features. Little things like "if you press and hold the unlock key on the keyfob, the windows roll down." It sounds like this is the same... only Telsa wants to license unlocking those features.
Mostly this stuff just works by reading saved codes, and toggling an enabled/disabled bit. If this was something like enabling full self-driving that doesn't really exist, I'd be concerned. But unlocking a battery/engine performance mode that you can have just by cutting a check? Likely not dangerous.
Provisioning problems (Score:2)
The code might run fine on the device, but it might also require some things to be provisioned upstream. If those things aren't provisioned, the feature may not work very well...or at all.
It depends on how it's implemented.
For Teslas, it depends on what's local and what's remote. And since that's considered implementation dependent it's subject to change at any time.
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I hear you. But really, the code running on the car really is Tesla's code. This is just unlocking that code.
Did they contact Tesla and ask if their "not available to customers" code was actually "safe for customers"? Or maybe it was not available for a reason, such as holding down the button on the key fob rolls up the windows and then slams on the accelerator marked with /* NEEDS FIXING DO NOT SHIP */ of course.
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I hear you. But really, the code running on the car really is Tesla's code. This is just unlocking that code.
Did they contact Tesla and ask if their "not available to customers" code was actually "safe for customers"? Or maybe it was not available for a reason, such as holding down the button on the key fob rolls up the windows and then slams on the accelerator marked with /* NEEDS FIXING DO NOT SHIP */ of course.
Again, I get it. My car isn't a Tesla, but I brought it up as illustration. Many of the feature-toggles my community has played with are a matter of trim-levels. Enabling radio screen options that show performance pages that normally only show for the sports trim levels, for instance. Turn them on for lesser trim levels and you get gauges and graphs. Yes, they theoretically could be randomly dangerous but there's no reason to expect that. As for the window example... that's a feature available on simi
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Although I suppose if someone runs you over because a bug in the darkweb software they loaded borked their steering assembly, the driver will be the focus of liability
Suuuure. In court, after a lawsuit and six month investigation while the press has been busy publishing headlines about how unsafe Tesla steering is.
(And the owner swearing the whole time that they hadn't touched it...)
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That doesn't get that bad code off the web or make sure it gets fixed though.
I suspect this is how the community should go after a business like Tesla in this case. There are two completely separate matters here: safety and liability.
If Tesla don't want to accept liability when someone's messed around with their firmware and that was the cause of a harmful incident then that's fair and reasonable. We could require an adequate level of insurance on the part of the vehicle owner and/or whoever wrote the alternative software if it's going to be autonomous.
But if Tesla's argument is tha
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Unlocking extra performance could result in cars failing too soon, which may reflect badly on Tesla.
That's a bit of a joke. If Tesla were concerned with things reflecting badly on their brand, they would address long standing production issues like thumb width gaps in body panels, light housings the fill with water in a rainstorm and their used car program forgetting to get the previous owner's pink slip BEFORE they resell their car.
It's a matter of time. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Tesla plans to market chassis, software, batteries, etc. to other carmakers. It's a matter of time until a small company buys these and sells an electric car with open source, highly customizable.
I don't think the lawyers would be stupid enough to allow that cash cow to escape. The terms of the license would prevent open sourcing.
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It's a matter of time until a small company buys these and sells an electric car with open source, highly customizable.
The traditional open source culture doesn't really fit when you're dealing with hardware that can cause serious harm, though. There would need to be some level of regulation for safety reasons, not just installing whatever hacks you want.
Similar legal/ethical issues arise with modding other devices such as phones, because while there is great potential for improvement, it's also possible for even a single rogue device to seriously disrupt communications over a considerable area, with immediate safety implic
Right to repair laws need to stop BS like this for (Score:5, Insightful)
Right to repair laws need to stop BS like this form happening.
I own the CAR so I should be able to do non DEALER work with out some LOCKED ON CHECK LIGHT TURING ON
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Re:Right to repair laws need to stop BS like this (Score:4, Interesting)
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and manufacturers also sell higher trim models with more power.
