Tesla remotely removed autopilot features from used Tesla without notice - <AUTHOR> https://jalopnik.com/tesla-remotely-removes-autopilot-features-from-customer-1841472617 <comment><USER3> I'll be honest, while the facts definitely matter for the individuals in this case, the whole idea that this scenario can happen in the first place is very unsettling to me. Prior to this incident, I had overlooked the degree of control Tesla has over their products and made owning a Tesla one of my medium-term life goals for the environmental benefits.

However, upon seeing how they exert the control they have over a vehicle's functions remotely has caused me to rethink whether or not I trust them enough to purchase a product. I can accept unintended bugs, this is a risk I would be willing to take (and hopefully neither me nor my family would suffer terribly for), but for the vehicle itself to have a feature enabled upon sale and then have it disabled after an audit is beyond what I can find acceptable. I understand some fault may rest on the dealer if they misrepresented how they were allowed to sell the car, I'm not talking about "did the customer pay for this feature or not". I'm talking about how such a significant, and expensive, feature of a car can be arbitrarily, and unilaterally, toggled at the whim of the manufacturer.

Frankly, I no longer have the confidence that the legal, economic, nor, sadly, the modern moral system of the United States will provide sufficient protection to regular people anymore for these kinds of cases and trends. The encroaching subscription model of commerce is slowly taking ownership away from individuals of the very things they rely on in their daily lives and I don't like it.

<comment><USER4> > owning a Tesla one of my medium-term life goals for the environmental > benefits

Sorry to jump in but just in case keep in mind that pushing an old ICE car has usually a lesser impact than buying a new one, it can take years until the difference in consumption cover the impact of the building process and the materials extraction and transport.

<comment><USER5> The best option for the environment would be going without a car at all, like many people in Europe do. Unfortunately people have created environments and societies where they are chained to car ownership.

<comment><USER6> > The best option for the environment would be going without a car at all

Indeed. This is what I do (in the US). The second-best option for the environment is to buy a used car. Environmentally speaking, a used ICE car beats a new electric one.

<comment><USER7> US is not really saying enough. I live with my gf in NYC and we had no need for a car. If I got one for free I would have tried to sell it as soon as possible.

Now we live in bay area suburbs with a dog, and one car is absolutely needed if you can afford it. If we had kids it would have been almost impossible without a car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The real story is totally missing at this point, so it's not surprising that the discussion has gone totally off the rails.

My understanding is this; _any time_ Tesla buys back or is returned one of its cars, all optional features are cleared off the car.

If you sell your used Model S or Model 3 with FSD back to Tesla, one day in the future you may see that VIN for sale on Tesla.com or elsewhere, but the FSD, Acceleration Boost, Homelink, any software upgrades will be cleared off, and available for purchase optionally by the new owner.

In a _private party_ sale, the optional features that are currently active on a car will always stay intact. Tesla does not and will not remove a feature from a car unless they have legal possession of the car.

The software features on the original sales sticker are irrelevant. The used car dealer bought a car from Tesla _without_ EAP or FSD, and we have no documentation to say otherwise. The feature was disabled while the used car dealer still had the car, before it was sold to the now current owner.

When the car was returned under lemon-law back to Tesla, they have every right to reconfigure it however they see fit.

If the used car dealer can provide documentation that Tesla sold them EAP or FSD then it's a different story. That has not happened.

<comment><USER9> If what you've said is all accurate, then yeah, absolutely 100%.

Imagine if you return a MacBook to Apple. As part of refurbishing it, they disable half the RAM (make up a reason, it's broken or whatever). And then sell it to someone described as in its current state.

Heck Tesla could take the engine out and sell it as a lawn ornament. As long as they're not committing crimes by misrepresenting what they're selling.

<comment><USER10> Or if you bought a MacBook and they wiped all of the software you bought from Apple on it and sell the hardware as is?

That's what happens, no?

The problem here is the lack of disclosure that the car didn't have FSD. If Tesla buys a car they can resell it with whatever features they'd like.

<comment><USER11> Another HUGE part of this is if you are going to sell your Tesla to a third party, you cannot guarantee the feature set they will get. So, if you pay $8,000 for auto pilot etc. you should not expect to recoup a dime of that money when you sell the car to a buyer who has read this story.

<comment><USER12> Seems almost equivalent to selling a personal computer with a copy of Photoshop on it. Before you sell it, you're probably going to want to wipe the hard drive, and therefore Photoshop is gone.

I don't know the legalese behind Tesla's features being "licensed" or "sold" as a part of the car, or to the owner, or what the right outcome is here. I get both sides of the argument though.

<comment><USER13> I think the difference is that most computers don't come with a fully-licensed copy of Photoshop when they're originally purchased

<comment><USER14> Or a sticker saying "Photoshop included".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I mean, if you buy a Tesla you know you dont own a car. You are just licensing it. I refuse to support a company that makes me sign a f __*ing gag order for the privilege of their car.[https://www.slashgear.com/tesla-on-offensive- against-nhtsa-g...](https://www.slashgear.com/tesla-on-offensive-against- nhtsa-gag-order-allegations-10443577/)

Screw Tesla and the Authoritarian Technocratic hell they want to enforce on the automotive industry.

I cannot fathom how someone can be a tinkerer of things and support a company that continues to barely support things like the magnuson moss warranty act. Companies like Tesla prove we NEED right to repair.

I am genuinely curious how the community feels about Tesla's hostility to third party repair and open documentation.

<comment><USER16> If you are a tinkerer who is upset by Tesla's control over the software in your vehicle, you can disconnect the data connection in the car. You purchased the car and you can use the car how you see fit. You did not purchase a free, unrestricted, and perpetual license to use Tesla services. It is no different than purchasing an Apple or Android phone and having to abide by Apple's or Google's ToS to get the most out of the device.

<comment><USER17> Would this void the warranty? I assume if the vehicle malfunctioned in any way, or caused an accident, Tesla would say it was your fault for disconnecting.

Of course, one could make the argument that since they sometimes push out updates that have bugs, it's actually safer to drive the car with a static feature set that the driver is familiar with.

<comment><USER18> The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act makes it illegal to void the warranty for modifying your vehicle.

They would need to prove that failure was a direct result of your modification.

<comment><USER19> It won't void the warranty but most automaker shops won't touch anything you've modified. So the warranty is pretty much void for said modified parts.

Toyota won't touch my modified Tacoma suspension and I'm fine with it. They are more than willing to fix anything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In Europe this would be very straightforward. The car is not "as described" in the sale. Return it to the _dealer_ who has to make it right: add the missing feature, agree a discount, or give a full refund.

e.g. [https://www.consumereurope.dk/menu/laws/danish- laws/danish-s...](https://www.consumereurope.dk/menu/laws/danish-laws/danish- sale-of-goods-act/) § 42 onwards.

<comment><USER21> The whole approach of making software unsellable is very American. Here in Europe we have a guaranteed right to sell used software.

