It just feels bad. The comments reflect that and there will be more in the future. It'll make the company look like some game company that sells DLC.
It's bad marketing.
It's bad marketing.
Initially, SR was supposed to be a different physical trim, with a smaller battery and some other cheaper parts.
However few people were buying SR (compared to SR+ trim which was only $2.5k more expensive) so Tesla adapted and dropped SR variant. Less variants means more efficient production means cheaper cars.
But they've already taken SR orders so instead of canceling them they decided to do right by the customers and instead gave them SR+ trim with software limit.
Given that it was a decision made late, they didn't have the code to limit features. Again they did right by customers by giving them the car right away and introducing the limits when the software was ready.
This will not happen in the future because from now on the software limit will be enabled from the beginning (not to mention that this trim is not available online; you have to know it exists and custom order it via phone which probably means that very few people are buying this version).
Can't do anything about it now I guess but it still will and does look bad for those who are affected and those who will read the articles about it in the next days. It may even become a meme.
They shouldn't have given it to the people in the first place.
I'm wondering if when the customers were handed the keys though if Tesla let them know about this "free trial" of sorts.
If I buy a traditional car that accidentally came with a premium feature, is the cardealer going to come to my house and rip the seat out?
These buyers were informed upon taking ownership that this was a trial. No mistake or accident happened.