That's not relevant though. In most cases, they also upgrade various parts of the car when they increase the power available on those trims levels. Yeah, you could just crank up the power, but then you'd find out why they had a different axle (for example) on that more expensive version.
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Most modern cars you can put a tune on (or aftermarket parts), and manufacturers also sell higher trim models with more power.
And in 100% of cases the "tune" you put on is not hacking away at the manufacturer's original code but rather custom ECU firmware for which another party is responsible.
Re: Right to repair laws need to stop BS like this (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s not even custom ECU firmware. A tune is merely adjusting calibration parameters and rewriting the table which stores those.
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Where did you get that idea? Custom firmware can just as easily be written from the ground-up as it can be a small tweak to the existing firmware.
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Dealer repair / service can be thousands of dollars more then doing it your self / an non dealer shop. John dear should not be able to lock down hardware for doing non dealer work.
Re:Right to repair laws need to stop BS like this (Score:5, Insightful)
Those features are not "worth thousands of dollars"...
They are worth 0, because that's how much it costs tesla to arbitrarily turn them on or off, they are charging you thousands of dollars to do $0 worth of work. If anything the value is negative, because it will have taken extra work to implement this customer-hostile feature in the first place, and still further customer-hostile work trying to prevent customers from using it.
You can also think of it as a repair...
The car you purchased is capable of these features, but the software in the car is faulty and prevents these features from working. By repairing the software, you regain access to features of the underlying hardware.
The same is true on android phones for instance, where certain hardware features are sometimes not enabled by the stock firmware (eg many chipsets include an fm radio, and some network operators intentionally disable the voip features of android).
Car manufacturers often charge extra for a sound system, or extra for a higher quality sound system. There are thousands of aftermarket sound systems available where people can gain equivalent or superior audio performance often for less than what the manufacturer charged.
The same has long been true for computers, speccing out a system with a larger drive or more memory is often considerably more expensive than buying the lowest spec available and then buying third party upgrades.
What people are doing with their teslas is basically the same, but tesla's behavior is worse - instead of charging extortionate fees for a cheap upgrade (ie like extra ram) they are charging extortionate fees for a FREE upgrade (ie just a settings change).
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Those features are not "worth thousands of dollars"... They are worth 0, because that's how much it costs tesla to arbitrarily turn them on or off, they are charging you thousands of dollars to do $0 worth of work.
You have to be a bit careful with this kind of argument. They obviously don't really cost $0, because someone did the work to implement that functionality in the first place.
The commercial model for selling it as a paid upgrade is (presumably) expected to cover the cost and provide some profit based on the number of customers they expect to take that upgrade. That does mean the people who benefit from the upgrade pay a premium. However, if you look at it the other way around, it also means the people who do
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Re:Right to repair laws need to stop BS like this (Score:5, Interesting)
Those features are not "worth thousands of dollars"...
They are worth 0, because that's how much it costs
Cost and value are two very different things. Something is "worth" how much someone is willing to pay for it.
because it will have taken extra work to implement this customer-hostile feature in the first place
There's nothing customer hostile about this. It's selling features based on value in a way to minimise overall cost. To put it another way, the fast model doesn't cost $2000 more, it's the slower gimped model that costs $2000 less. Ultimately it's people paying something they consider worth it subsidising a cost reduction for others who would otherwise be unable to afford the full performance car in the first place.
This is common practice in many industries and the exact opposite of customer hostile. You want to be hostile to a customer? Sell a single product as good as can be based on the mechanics and materials and price it so that most of your customers can't afford it. *That* is customer hostile.
and still further customer-hostile work trying to prevent customers from using it.