For example, Autodesk turned their 3ds max from $5k once into a $6k annual subscription. As a result, people started buying used perpetual licenses to avoid the overpriced subscription. Autodesk is denying those used license transfers in the US, but they have to tolerate it in the EU.

As a result, advertisement, movie and CGI studios in Europe gained a competitive advantage over US companies because the weak US laws failed to protect their own studios from predatory pricing.

And for a CGI animator making $3k monthly, those $6k in annual software fees really add 16% to the gross price, so enough to drive customers elsewhere.

<comment><USER22> Anyone actually pays those exorbitant prices? I thought they were just for bribery-fueled wholesale deals, everyone else just pirates them. Know a lot of animators and no one ever paid for those.

<comment><USER23> I doubt that. Maybe they don't have a license personally but the studio they work for sure has, or they are just one disgruntled employee away from getting a friendly reminder from Autodesk

<comment><USER22> LOL i know a media rendering farm, a big one, that uses pirated Adobe software of all kinds. Asked how do they deal with licensing they just say "but well we are a Russian company, we are not concerned with this, licensing is a Western concept".

The notion of "registering an app" ("зарегистрировать приложение") in Russian means "finding a crack".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Tesla already has a history of retroactively taking stuff from you - especially if it's a salvaged car.

Here's what a comment on Tesla Motors Club says you should be prepared to lose on a salvaged car:

> _For anyone purchasing as salvaged Tesla, they should assume Tesla will cut > them off from supercharging, software updates, Internet access, and internet > use by the media player & navigation system - until Tesla has re-certified > the car. Until then preparing for other charging options is prudent._

At least to me that sounds like a lot of things that they can just take away from your car with a flag.

<comment><USER25> These are all subscription services which are not covered on any car.

In my case (not a tesla): software updates are only installed iff there is a recall notice. One time they installed an update because they had to wait anyways but that was not guaranteed and a service from the mechanic.

Most internet uses in cars (if not all) are bound the a person, not a car. Selling it most likely voids that subscription. In my case the uses are free for 5 years for the first buyer and a paid subscription afterwards. Most likely tesla does something similar.

Supercharging: See internet. Though I see plenty of them advertised with it. Maybe this is different in the EU.

Features (as in, bought features in feature packs or options) on the other hand are something of value (even if only software) added to the car and cannot be taken away without compensation or reimbursement. Unless you had a subscription but that is not the case in this instance.

<comment> Joe-Z But they still sell the car for a whole lot of money. The more honest approach would be to only offer rental/subscription cars, if essential features such as charging your friggin electric car can't even be guaranteed after purchasing the damn thing.

Using an apologetic tone for the scummy and exploitative business tactics employed by these companies is exactly why people like GP don't have faith that "...the modern moral system of the United States will provide sufficient protection..." anymore.

<comment><USER26> They don't remove charging. They remove the ability to charge your car for free. I completely understand that.

Think about it. Somebody could buy a Tesla charger circuit, install it to another car, and get free charging for life. The same happened with 3G enabled Kindles.

<comment><USER27> > Somebody could buy a Tesla charger circuit, install it to another car, and > get free charging for life.

Who owns that Tesla charger circuit? Somebody paid $5000 for free supercharging for life, and presumably the "key" or whatever is loaded onto something.

The thing is: Tesla wants to be a scummy company and remotely take away that key from its users upon sale of the vehicle. Is not "free supercharging for life" implied to be tied to the car (or more specifically, the car's charging circuit)??

If it is tied to the car itself, then the "key" should be tied to some component that "defines" the car, like maybe the motors or the battery pack. The software can check to see if its still connected to the same battery-pack token or whatever if you really want to verify things (with logic used every 10 years whenever battery packs are replaced).

\-----

If Tesla wants both, they can have both with proper engineering effort. However, they're being lazy if they are just cutting off users without any recourse.

<comment><USER26> I understand your point, but they talking about salvaged cars. Usually, they are built from multiple cars. If you cut two teslas in half. One has autopilot one has free charging. Then you make a two cars from one part of each car. What features should get the new cars?

If the key tied to the charging circuit. Would it be fair to pay that extra $5000 if the charging circuit fails and you have to buy a new one? And if you can transfer that, what happens when somebody fixes the old one?

What I want to point out that "for life" services shouldn't be tied to complex things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > _The owner in question, who Jalopnik refers to as Alec, purchased the car > last December. The dealer bought the car a month earlier from a Tesla > auction, with both "Enhanced Autopilot" and "Full Self Driving Mode" > features intact_

> TESLA: _Tesla has recent identified instances of customers being incorrectly > configured for Autopilot versions that they did not pay for. Since, there > was an audit done to correct these instances. Your vehicle is one of the > vehicles that was incorrectly configured for Autopilot. We looked back at > your purchase history and unfortunately Full-Self Driving was not a feature > that you had paid for._

So Buyer 1 bought a vehicle from Tesla that in fact had a feature. Buyer 1 then sold to Buyer 2, advertising this feature. Now Tesla is saying "Full-Self Driving was not a feature that you had paid for". That's incorrect under any interpretation of the events. Tesla could say that it wasn't a feature that Buyer 1 paid for, but Buyer 2 definitely paid for it because it was advertised as having the feature and that would have impacted his willingness to pay for the vehicle.

The way Tesla has worded this makes it seem like they would potentially disable features for people who buy Teslas used — regardless of whether the first owner paid for that feature — on the grounds that "X was not a feature that you had paid for".

I don't see how the $8,000 (or less, since it's a used vehicle?) that Tesla would get from this would be worth this terrible publicity.

<comment><USER28> > Tesla could say that it wasn't a feature that Buyer 1 paid for

Tesla sold the car to Buyer 1 (the dealer) with the feature enabled. I think that means that it was in fact a feature that Buyer 1 paid for, even if they didn't purchase the feature in a separate transaction.

If you sell someone a house with a roof, you don't get to go back and say "sorry I just noticed that the roof upgrade was never purchased for this house so I'm going to remove the roof unless you pay another $6000."

<comment><USER17> I could see an argument that Buyer 1 was accidentally given this feature, if it was not advertised as present, and if there was no way for Buyer 1 to know the feature was enabled at that time (auctions probably don't have test drives).

Under those circumstances, the fact that it was in fact enabled was sort of a windfall to Buyer 1. If Tesla could have pulled it back and notified Buyer 1 prior to the subsequent sale to Buyer 2, maybe this wouldn't seem so bad. But to hit Buyer 2 with this — especially since Buyer 2 is a person, not a business — makes this very unsavory.

<comment><USER28> > I could see an argument that Buyer 1 was accidentally given this feature, if > it was not advertised as present

That's not what happened here. Tesla specifically advertised the car as having these features when selling it to the dealer. See the image of the Monroney sticker half way down this page: [https://jalopnik.com/tesla-remotely-removes- autopilot-featur...](https://jalopnik.com/tesla-remotely-removes-autopilot- features-from-customer-1841472617?rev=1580941196331)

<comment><USER29> The Monroney sticker is only valid for new cars. Yes, the car had FSD when it was new. What Tesla alleges is that when they re-sold the car at auction, they didn't include FSD.

