Tesla tells customers it will not honor retroactive Full Self-Driving pricing | Hacker News Reader

Tesla tells customers it will not honor retroactive Full Self-Driving pricing

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73 pointsbaskethead45 comments

It's easy to prevent this kind of bad behavior by introducing a law to make it illegal. Reading those stories from the EU, I wonder why consumers in the US so rarely fight for their rights. Even the UK has its Consumer Rights Act [1] which explicitly forbids price increases for pre-orders.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Rights_Act_2015

> consumers in the US so rarely fight for their rights

we belive in markets weeding out the bad players. Laws are too inflexible and slow moving compared to markets.

And then at the same time the corporate lobbyists are donating money to politicians so that the markets will sort it out?

>we believe the propaganda that tells us markets weed out the bad players

Fixed.

We need regulations not more market freedom. Market freedom is how we got PFAS and plastic in the oceans.

And the regulations need to be effective, not gutted by market lobbyists

I don't know why you're speaking for me here?

Laws are made by lobbyists purchasing government seats in your "free market". It's laughable you think consumers have an impact on the passage of laws or their contents

As a business owner, I am absolutely furious at the suggestion to have the government clamp down on my ability to yank products retroactively, modify user license agreements, and experiment with product pricing and feature availability. If users find a better match for their needs elsewhere, they are free to leave (after fulfilling the terms of the contracts they agreed to, of course). Don't screw with entrepreneurs!

You're free to experiment with pricing, just not to weasel out of an already closed deal and then increase the price.

Markets need some rules to protect the weaker players so they all feel like participanting. It's in everyone's interest. If you make it "use whatever force you want if you're the stronger player" the market will be less functional and many players will no longer participate.

The US doesn't have many of the European consumer protection rules. As an alternative everyone uses a credit card to get some of those protections back. The downside is high creditcard fees going to the payment networks and Visa etc getting to decide who can do business and who can't. I personally prefer the other system where the law creates those protections instead.

The Market is a naturally arising phenomenon. Interfering in it by burdening it with regulations to "protect the weaker players" makes it literally more distorted and less functional.

You just made a bunch of assertions with no proof to back it up whatsoever. That's not an argument.

The "weaker players" are individual consumers and they do need protection from corporations that deceive and pollute the environment

Its obvious that corporations will put profit above all else including the health of their customers

The job of a company is to make money, not to protect your health. In the case of a doctor's office or hospital, protecting your health is a side effect of making money, because the way they can make money most efficiently is by having you pay them to protect your health. This is an elementary precept of modern economics (Friedman, et al.).

That's exactly why we need governments to keep companies in check.

I have trouble parsing this as anything other than a naïve desire to replace actual, time-honed economic policy with whimsical hippie daydreams.

Do you support the government enforcing business contracts at all? That is after all certainly an artificial distortion of naturally arising markets.

Every market needs rules. Otherwise you could DDoS Amazon and promise to stop in exchange for a 99% discount. In a totally free market that transaction would be the best choice for both. In the real world you go to jail and Amazon keeps their money.

I think it's important to note American consumers are fighting for these, like the right to repair law recently. Unfortunately, we live in a "representative republic" that only had universal suffrage (on paper) in the 60s. The average consumer doesn't really have an ability to affect political change given the financial interests at play in our government

I understand that tesla is trendy, and open about "not having everything figured out", but I get the impression that this is a lot of tesla drivers' first luxury car.

If BMW or Mercedes pulled the things Tesla does at the same cadence, their community would riot.

That's the difference between selling to inexperienced hipsters vs. selling to established CEOs and their lawyers.

Also, BMW is quite openly mocking Tesla's build quality by now, which in my impression worked well for their marketing in the EU.

Oliver Zipse, BMW: "Tesla isn’t quite part of the premium segment. They are growing very strongly via price reductions. We would not do that since you have got to last the distance. Where we differ is our standard on quality and reliability. We have different aspirations on customer satisfaction."

https://insideevs.com/news/547029/bmw-ceo-tesla-not-premium/

Ill leave this here, pretty ridiculous for this price point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=horgq-_8Gys

Eventually they'll figure it out, this is not rocket science.