This isn't some sound system, or even "chipping" a traditional engine. Telsa vehicles have an integrated software and OS doing everything from showing pretty pictures on your dashboard to controlling the power output of a motor. The problem here is that Tesla update this in their vehicles frequently. You want customer hostile? Try bricking their car because they did something unexpected. Do you really want your car to act like Windows 10 where half the updates cause your equipment to stop working because of non-standard hardware/software configurations? No doubt you'd be first to complain about that happening.
they are charging extortionate fees
A fee that is 100% optional for a feature by that is 100% optional is not extortionate by definition.
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There's nothing customer hostile about this. It's selling features based on value in a way to minimise overall cost. To put it another way, the fast model doesn't cost $2000 more, it's the slower gimped model that costs $2000 less. Ultimately it's people paying something they consider worth it subsidising a cost reduction for others who would otherwise be unable to afford the full performance car in the first place.
This is common practice in many industries and the exact opposite of customer hostile. You want to be hostile to a customer? Sell a single product as good as can be based on the mechanics and materials and price it so that most of your customers can't afford it. *That* is customer hostile.
Exactly this. Frequently this is done to reduce engineering costs, improve manufacturing volumes and simplify inventory management.
Take high-end but relatively low-volume network security products as an example. It is very common to sell the same physical hardware at multiple price points, with rate limits applied on the "slower", cheaper models. The hardware may be designed to use on two or three different models, each at different price and performance points.
The company makes less money (lower gross mar
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Tesla is in a tricky spot with this one. If they lose the ability to enforce software standards then who will own the risk of potential Supercharger issues. It wouldn't be difficult for an untrained weekend tinkerer to bypass some piece of governing code thereby putting everyone at a Supercharge at risk. Keep in mind that DC charging is largely regulated within the car as only the car can monitor the batter and determine the appropriate charge rate.
I am really on the fence with this one. I like to tinke
Crippleware should not be legal. (Score:2)
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If you do that, it would make things more expensive.
If a product feature, that not everyone wants, costs money to develop there are four options:
1. Don't make the less wanted feature.
2. Make the whole product cost more for everyone.
3. Make two hardware versions of the product, increasing overall manufacturing cost. This means the product will cost more for everyone because of lack of economy of scale having two manufacturing lines.
4. Make one version of the product with a software unlock for those who want
Re: Crippleware should not be legal. (Score:2, Interesting)
If I buy a second hand car and a future automatic update takes away a feature it came with, why can't I sue for damages? There is no agreement between me and the original manufacturer, they have no right to take something away from me.
Re: Crippleware should not be legal. (Score:2)
While Tesla did do something like that in the past (and reverted it), the current issue is people unlocking features they didnâ(TM)t purchase.
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Sure just remember the outcome will not be that your cheap car is better, it will be that your cheap car is not available, and the better car is more expensive. That is basic economics for mass produced goods.
And you are allowed to use the entire capability. Even with "cripple-wear" installed the car performs exactly as advertised and sold.
Tesla's walled garden (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a lot like Apple's - even comes with rabid fanbois.
Avoiding cares with software (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be interesting (and frustrating) to see how things like this proceed into the future. I personally want zero connection between my car and the manufacturer and so Tesla ownership is definitely never in my future. But I can see more and more manufacturers going this route so my car choices will probably be pretty restricted in the near future as well. That probably means no EVs either, which is a bummer.
Re:Avoiding cares with software (Score:4, Informative)
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Ugh, that sucks. I've been a Honda owner for years and I'm still driving a 2010 Civic. But a lot of friends have newer cars (including a Tesla) and they don't seem over engineered and unreliable. My friend's BMW wouldn't start one day due to a software issue that wasn't allowing it to ping to the manufacturer servers. I can't imagine not being able to pop open the hood and fixing the problem myself.
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My friend's BMW wouldn't start one day due to a software issue that wasn't allowing it to ping to the manufacturer servers.
Your friend is full of shit.
Just sayin.
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Always gonna trust my friend over some random person on the internet.
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Or maybe it was the anti-theft system acting up, which could involve SW..