Let's say a car had a motor swap from a V8 to a V6, and is then sold at auction. Pointing at the Monroney sticker to say the car was sold with a V8 is not relevant.

<comment><USER30> Except it wasn't swapped ,it had the v8 in it, as also advertised, and then post auction they broke into your garage and swapped for the v6 because they were unhappy with their final sales price. If the sticker was on the car uncorrected, I beelieve it would hold up in court as advertising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Autopilot must be a really high-margin feature for Tesla. $7k for basically a remotely-managed software license the end-user has no real control over. Once the costs of development, maintenance, and labor are recouped, then each successive AP activation is a big extra margin for Tesla over the normal vehicle price.

The entire "Autopilot" feature is technical ability driven by marketing to pump more money out of their car sales. Good business for Tesla, but a shitty thing to do to consumers to treat autopilot as an owner-dependent feature and not as a feature that could be handed off. That's one of the biggest negatives to having cars that can innately phone home to the manufacturer - it gives Tesla the power to giveth and taketh away at their discretion, and leave the car and consumer S.O.L.

<comment><USER32> > That's one of the biggest negatives to having cars that can innately phone > home to the manufacturer

Versus buying a dumb car and never getting upgrades?

I'll take the "risk" to get sentry/dog/camping mode as free updates vs having to buy a new car every time I want a new feature.

<comment><USER33> I can really live without updating my car. Last year I used an electric company car to drive home. Or at least that was the plan. After half of the way a warning light flashed up and the display told me to stop the car as soon as possible. That I did. It completely shut down after stopping. Nothing worked anymore besides warning lights, otherwise it was completely dead. Had to leave the car behind and walk home (short trip, I was just lazy because winter).

Next day in the morning I tried to start it up and it actually worked again. The display just shortly displayed 'update complete'. Made me laugh. I believe the error was related to the battery being low while it was really cold outside and the update notification was unrelated. But I guess you could call that "camping mode".

Still left me with an appreciation for my old car, which is too old and stupid to receive updates and is really dependable without me treating it that well.

<comment><USER34> That sounds like a real life nightmare to me. I have to be able to depend on my transportation. It's going to be excessively costly and stressful for me to rely on someone else in that case. Completely unacceptable behavior from a car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm surprised that they removed it because it's on the monroney sticker.

I bought a BMW that was supposed to get the new/shorter 36 month maintenance included. But the sticker was still referencing the 48 month plan. I didn't even notice.

BMW must have ran an audit, and know what they did? They honored the sticker and said something like "Your monro sticker was wrong and said you get 48 months maintenance, so you get 48 months maintenance"

I think this just goes back to how they are inexperienced and not a real dealer. I'd expect they'd lose any court battle surrounding it. It's the whole point of the sticker.

<comment><USER36> Surprised why? Companies do illegal shit all the time and get away with it. Just recently Lenovo did not cancel my order for a p1 laptop after almost two months, way longer than the 30 days of their estimate and allowed buy federal law. What can I do? Nothing. Just like the guy in this story. He has no recourse against Tesla and I doubt he'll get it from the dealer either. They will definitely win in court. The dealer probably will too. The customer will get stuck with this.

When laws aren't enforced, their existence is irrelevant. We are seeing this with this monroney sticker and I'm sure this is the standard, default policy of Tesla. Hell, even if there's a class action lawsuit, Tesla will not admit fault, they will not change, and the only people who will get actual compensation are the lawyers. It won't hurt Tesla so civil penalties are just as ineffective as the law in this case. Corporate profits over everything is the norm. Let's not pretend that the law or civil suits get in the way of that now. Hell, can you even sue Tesla, or do they require arbitration?

<comment><USER37> > What can I do? Nothing.

I assume you used a credit card? Seems quite likely they can take care of that for you.

<comment><USER36> They are refusing to refund it. Yes, I can charge back and will. But I was referring to what can I do in response to Lenovo. There is a law but it's useless. So I just get fucked over with no recourse. I can't sue then and the ftc doesn't give a fuck and won't pursue the issue so they will keep fucking people over since there is no recourse. I cannot get justice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > It's a peculiar situation that raises hard questions

I disagree. They sold something, and the resell does not change anything in their side of the calculation. It's not like due to that sale, their backend suddenly has to do more work than if the car had stayed with the original buyer.

So the only "argument" tesla can really bring forward why they want this customer to pay for those features a second time is "because we can make them."

Not a hard question in my book.

<comment><USER39> 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.

<comment><USER40> 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.

<comment><USER29> 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?

<comment><USER40> 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.

<comment><USER29> 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.

<comment><USER40> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The real kicker is that before Taleb brought it to light, Tesla support was telling people who accidentally purchased the Autopilot feature that "sorry, we can't undo the purchase/the feature is added, and it's permanent".

<comment><USER24> It's probably accurate in that they (Tesla support) can't/aren't allowed to undo the purchase.

<comment><USER42> "Can't" does not mean the same thing as "it's against policy."

"Permanent" does not mean the same thing as "we can reverse this at whim, but only when it suits _us_ and not _you._ "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Here's the inside scoop - older vehicles used to be much easier to enable autopilot and other paid features, so many places online sold much cheaper upgrades to autopilot and FSD. Tesla has a record of all purchases and the factory state of the vehicle. If the software has been illegally activated they are within their rights to disable the upgrade. This has nothing to do with the license being tied to a person, free supercharging is the only thing tied to a user.

Think of it as buying a concert ticket - you get to the venue and they tell you it's counterfeit. Do you blame the venue or the seller? If they had bought the vehicle from Tesla it would have been a very different story.

And for the uninformed folks having a cry about disabled supercharging on salvage titles. Supercharging is automatically disabled on all cars when a serious collision is detected. This is to prevent a rapid and massive o rush of charging current flowing into potentially damaged batteries or HV wiring. Supercharging is a massive amount of energy dumped into the vehicle at once, hundreds times more than a regular home outlet, if something is wrong in the car it could start a fire. The majority of salvage titles have had an airbag deployment and this is one of the triggers for disabling supercharging, salvage title or not. Service will inspect the vehicle and if satisfied of the safety will enable charging again. I think it's a brilliant feature, and very safely focused.

<comment><USER15> Very safety focused- Sure, now for the open market part. How about we try to find a third party shop that has access to repair and re-enable that Tesla's Supercharger mode?

Across the USA there are shops working on exotic cars, hybrid vehicles and full EV's. You dont hear about Nissan all electrics or BMW all electrics exploding all over the place. Its insane to claim Tesla's are so advanced and so magical that an ASE certified mechanic cant work on them.