According to the video, it looks like this specific problem has been like this for a while and Tesla does not care.

Reliability and QA is the point everyone has been mocking them about for years now, yet the designs remain unchanged.

> Eventually they'll figure it out

What are we up to now, 4 years and counting?

> this is not rocket science

Quality control is one of the biggest challenges of rocketry

I do like that someone has taken the idea of the Model Y deliver inspection list and made an iOS app. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/inspect-t/id1521758578

When are they going to rip the bandaid off that they aren't going to produce the Cybertruck? https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37979446/tesla-cybertruck...

Sounds like some mid level manager looking for a way to boost their numbers without giving consideration to how this change impacts the public perception of the company or even any potential legal complications.

Usually you file a ticket with legal / have a 30 minute conversation, get a sign off, and go along your merry way.

Sounds like great customer service from Tesla, the most valuable car company in the world... Hopefully people can at least recover their money easily.

And this is why you shouldn't pay for pre-releases.

Self driving should be pay as you go. Either on demand, daily, monthly or annually. Because the number of frequent updates is far too much and costly.

And then the clock strikes and your car crashes.

Just have a taxi-style meter that clicks up every second your hands aren't on the wheel.

Pay as you go sounds stupid.

So you buy a car and then have to pay to use it?

It should be a feature that comes with the car, one off payment, you shouldn’t need to pay a subscription just because they didn’t have it fully ready before you bought it.

You can still use the car and drive it yourself. This would be paying monthly for the car to be able to drive itself. Just like you have to pay for "premium connectivity" in Teslas, i.e. internet access.

Just like the 'subscription' remote start for physical key fobs from Toyota. Similar to the 'heated seat' subscription from BMW - or the annual subscription for AppleCar play to work with your headunit. Porsche charges for 'dynamic lighting plus' and 'active lane keep assist' as a subscription. Cadillac charges monthly for 'super cruise', Tesla Autopilot clone.

Yes, you can still use the car, and drive it yourself - but the problem is how anti-consumer and rent seeking the behaviors are of these companies. The problem isn't limited to Tesla.

I'm having trouble deciding which one is the most stupid out of those. I think I'm going to go with the heated seat subscription, wow.

So should your toaster, your dishwasher, your smart lock, your light switch, your insulin pump.

Usually it was anarchists who proclaimed that ownership equals theft — no we go to the other extreme, with corporate slowly trying to turn owners into renters. Instead of selling you something they try to become your landlord.

Anything requiring updates like your computer or phone has a cost of maintenance not covered by the traditional models of retail.

Corporate isn't really trying to turn owners into renters. Instead they intend to be the owners :)

Also anarchists never claimed ownership was theft, they claimed that owning something you're not using is theft.

> Also anarchists never claimed ownership was theft, they claimed that owning something you're not using is theft.

I did a literal translation of the German "Eigentum ist Diebstahl" which literally translates to "ownership is theft". Of course anarchists meant that the theft is that you deprive others of the chance to make use of tools, objects etc. that could be put to use better collectively as you mentioned.

Self-driving (assuming it was really full Level-5 self driving) is about the ONLY feature that I'd want on-demand, or consider a legitimate use for such an ongoing payment scheme.

* The car is still perfectly useful without it * It genuinely needs ongoing updates * There are good use cases for occasional use - I'd rarely use it, unless I was coming home very late & tired, or really needed to work and not drive.

Other features, like Toyota's recent announcement [0] that they are going to charge $8/month for your key fob to remote start your car, or BMW's attempt [1] to charge for heated seats are merely extractive ploys.

This move of everything to unnecessary connected and subscription models is just an outrage. Sure, some services genuinely need connection, but most can be engineered without it if there is a will to do so. Otherwise, do't do it - it's a trap!

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/12/22831105/toyota-subscrip...

[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/34547/bmw-is-planning-to-sell-...

this offer gave me wicked FOMO when i wanted to purchase a tesla 2 years ago. knowing i could reserve and save myself 2.5-5k+ and "owning anything other then a tesla is financially insane" pushed me hard to to purchase one. Kinda glad i didnt

Buy a complete car for the price of fsd and be happy.

That’s some fucking bullshit!

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