About seven years ago I was thinking of buying a BMW motorcycle (R1200R, I think). I took the bike out for a test drive and a friend went with me on his bike. After a little while we stopped at a gas station to chat about how the bike handled. Then when I tried starting the bike it refused and I couldn't figure it out. Another biker stopped and offered to give us a hand, he happened to work as a senior bike mechanic for Harley Davidson
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all Toyotas are connected all of the time,
Yeah, I read about that and was about to say the same thing.
So what happens if the phone circuit just so happens to blow a fuse?" Or is it integrated within the car firmware itself? That being said, it's still possible (although a pain) to disconnect the antenna.
Although the best option is like you did: choose something else. Although the vendor will never know about your Subaru buying decision unless you tell them, especially: "always been a Toyota family until very recently." And be sure and tell
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That probably means no EVs either, which is a bummer.
My Nissian Leaf is independent as it has no network connections like this. The entire concept seems like a really bad idea to me.
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I've wondered what the used market will be like for EV vehicles.
Modding cars is nothing new (Score:3)
People have been modding their cars since forever. Modding a Tesla is no different.
Re:Modding cars is nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
People have been modding their cars since forever. Modding a Tesla is no different.
No, modding a Tesla is different, because they are actively trying to prevent it, much like Apple does if you tried to mod your phone.
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People have been modding their cars since forever. Modding a Tesla is no different.
Agreed. I can put an aftermarket chip in my car that makes way more horsepower/torque. These are available for many makes and models. Voids the warranty (if they find out), but that is fair. Tesla is not at all special in this regard.
I'll will be worried if/when random people start modding the telematics or "self driving" parts. Hopefully they are well walled off but I'm not entirely encouraged that will be the case. Tesla may well be the company that tests this distinction legally.
Reminds me (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember the original IBM PC/AT? There was a 6MHz and an 8MHz version and obviously the 8MHz cost more.
It turned out that a very simple mod could convert a 6MHz into an 8MHz. Cost pretty much nothing.
Oh, the caterwauling that went on back then. And we are still doing it 40 years later all the exact same stuff.
What is the Auto Insurance Position on Such Mods? (Score:3)
Do insurance policies cover the vehicle if you're running non-Tesla software?
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Do insurance policies cover the vehicle if you're running non-Tesla software?
Yes, because they don't know.
I don't see this as a battle Tesla can "lose", but (Score:2)
It's very much like the satellite H and HU card hacks that went on, back in the day with Dish and DirecTV networks. Plenty of people were happy to sell you custom software and programmers for your PC so you could modify the access card to receive stations you didn't pay the provider to receive. But it started a big cat and mouse game where they'd mess with the hacks within weeks of them being released or updated.
The hackers, intent on "winning", considered keeping up with the changes all part of the thrill
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Eventually, the satellite providers upgraded the hardware tech so everything was locked down too tightly to allow hacking it any more. (Except for a very few rumored people who probably obtained work-arounds as inside jobs and won't leak out what they've got.)
And now it's all on The Pirate Bay.
So paying Tesla is going to give you actual resale value that you won't get from a third party hack. Plus, Tesla updates its firmware often enough that they could make this a real pain to keep up with them, as they keep disabling the hacks.
Hackability has a value of its own. Like an iPhone that can still be jailbroken or a game console you can run Linux.
People are going to keep modding and hacking. It did not end in the good old days of satellite TV.
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It's very much like the satellite H and HU card hacks that went on, back in the day with Dish and DirecTV networks. Plenty of people were happy to sell you custom software and programmers for your PC so you could modify the access card to receive stations you didn't pay the provider to receive.
No, it's very different; those hacks were designed to allow you to infringe copyright. The nearest equivalent for a Tesla would be a feature allowing you to recharge at home without paying for the power used.
Tesla is mostly full of shit (Score:2)
Not entirely. But mostly.
A hack like this almost certainly changes little to nothing about how the Tesla-released code behaves. It likely just sets a few flags, which in itself should have no impact on safety whatsoever (no moreso than Tesla setting them).