If FoMoCo or GM did this everyone would claim Antitrust. MS cant force you to use IE, but Tesla, they are the golden boy on wall street and no one is willing to hold them to the same standards as other Automotive manufacturers.

<comment><USER43> Tesla has a bunch of certified body shops and they have the correct software to diagnose and modify the vehicle...check your receipts.

Same for bmw, and all other exotic cars. Hell even Apple.

<comment><USER15> Tesla has locked down their third party repair options to only where required by law. The deliver the minimum viable product. And since you mention apple [https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/02/06/2015209/apples- ind...](https://apple.slashdot.org/story/20/02/06/2015209/apples-independent- repair-program-is-invasive-to-shops-and-their-customers-contract-shows)

Since you seem to be under the impression that Teslas are friendly to work on please take a moment and Enjoy this lovely youtuber who spends his time pissing off Tesla: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA)

Also on the apple front: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> People keep referring to the Monroney sticker here. It's irrelevant. Yes, when the car was new, it came with FSD. Then Tesla took it back as a trade, and while it was in their possession, they deleted the features. They are well within their right to do that, since they own the car.

There is no Monroney sticker for used car sales, so the one the article shows is a reprint of what the car had when sold new, which is no longer accurate. Just as it would be inaccurate for a gas car if someone had done an engine swap from a V8 to a diesel.

The one and only issue is whether Tesla represented that the car came with FSD in the sale at auction to the dealer. If they didn't, then the dealer doesn't have a leg to stand on here, unfortunately.

Another analogy - I might buy a car at auction where the Sirius radio works, because the old owner forgot to disable it. If they disable it later, then I would only have a claim if the seller claimed that the car came with lifetime free Sirius. Just because it worked when I bought it, doesn't mean it will keep working, if it wasn't intended to be included with the car.

As others have noted, Tesla does not remove features except when they are the owner of the car. The only exception being, "lifetime free supercharging" does not transfer with change of ownership, except on the oldest Model S cars out there.

<comment><USER14> Tesla seems to have admitted that they removed this feature when they weren't the owner, according to the picture of the in the invoice that says AP was removed on Nov 18, after Tesla had sold the car (on Nov 15).

I imagine their actions were based on the idea that AP is software and not included in the sale of the car. That's how computers are sold, but it is tremendously surprising for a car and a dangerous precedent.

A modern car (especially a Tesla) is driven by software. If used car buyers don't own the software in the car, do they even own the firmware that drives the car?

<comment><USER29> You are correct. I should have said Tesla INTENDED to remove the feature while they were in possession. Perhaps they removed it on paper, but didn't go through the step of removing it via a SW update. More to the point, they don't arbitrarily yank features off of cars in the field, though of course they have the ability via SW update to do so - they could lock me out of my car right now if they wanted to, or set the stereo to play Baby Shark on repeat at max volume and disable the volume controls. All possible.

The point remains, if they intended to remove it, and notified the purchaser that the car didn't have the feature, then I would side with Tesla, though it's indeed very sloppy. Again - it would be as if I moved into a house and the lawn guy kept coming for two months because the previous owner forgot to cancel the service. On the other hand, if the car was represented to the first buyer (the dealer) as having FSD, then Tesla is on the hook.

I'm sure the lawyers will figure it out ...

<comment><USER14> > and notified the purchaser that the car didn't have the feature

If you mean before the sale, then I agree. If they clearly told the buyer in advance that FSD wasn't included (despite the sticker saying otherwise), then not actually disabling it until a few days later isn't an issue.

But if there were evidence of that, I think Tesla would have responded. I'm sure a few people there read Hacker News.

And I fear the only thing the lawyers will sort out is who has more money to pay lawyers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Looking at it from the original buyers perspective, When they sold/traded in their used Model S to Tesla did the price they get take into account the self drive feature, or do Tesla pay the same trade in regardless of software features? If Tesla aren't buying back the feature then it makes it even less enticing to buy it on a new car as it has 100% depreciation! If they're paying for it at trade in then removing it before they sell it on then thats kinda fair enough its a bit like a dealer taking in a car with fancy wheels and putting stock ones on before they sell it on, sucks for the used buyer if they then have to pay full new price to add that feature later but... Although in this case it seems the issue is that Tesla sold a used car with a feature and then decided to take that feature back, which is theft in my book pure and simple.

<comment><USER45> It sounds like it was returned due to lemon law, which I imagine means the original buyer received a full refund. That's probably also the reason the feature was removed - they probably meant to disable it before selling it on. However, they didn't, and that's their mistake to accept - they can't just revoke features after they've already sold it without agreement from the buyer.

<comment><USER46> Can you point at a source for the auction paperwork? The article doesn't have it.

<comment><USER45> The Monroney paperwork is provided by the manufacturer as a legally binding assertion of the features the vehicle was sold with - there's a copy of that in the article.

<comment><USER46> That's for new cars. This wasn't a new car.

<comment><USER45> I'm not 100% sure of the law, but I wouldn't expect that to make a difference. The manufacturer may not be legally required to include the document if the vehicle isn't new, but if they choose to include one, I expect that it would still be required to be accurate and would still be legally binding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Tesla is kind of hostile to second hand market. No spare parts , no service history info, unauthorized repair disables charging etc.. Basically Apple mentality.

Car with a good maintenance should last 20 years. Not like a phone that gets thrown away every 5 years.

<comment><USER48> This is outdated. Tesla now publishes a full parts catalog. You can call up the parts desk at any Tesla Service Center and order whatever part you like (for the most part, a few critical parts are restricted). I believe they do ask for a VIN number, though.

<comment><USER49> Have you actually tried that?

Unless its changed even more recently - they _do_ publish a parts catalog.

And every single item, down to the most commodity screw/bolt doesn't list a price, just says "Contact Tesla for Sales". And according to at least a few people who have indeed contacted them, "Sorry, that part is not purchasable".

Basically as if a state said they had to make parts available to be (potentially) purchased online, and they had followed the very letter of the law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Doesn't Tesla understand that this behavior diminishes the value of their current customers' cars. If I currently own a Tesla and want to sell it, who would want to buy it knowing that Tesla could remove features anytime. They have just decimated the value of their cars. The market will correct their behavior.

<comment><USER51> If Tesla were thinking ahead, they'd have already realized that FSD should be offered as a license assigned to the user, not the car. Someone who has $7K of sunk cost into the brand itself is definitely going to lean towards a Tesla as their next vehicle, if buying a Ford/Kia/Hyundia/Jaguar/Audi/Porsche/whatever means losing that license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm not sure how anyone at Tesla thinks it's a good idea to remove options from a 2-3 year old car.

<comment><USER52> They don't. According to Tesla that feature was enabled by mistake and never paid for.

Whether you believe Tesla, is another matter but it's not like they remove features people paid for.

<comment><USER24> > _They don 't_

They don't think it's a good idea but they do it regardless?

