Tesla Remotely Deactivates Features From Used Car

Posted on: Fri, 02/21/2020 - 20:42 By: Tom Swiss
article image from Jalopnik

Jalopnik reports on Tesla removing software-controlled features -- valued at $8,000 -- from a used car, bought by a dealer at auction from Tesla and then sold to a customer.

1. Tesla must be destroyed. 2. Software for safety-critical systems (including vehicles) should never be updatable over-the-air. 3. The "first sale" doctrine must apply to software and software-controlled products.

Tesla Remotely Removes Autopilot Features From Customer's Used Tesla Without Any Notice [Updated] (Jalopnik)

Let’s recap a little bit at this point: A Model S with Enhanced Autopilot (which includes the Summon feature) and FSD “capability” is sold at auction, a dealer buys it, after the sale to the dealer Tesla checks in on the car and decides that it shouldn’t have Autopilot or FSD “capability,” dealer sells car to customer based on the specifications they were aware the car had (and were shown on the window sticker, and confirmed via a screenshot from the car’s display showing the options), and later, when the customer upgrades the car’s software, Autopilot and FSD disappear.

(Article image from Jalopnik.)