But there is always a chance that the hackers either made a mistake or slipped in some risky code. I expect the chance of that is very low, however. Tesla can certainly verify this. But instead they'll rely upon this theoretical risk to justify forcing
Make sense, and is appropriate - up to a point... (Score:2)
What you're buying with a Tesla is a set of hardware, a set of software to run it, a set of features, and a guarantee that Tesla will rectify the issue for a certain period of time if that stack of hardware, software and features should fail to perform according to the criteria listed in the contract.
Features like enhanced acceleration or a greater depth of discharge on the battery pack (extended range) push the hardware harder. I'd expect that there would be a higher failure rate with those features unlock
Probably ok in some countries (Score:2)
I believe that in some countries, such as Switzerland, running the modded software would actually be illegal. For example, you cannot install any non-factory attachments to your street-legal car and expect it to remain legal without qualified testing and government approval (my aftermarket exhaust on my Audi being one example). So unless the mod manufacturer had it tested and approved, people who install it would be breaking the law (and cars get tested on a periodic basis as well as - occasionally - during
Innacurate, Incomplete Data (Score:5, Interesting)
Having read the details on Ingenext's own web site, there does not seem to be concrete evidence that this is the case. In fact, Ingenext claim that their "Boost 50" upgrade is in fact a physical device (essentially a dongle) that has to be physically connected to a maintenance port of the vehicle in order to work.
Now, whilst this neither confirms nor disproves the notion that all it does is "unlock existing functionality", it would be extremely dangerous to just assume in either direction.
I also looked at some basic data for the Model 3, covering kerb weight and power output. Taking the lightest but least powerful model in the range and adding the maximum power upgrade offered by Ingenext would increase the power-to-weight ratio from 142bhp/ton to 215bhp/ton (by my calculations), a 50% increase.
Are the brakes, brake cooling, anti-dive front suspension, anti-torque-steer suspension geometry, drive motor cabling, battery pack cooling and all other sundry sub-systems on a Model 3 capable of handling that amount of power increase?
Back to the Ingenext mod: the web site and supplementary data available explicitly states that the mod is a physical dongle that can be removed prior to service and/or prior to allowing a Tesla representative access to the vehicle. There are obvious reasons for this - but what about ulterior motives? Suppose you are a Tesla owner and fit one of these devices but are then involved in an accident? Suppose you pocket your Ingenext mod and claim that your car "went rogue"? Suppose the accident involved fatalities and your bid to get off a manslaughter charge was to try and pin the blame on the vehicle?
I think we need to be careful when we consider trying to apply right-to-repair legislation to this use case, purely because this is not about "just software", this is about a lethal weapon with seats and a steering wheel.
Or to give you an extreme comparison: imagine you went out and bought a 98bhp Ford EcoSport, then dropped a 707bhp Hellcat engine in it. Would you expect the brakes, suspension, gearbox and clutch to survive? No. The difference being that if you put a Hellcat engine in an EcoSport and were involved in an accident, it would be pretty obvious what you had done. The same would not be true for an Ingenext mod. This means that not only should Tesla be concerned about this, but so should the AGs for any state where the mod is currently "legal".
Re:Innacurate, Incomplete Data (Score:5, Insightful)
Spot on.
My understanding of how this device works is that it intercepts and rewrites commands on the vehicle CANbus.
I can absolutely understand why any manufacturer wouldn’t want that. The command structure and data values aren’t exactly a known published API. It’s a reverse engineering job and - what if somehow this device injects the wrong command onto the canbus at the wrong time?
A whole myriad of problems with something like this.
And let’s be honest - all Tesla is doing right now is presenting a message on the display; “Modification detected.”
This protects them legally since they a) have a record of it; and b) removed the driver’s deniability in event of an accident. As they should.
Imagine one of these goes haywire and somehow crashes the vehicle. You think the headline in then news will say “Third party module causes crash”? Of course not.
Mod the car, crash the car, blame it on Tesla (Score:2)
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