<comment><USER53> Nobody ever got fired for doing exactly what the process said they should.

Someone in the chain that handled this ticket probably just didn't realize this was a case of broken process that would lead to a newsworthy bad outcome so they didn't escalate it and instead did what the process told them to. Maybe there was a perceived bigger fire to fight that day or something. It's really hard to build a support system that is highly averse to any perceived risk or monetary loss to the company without having things like these slip through the inevitable cracks in your processes.

<comment><USER6> > Someone in the chain that handled this ticket probably just didn't realize > this was a case of broken process that would lead to a newsworthy bad > outcome

All the more reason to avoid Teslas and any other equipment that can be modified remotely after the sale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> If you're thinking of buying a new Tesla take this into account, as it will probably affect the resale value

<comment><USER52> It won't.

When you buy FSD and sell the car, the FSD stays with the car.

This is a muddy situation where car was sold back to Tesla, dealer bought it from Tesla and sold to a third party.

Dealer claims it bought the car with FSD from Tesla. Tesla claims the car never had FSD and it was enabled by mistake.

Someone is lying but it's a one off situation.

You don't loose $7k feature when you sell the car, it stays with the car.

<comment><USER24> > _Tesla claims the car never had FSD and it was enabled by mistake._

How on earth can the car both never had FSD and having FSD enabled by mistake? The car either had FSD, or it didn't.

<comment><USER55> All Teslas are built with FSD hardware included. If you pay the extra $7k or whatever it is, they just enable it for you in software. In here, they are just arguing that it was enabled by mistake and the customer never paid for it in the first place.

<comment><USER45> Which honestly doesn't sound relevant to the purchaser. My understanding is that the Monroney sticker stipulates exactly what features are included in the vehicle, as provided by the manufacturer. By purchasing the vehicle, the customer has paid for exactly those features.

This is like them saying "Oh, we forgot to charge your dealer you for the premium interior and lighting" (which is listed on the same sheet as a $5000 option) - your response would quite rightly be "Tough, I bought it from the dealer at the agreed price based on the features listed, it's mine now"

<comment><USER55> Absolutely, and as others have already pointed out, it's on the dealer to put this right. Either refund the customer, pay for the upgrade, or take the car back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is absurd. It's theft, plain and simple. Tesla wants to habe each owner of the car pay the $7,000 software update option, yet when someone pays for it, they refuse to transfer the license to the buyer's next car.

<comment><USER57> If I have a computer with a big pile of really expensive software on it licensed to _me_ , and I sell you that piece of hardware, without formatting the disks, does that mean I've sold you those licenses?

I think any reasonable take here is "no, you did not".

A Tesla is a computer that just happens to have wheels.

In this case, it sounds like someone bought a second hand computer that happened to have an unlicensed installation of some software, and the license was revoked. Perhaps the car was ex-demo before the owner who auctioned it off did so.

Now, there's a _separate_ question around the communications over this, and the dealer/end customer being mis-sold, and they've stumbled there, but this is more of a gap between expectations (it's a car!) vs reality (it's a computer).

<comment><USER58> That's really not how it is sold.

If you want to stick with the computer metaphor, it's like Tesla sold you a computer with some paid-for firmware options enabled, tied to that device, that cannot be transferred to any other device, then pulls them post-resale.

Tesla needs to pick: either it's software licensed to you as a person and therefore transferrable to another car, or it's software tied to a specific car and therefore transferrable to another person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Tesla is another arbiter of control in the guise of being good. Haven't trusted them for years, would never buy one.

</comment><comment><USER59> Even since they made autopilot standard, I still find this whole payment structure hard to swallow. I would understand the idea of end of life support or even a monthly subscription because I wholly embrace the idea of more maintainable code and features in cars. It's not realistic to expect all of that for free in an as of yet imperfect technology. At a bare minimum, the infrastructure needs to be managed and maintained. This is a bit idealistic, but it may hopefully even lead to better industry standardization in the future.

With that in mind, the whole lump-sum pay structure just feels grubby. What if I buy the car, pay for the features, decide I don't like it and sell it in a short period of time? Granted, it's likely a poor financial decision on my part, but I'm left with no way to recoup that part of my investment. Rather than being a depreciating asset, it's not an asset at all. Worse still, tweaks to refund policies are likely to be unsatisfactory. I already said I'm willing to pay something, but the choices I'm provided are to either demand an refund, the process of which feels like wasting everyone's time involved, or make an arbitrary donation of capital to Tesla, Inc. Meanwhile, the terms continue to change for new buyers and aren't evenly applied to old or used buyers. Just do the math for me, let me sign up and be done with it. Software is soft, water is wet, etc. If they don't get this in check, the old guard could eat their lunch like people keep predicting.

</comment><comment><USER60> Just be glad they let you keep power steering and ABS.

<comment><USER61> Coming soon: Airbags-As-A-Service.

<comment><USER62> $1 / minute of driving for the airbag to monitor crash conditions and deploy

<comment><USER61> * Full Airbag is not currently complete and will be provided as an over-the-air update at some point in the future

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I think it's just a matter of time until Tesla moves to a subscription model. The current model of selling FSD as an early adopter package relies a lot on the promise it will be there soon and the expectation that the value (and price) will go up. If Tesla doesn't deliver on their FSD promises before current owners start looking for their next car, there's a huge risk of disappointment. These will be customers who paid thousands of dollars for FSD functionality that they never got.

Turning FSD into a subscription solves this: allowing customers to take the functionality to their next car keeps the current customer base happy and avoids messing up resale value if Tesla does not manage to deliver FSD on current hardware. It also creates a huge incentive for current owners to make their next car also a Tesla.

Tesla is already starting to offer premium functionality such as entertainment on a subscription model. As soon as FSD is good enough that people actually want to pay monthly for it (and not just the promise of it), I expect Tesla will do the same for FSD (and maybe even for other things like performance upgrades).

<comment><USER63> But to sell a subscription you have to have a product. You can sell FSD "capability" now, but if they switched that to a subscription they'd have to say "sign up to this list to start paying the subscription when we actually have FSD"

<comment><USER51> They have a product, it is just misnamed. FSD gets you smart summon, navigate- on-autopilot, AP lane switches, and autopark. It should be called enhanced autopilot, because actual FSD is so far away that nearly all current Teslas will be crushed before it's a real thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> This reminds me of Sony removing OtherOS from the Playstation 3. Users had to choose between updating their software and losing the ability to run Linux, or never being able to play online or buy a new game. It is outrageous for company to remove advertised features after the fact, and I haven't bought a Sony device since.

</comment><comment><USER65> This is one of the main reasons I won't buy a Tesla. They can just turn off things you paid for at will.

The other is they won't open up their parts for people to work on their own cars. That's one of the main reasons used Teslas are so expensive. I mean even salvaged Teslas are really expensive.

<comment><USER66> But in this case Tesla had _not_ been paid for this. Not by anyone.

