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Comment by Lightbody | Hacker News Reader

From reading the article, it doesn't sound like Tesla actually "sold" the features to the original owner (which went to auction, and then was sold).

Instead, it sounds like Tesla goofed and enabled some features that should never have been enabled, and then clawed them back after the car changed hands several times (original owner -> auction, auction -> dealer, dealer -> customer).

The problem is that with so many parties involved, nobody is going to jump up and make it right for the final customer. It sucks for the customer.

The solution? Tesla needs a feature where resellers can initiate an audit of the car and Tesla can provide a certificate of the features that it commits to supporting. That would greatly reduce these kinds of problems going forward.

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Those options were listed on the Monroney sticker (in addition to actually being installed). Those are required by federal law to be accurate. Anybody who bought the car either new or used, would expect anything listed on the Monroney to be part of the original specs.

So, if I buy a car and rip out the radio, and then resell it, a used buyer down the road should refer to the Monroney sticker and demand that the seller put in a radio?

Can't tell if you're serious or trolling, but giving you the benefit of the doubt... No, this is like selling me the car, stealing it's radio a week later, and then telling me via email that you really didn't mean to include the radio.

The Monroney sticker is just proof that the car WAS ACTUALLY SOLD WITH THE OPTION, which contradicts Tesla's claim that the car was not sold with the option.

The car was sold with that option to the original owner. It was then sold back to Tesla at some point, and they (in theory) removed that option, though it seems like they failed to perform the update on the car to make that go through.

The Monroney sticker shows that the car had that option when new. It doesn't apply to resale, ever - there is no Monroney sticker for used cars. Nothing says it has to have that option forever - Tesla can remove it if they want, when they own the car, just like they could take out the back seats, or the radio, or put in a bigger battery, or lock it into permanent valet mode.

I am a little concerned that they issued the update after the car left their possession, so it really hinges on what they told the buyer. If they incorrectly represented to the buyer that the car had that option, through some part of the sales contract, then they definitely need to honor that. But nobody has provided any evidence of that. If they were simply silent on the issue, then it's more gray. The analogy I've given elsewhere is if a car was equipped with a lifetime Sirius satellite subscription that is supposed to expire on transfer, and then Sirius cancels it after the sale, then that seems fair.

You are correct that the Monroney only applies to new car sales, so it's not part of this sale other than serving as a piece of information about the original build.

But, a buyer who saw the sticker would reasonably think "oh, this car came with FSD," [physically uses FSD to confirm], "Yup, has FSD! Cool, it's worth $4000 more to me now." Whether or not the sales contract listed FSD is irrelevant if the car left Tesla with the option installed.

> Instead, it sounds like Tesla goofed and enabled some features that should never have been enabled, and then clawed them back after the car changed hands several times (original owner -> auction, auction -> dealer, dealer -> customer).

Not that you're arguing for Tesla, as far as I can tell, but this sort of thing doubtless also happens with non-IoT devices, and yet manufacturers of those don't feel that they can come and repossess the parts that they didn't want you to have. (The grocery store, for example, frequently has notices that ads were misprinted, and they won't honour the advertised price; but they can't track me down afterwards and take back 30% of the produce if I got it at the reduced price.) This is not a new problem; it's a new, and bad, solution to a problem that should be the manufacturer's alone.

In the UK at least the customer would be well protected (assuming that the dealer they bought the car from was still in business etc).

The car was not as described, so the dealer they bought it from would have to compensate them appropriately for that as contract has been breached.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/11/enact...

In the US probably too, but the customer would have to sue the dealer to get what he paid for.

The dealer purchased the car from Tesla at an auction according to Jalopnik, and as another commenter pointed out, the feature is documented on the Monroney sticker. It doesn't matter whether or not the first owner paid for the features or not. The car was re-purchased from Tesla (even though it was the dealer buying at an auction.) Tesla advertised that feature to the customer [the dealership], and it's value took the feature in to account.

Whether the original owner paid for the feature or not is irrelevant. The dealership paid for the feature, and it's on the Monroney sticker. Tesla can either honor the claims of the Monroney sticker, or face the consequences.

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