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Comment by tiziano88 | Hacker News Reader

I don't see why. Would you be happier if they made two versions with no way of changing one into the other? I see this as a great plus, if you are not interested in a feature, do not pay for it, if you later are, you can enable it without buying an entire new car. Also if you sell it, the new owner can decide if and when to enable those features. It seems a clear win-win to me, and a very clever strategy from Tesla.

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>Would you be happier if they made two versions with no way of changing one into the other?

Yes.

I can't bear the thought of driving around a bigger battery and charging hardware that I cannot use. They have already built it, given it to me and it will cost them close to nothing to activate it but I cannot use it because of their pricing structure and I have to use my own money to transport this hardware that I am not allowed to use. If someone can afford to give me something, they should be able to afford me using it.

Then you probably shouldn't be driving any modern car. Pretty much all cars are packed with software, that software determins the fuel mix, controls battery charging. Even the horsepower output of most engines today can easily be "upgraded" with just software.

Can you not see that what you are saying is completely different?

This is analogous to sealing off a section of your fuel tank which can be unsealed if you pay more. Modifying ecu software is not equivalent.

I always find this mindset amusing. You don't feel good about what you have you're worried about what you could have just over the fence but don't want to do the work to get it. If your car has additional features and you can write a bigger check to activate them then activate them. If not, be happy with what you have.

>You don't feel good about what you have you're worried about what you could have just over the fence...

What are you actually talking about? This isn't about wanting something "over the fence", it is about wanting the ability to use something that you have in your possession to its fullest. If someone builds you a house for x dollars but but installs some kind of access control to a room so that you can't use it unless you pay an extra 20% of the original price (and you didn't know about this extra room when you ordered the house), would you be happy? The room has been built and the cost of building the room has already been incurred by the builders but they would rather have it empty, wasting space than have you use it unless you pay extra. Would that not frustrate you? If they can afford to build it, without you paying extra, then they are either ripping you or someone else off.

>...but don't want to do the work to get it.

Where do you get that from? This isn't about not wanting to pay for extra features, it is about not wanting to own something that you cannot use.

>I always find this mindset amusing.

Thanks for that extra piece of information, it really added an arrogance to your post that would have been lost without it.

anti-feature is just bad engineering, no matter how marketers spin it.

Maybe the other way round. I consider it good engineering (why waste an entirely separate production process to make a lower-grade version, when most of it can be shared?), but people are irrationally led to believe they are entitled to the full thing, just because it's potentially there. Proof of this is that if no one told you, you would not even suspect anything at all. If you want to "unlock" your car to get that extra 20kWh go ahead, the car is yours after all, but then do not try to ask for any form of warranty or support from the manufacturer.

This is not about entitlement, and destroying value is not a wise thing to do for short term economic gains. I think it's pretty obvious and intuitive that even in CPUs, this kind of design is a failure of imagination and exploitative to the market, both supply and demand.

I couldn't say that it's something to make illegal in this exact execution, but the same actions could be a huge negative PR hit in different circumstances, and it's certainly wasteful and arrogant. The fact that these companies are even doing it shows that it's about time for someone to challenge them in their market. It's a huge market failure sign. Basically, because of Intel's and Tesla's near monopoly, they can do this kind of thing.

It would have not cost anyone more ink or paper to make this 1$ bill into a 100$ bill, and I would have been happier if that were the case, oh why is everyone in the world so against me? In other words, the process that leads to the production of a good or service is not what you pay for, what you pay for is the end product: if you pay for a battery with a capacity of 40kWh, that's what you get, and if you have the option of increasing its capacity later on, well even better! Or, you can get the extra capacity from the beginning, perhaps with a small discount on top of it. Proof of this is that, if they didn't tell you (or you hacked the system), you wouldn't even know about the possibility of the increased capacity. Then if you find out, you feel entitled to that extra capacity, just because "it's there" and part of the thing you bought.

I'm not sure you have a point here. You pretty much reasserted my point with your currency example. Last time I checked, currency isn't a free market.

People don't like to be reminded that price is decoupled from cost.

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