The title of the article implies that they have, but if you read it you see that they have not.

<comment><USER67> IMHO that not true:

They sold a car. That car had certain features enabled.

That normally that feature would cost extra or is not explicitly listed in the contract doesn't matter at all. It was enabled in the car so anyone inspecting the car clearly saw the feature when looking for it.

It's like selling a car and then telling the buyer a month later "oh btw. the second row of seats in your car was not listed in the contract (even through you saw it when buying) so we went to your car used our master key to unlock it and removed the seats, you can always get them back by paying another 8,000".

Companies who accidental sell more then they want normally live with that loss and accept it as their error (which it IMHO obviously was).

<comment><USER43> FSD in an old vehicle like this doesn't even do anything. It's a placeholder feature, you would never know if it was on or not, there's zero customer facing features in the fsd package on -older- vehicles.

Newer vehicles, yes, FSD package has features.

<comment><USER68> It at least theoretically entitles you to a free upgrade to the newer self driving computer, which then activates the new features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> >Tesla has recent identified instances of customers being incorrectly configured for Autopilot versions that they did not pay for

Can you "pirate" Autopilot? Like enable it on cars which didn't come with it, where the buyer originally didn't pay?

<comment><USER70> According to this source, yes.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22267407](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22267407)

Maybe original owner pirated it before getting Tesla to buy it back?

<comment><USER51> The original monroney sticker had EAP and FSD listed, so nobody pirated it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> > _Oh hey, we realized our internal inventory system had this car with 16 " > wheels but it actually has 18"._

> _We 're taking the 18s back. Here are some 16" steelies_

Pretty sure you'd get shot in some parts of the world for trying that.

<comment><USER24> And in other parts of the world, you'd be paying for two sets of legal council and returning a set of 18-inch wheels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> So they basically "accidentally" sold more then they wanted to and then went after the customer (which by now happened to have changed) and _forcefully_ toke it away.

(And yes this can only be described as forcefully taking away something because they never did something like informing the customer that an accident happened and cooperating with that person to resolve it. Normally it would be common for a company which did such a mistake to either just "eat the loss" or sell the remaining part under a 50% and upward discount or so.)

<comment><USER49> > So they basically "accidentally" sold more then they wanted to and then went > after the customer (which by now happened to have changed) and forcefully > toke it away.

And who ostensibly paid for it. Tesla can state that it wasn't paid for (I disagree) - the buyer can say "I wouldn't have paid $x if it didn't have FSD, _per the manufacturer sticker_".

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Is the software upgrade tied to the car, or the individual? I think something like this will require legislation. If I buy a car with a feature, and I am paying extra for that feature, then I expect it to still be part of the car when I sell it, since that was part of the value to begin with.

If Tesla wants to argue otherwise, that the software is tied to the individual, then I should be able to either:

1) Sell the software itself to whoever

2) Transfer the software to my next car

Both of these should be options, since in the case of #2, the next car may not have the same upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER73> It makes me question the methodology Tesla uses for refurbishing and reselling a lemon.

It would've been pretty easy to restore non autopilot software (as this event shows) before they sold it.

After seeing the way this is handled, I for sure wouldn't be willing to spend $8K on a feature that can be removed so easily if I was configuring a new Tesla - regardless of whether or not private party sales have different policies.

The SAAS model is less appealing when it comes to durable goods.

Indeed, maybe we shouldn't allow software features to be rolled back after the car is delivered.

I decided against Tesla in 2017 when I bought my first EV. I wasn't into the complete lack of control in ownership - no ability to order parts or do my own repairs, vendor lock in for onboard DC fast charging equipment, cars made on "beta test" like production lines in tented parking lots, the chance of nefarious software updates from Tesla (or others) bricking functionality the car; or causing security issues.

Maybe the buyer should've done more homework, call Tesla before purchase and verify features?

It's a bad situation for the buyer; and another reason I have added to the growing list of reasons not to buy a Tesla.

<comment><USER74> The vehicle had the Moroney sticker. That is legally required to be accurate. The buyer had no reason to contact Tesla because Tesla themselves stated the car had this feature when they sold the car to the dealer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> So what it sounds like happened here is:

Tesla sells vehicle, original owner doesn't buy FSD. Sells vehicle back to Tesla.

Telsa turns FSD on, maybe as part of the recertification process, and forgets to turn it off.

Telsa resells vehicle to dealer, listed with FSD. Dealer resells to current owner, with FSD.

Systems audit at Tesla reconciles the sales data with the car features data, and rather than just eating their mistake, they turn off FSD.

</comment><comment><USER75> This reminds me of Samsung disabling the Galaxy phone SPO2 oxygen sensor in Samsung Health but only for Canada. To me selling a phone with a certain hardware feature then disabling months or years later without notice is fraud. My dad used it frequently since he has COPD and is on supplemental oxygen (yes I know it's not a medical device but it's a ballpark).

</comment><comment><USER76> Bottom line: The car dealership and / or new owner have a case here.

Since Tesla itself sold a car that had autopilot features, it is expected that those features would remain. The dealer bought the car and the fact that it had autopilot features (auto park I suppose?) when the dealer bought it, they were able to test the car and use the feature to assess and market the car's abilities.

Basically it was what it was at the time of the (original) sale. If Tesla wants to be more careful about this in the future that's OK, but they need to remove those features before any party is accepting it in a sale.

I think the owner needs to send a lawsuit to Tesla that offers court, settlement of $8000 or the features to be turned back on - and that's being nice - since at this point the owner has probably gone through the wringer of social media nightmare scenarios at this point.

</comment><comment><USER77> I, like everyone else here, was initially outraged that this could happen and I immediately thought "Oh Tesla, what have you done to your public perception". This is just not what people are expecting and this scenario works against Tesla being embraced by the "every man".

However, I did have another thought that I have not seen talked about - <USER2> the person that originally bought the car still have autopilot? In other words, if they buy a _new_ Tesla, does it automatically come with autopilot? Is the purchase of autopilot linked to the _person_ and not the _car_?

Though I still don't like that, I could be at least be persuaded to accept that paradigm.

<comment><USER51> > Is the purchase of autopilot linked to the person and not the car

No, it goes with the car. It stays with the car indefinitely unless you trade it in to Tesla, in which case they will give you no value for it (because they are the license grantor, it has zero value to them). As long as the car never gets owned by Tesla again, the feature follows it around until it meets the crusher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> What if the "license" to use FSDM belongs to the user and not the car? What if the original owner comes back and claims that he bought the license and he should be allowed to use it in his new car rather than go with the old car? Is that an unfair demand.

That is how it works for my Tesla. I bought one of the original 10000 or so Tesla and they came with unlimited supercharging. Tesla told me that I will have unlimited supercharging even if I get a new Tesla which I think is a better solution than it going away when I sell the old car.

</comment><comment><USER79> In my view, if the buyer and seller were acting in good faith and if the vehicle was equipped and sold with optional features included, activated or installed, as a result of an error claimed by the manufacturer, the optional features are deemed included in the purchase price at the point of sale.

The bad faith in this case points to the manufacturer for attempting to reclaim ownership and control of something it unwittingly transferred and sold to the buyer.

</comment><comment><USER43> Here's the inside scoop - older vehicles used to be much easier to enable autopilot and other paid features, so many places online sold much cheaper upgrades to autopilot and FSD. Tesla has a record of all purchases and the factory state of the vehicle. If the software has been illegally activated they are within their rights to disable the upgrade.

Think of it as buying a concert ticket - you get to the venue and they tell you it's counterfeit. Do you blame the venue or the seller? If they had bought the vehicle from Tesla it would have been a very different story.

And for the uninformed folks having a cry about disabled supercharging on salvage titles. Supercharging is automatically disabled on all cars when a serious collision is detected. This is to prevent a rapid and massive o rush of charging current flowing into potentially damaged batteries or HV wiring. Supercharging is a massive amount of energy dumped into the vehicle at once, hundreds times more than a regular home outlet, if something is wrong in the car it could start a fire. The majority of salvage titles have had an airbag deployment and this is one of the triggers for disabling supercharging, salvage title or not. Service will inspect the vehicle and if satisfied of the safety will enable charging again. I think it's a brilliant feature, and very safely focused.

<comment><USER15> Same account was created 22mins ago and has posted this same text on both of these Tesla posts? Honest question do you work for Tesla PR?

Other post [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22266418](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22266418)

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> And how does it work if I had a Tesla with FSD, sold it and bought another one? Does it get transferred to my new car?

<comment><USER81> No, FSD stays with the car.

<comment><USER80> According to the article, it does not.

<comment><USER81> The article does not say that. The point here is, that supposedly the dealer who sold the car had bought the car without auto pilot, but it was active when handed over. If he had bought the car with auto pilot from Tesla, it would have stayed with the resale.

(All sides now have to check the contracts carefully to find out who actually bought what)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Seems to me that it depends on if you buy the software for your account or for your car. Both are valid buissness models as far as I am concerned. If you buy it for your account you should only have to pay it once and then migrate it from car to car. If you buy it for the car it should be bound to the car.

<comment><USER71> Then shouldn't any other upgrades you buy be tied to your account?

Heated seats? Leather? Why should we treat meat space items differently than digital space ones?

<comment><USER82> Because when you sell the car, and do your account migration you can't remove leather digitally. Seem rather clear.

> Why should we treat meat space items differently than digital space ones?

Because they are different? Because people want to?

<comment><USER71> So just because it costs something to remove meat space features and doesn't for digital?

Seems like a good reason to disallow OTA up and down grades

<comment><USER71> Let's say you buy a house with an IoT refrigerator.

Should any non-subscription upgrades to said refrigerator be invalidated because ownership changed?

Should Samsung be able to disable supercooling mode?

What if the fridge was recertified by Samsung and they turned supercooling on and forgot to turn it off before reselling it?

<comment><USER83> If Im buying a house, the last thing I want to think about is a refrigerator license.

If Im buying a refrigerator and the conversation turns to licenses, im just going to nope out of that, I just want something that works

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> So it is a real question. How can they get away with it? I genuinely love Tesla as a piece of technology and I think they brought ridiculous amount of progress to otherwise stagnant market.

That said, how is that legal? To me it is as bad as disabling brakes or changing the way battery behaves.

News like that make me hate the future.

</comment><comment><USER85> I guess the real question is, is autopilot a _service_ (i.e. requiring realtime use of remote infrastructure) or is it a _feature_ that functions independently? In the second example, Tesla would be just arbitraging legal curiosities surrounding EULAs, which is kind of shitty.

</comment><comment><USER86> Yep Tesla is committing an unforced error. Yanking shit from a purchased car is uncool. Since somebody payed for that feature, it has value. Tesla should have cut a check to the present owner for the value of the feature that was being removed. Bad move Tesla.

</comment><comment><USER6> This sort of thing is one of the reasons why I avoid hardware or software that phones home and/or engages in automatic updates. I can't imagine a circumstance where I'd buy a Tesla or any other vehicles that are controlled by the manufacturer.

</comment><comment><USER36> That's beyond fucked up. This essentially guarantees no market for second hand Teslas in the future. It was already questionable with the battery situation whether these cars would sell on the used market after say $100k miles or whatever the initial battery is limited to before it dies and requires an expensive replacement. But now it's clear. I certainly won't be buying this garbage. This is not revolutionary. With no resale market, I doubt they are even more environmentally friendly than ICE cars which can and are resold and won't need expensive battery replacements. This is devolution not evolution. So much for Musk's genius. He seems more like the typical silicon valley billionaire asshole that he truly is every day.

<comment><USER66> Read the article. _Nobody_ paid Tesla for these features. The title implies that the owner change triggered the disabling, but that's not at all what happened here.

<comment><USER28> The dealer bought the car from Tesla with the features enabled, so I would say that they did actually pay Tesla for them.

<comment><USER66> Read the article again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Wow. My takeaway: Buy direct from Tesla, or risk having a sub-optimal ride.

Seems a bit evil to me. I can't imagine another car manufacturer penalizing you for buying from somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER88> VaaS (Vehicle as a service) coming to all vehicle and tractor manufacturer's near you!

<comment><USER26> I wouldn't mind it. I would be fair and square. You could have two options:

1\. Buy a car as is: Pay your car upfront. No updates after purchase

2\. VaaS: No upfront cost. Constant updates, monthly payment.

This current situation why I hate IoT devices. You pay upfront and hope they still provide the service after n years. It makes no sense for me, why would somebody provide a service without an ongoing revenue.

<comment><USER89> You can already have that right now. It's called leasing. After a few years you give the car back and get a new one.

<comment><USER88> I recall a documentary where they had a bunch of Electric vehicles out on lease. The company wanted to take all the vehicles back off the market so they went to all the owners to take the cars away.

The owners liked the vehicles so much they offered to buy them outright from the company so they could at least keep the cars they liked.

They raised the few million needed to pay off everyone's lease.

Company refused and took all the cars away anyway.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F)

<comment><USER90> I remember that story. Basically GM ran a little EV business for a while, then cancelled the project. Then were attacked and hated far more than, say, everyone else in the world who never bothered making EV's in the first place. Always seemed warped to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> This makes me wonder if someone could jailbreak these cars and offer the features for free. Seems like for $7000 for a feature there must be huge incentive to do so.

</comment><comment><USER92> Wasn't there an article recently about someone ordering this feature accidentally, and Tesla saying it was non-refundable? Talk about having your cake and eating it.

</comment><comment><USER83> I will never buy a Tesla based on this. Just, wow.

<comment><USER93> I've done the same with Adobe CC products. The second they implemented the SaaS model to please Wall Street analysts and their recurring revenue obssession, I started looking at alternatives.

Adobe Animate -- > Hype Professional (one-time fee) Adobe Illustrator --> Affinity Publisher (one-time fee)

For music, I just gave up on Spotify entirely and now purchase either vinyl or buy MP3 albums on Bandcamp, which fortunately houses the types of independent artists I prefer anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Update: it seems that Tesla agrees with most commenters here :) and in the meantime reactivated the autopilot on this car.

</comment><comment> user00012-ab Isn't this the same as saying I bought a used smart TV from someone and it didn't come with their Netflix account?

</comment><comment><USER94> This, and Elon's treatment of his first wife are why we wont be buying any Tesla products.

</comment><comment><USER95> Serious question: Are any Teslas compatible with openpilot?

<comment><USER96> The older ones with first gen autopilot are, yes

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Can they do this while the vehicle is driving?

<comment><USER48> No. It requires an over-the-air update to be installed. Car must be parked. There are some YouTubers who have managed to start an update while driving.. It's obviously not recommended. The update install doesn't start without the driver pushing a button though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Jalopnik has been shitting on Tesla and the EV industry for years. This article is 100% sensationalized for the clicks and benefit of their owners.

<comment><USER99> It reads like a fact-based, non biased article to me. I suspect you agree with this assessment too which is why you resorted to attacking the blog's owners instead of trying to disagree with any parts of the story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> And this is why i will not buy a Tesla... but I will buy their stock. Companies with sh!tty consumer attitude do well.

<comment><USER101> So what you're saying is you like companies with shitty consumer attitude? Because that right there is exactly how you get them and ruin the business landscape for everyone else.

I mean, you're incentivizing the behavior by extending them the funding to operate. "The Market" is you, and you are "the Market".

<comment><USER100> Well, sadly yes. Amazon is a horrible company ([https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon- wo...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers- protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-warehouse)) in many ways. Yet the stock has made Jeff Bezos a bizzilionaire.

I have no plans to ever work for Amazon even as a software developer - but I wish I had bought the stock.

I held Wells Fargo for awhile - specifically because they bragged about how good they are about extracting fees from customers. I would never bank with them, I use credit unions exclusively.

With the Trump deregulation mania encouraging stuff like this ([https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/us/florida-weed-killer- sprayi...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/us/florida-weed-killer-spraying-red- tide/index.html)) I will need lots of money to escape as a climate refugee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> Tesla might be "the F-35 of personal autos", but it kind of makes sense for have the AI part of a product be SaaS. The company invested a ton in R&D, and it's also liable for the damages (including deaths!) that the feature might produce if it malfunctions (hence they'd want it disabled after N years period where supporting it is no longer cost effective - even the fact that a city's roads configuration drastically changes 10 years in the future independent of the car could make the self-driving system unsafe, it's a systems issue here, no longer and "isolated product"!).

We're probably going to start seeing this more and more with "truly smart" devices... Though we do need ways to re-sell software licenses for firmware and stuff while they are still supported, even if separately from the actual hardware.

<comment><USER103> Makes sense or not, it should be clearly stated in your purchase contract and made public.

<comment><USER104> The feature in this case was never payed for it seems. By nobody. It was wrong to list the car as having the feature. Which is why it can be deactivated, BUT this means the buyers have a right to return it up the chain to whoever made the mistake first.

<comment><USER105> The buyer (and perhaps the dealer) did pay for the feature though when they bought the car with it described as having the feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> I love the way everyone takes this at face value and it's just true now.

I guess it's why we have fake news, just say it once.

It's clearly a mix-up they will fix.

It's probably when software updates happen it checks to see what to update on the account and deletes everything else.

But lets not think to hard. Not like anyone here has made a mistake coding or had to deal with middle managers.

And there are clearly issues with the ability to remote delete, Kindles had their OMG Amazon is deleting books period, and it sorted itself out.

It also allows you to get updates, that's pretty OMG too quite frankly.

<comment><USER6> > It's clearly a mix-up they will fix.

Perhaps. But speaking for myself, that's not the point. The point is that this is a great example of the risks of having stuff that can be updated by the manufacturer. We see similar things happening (albeit at lower price points) in software all the time.

This is an example of why I object to software that phones home and/or engages in automatic updates. It puts far too much control in the hands of companies.

<comment><USER106> > I object to software that phones home and/or engages in automatic updates

But Tesla's don't auto update. So it's not on topic.

We have to stay in reality.

Updates push us forward. It comes with risks but so far the rewards outweight the risk.

Elon made a car that can update! That's fucking amazing. It's what he does. Changes the game. Makes NEW things that push everything forward. It's a new way of thinking.

These comments seem straight from TSLAQ but sadly don't seem to be from that intelligent evil which would be interesting! just seems like stupidity.

A $50 billion+ company that works on reputation will ruin that for $7000?

<comment><USER6> > But Tesla's don't auto update.

Good to know -- so users can simply elect not to accept updates? What about when Tesla changes the operating characteristics of the car, is that always optional? Is accepting the change this article is talking about optional?

If so, then I have no objections, although I will still never buy a Tesla or any other vehicle that phones home.

> Updates push us forward. It comes with risks but so far the rewards > outweight the risk.

Perhaps. But as long as it's the owners who get to decide whether or not the risk is worth it, that's fine. If the manufacturer gets to make that decision, that's not fine at all.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Michael Chabon: How to Salvage a 'Wrecked' Novel (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/12/michael-chabon-how-to-salvage-a-wrecked-novel/68665/ <comment><USER2> "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" remains one of my all-time favorite novels. Got bored part way through "Wonder Boys" and never finished it. I've read a few of his others, none even a patch on "Mysteries...". Nobody's perfect :-)

<comment><USER3> Huh! I've read pretty much all his output and loved Wonder Boys most - it is hilarious. Moonglow was also great.. I think Kavalier and Clay was my least fave.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like "Wonder Boys" was at least in part autobiographical as the main character there also had a huge unfinished novel that had weird details like the genealogies and dental records of horses.

</comment><comment><USER5> TL;DR: make meta-art out of the wreckage.

As someone struggling with a novel draft, I was hoping for at least a smidge of actionable advice. I was disappointed.

<comment><USER6> Here's the two best pieces of advice I've encountered:

1: Have a plan. Don't just write and write and hope for something to come out. Make a structured plot outline, then a scene-by-scene breakdown (just a few sentences of summary for each), then it'll be much easier to keep your head on straight when you get deep in the weeds. At least it'll help you see your story from a different perspective.

2: Writer's block is what happens when you try to write the final draft on your first draft.

The second one especially has been very helpful, as I tend to be a perfectionist and try to get the tone and everything exactly right, which leads to stalled-brain-syndrome.

I hope that can be some help, or at least some encouragement! Good luck!

<comment><USER7> Stephen King has frequently said that he just starts writing with a few interesting characters in a room together and the novel flows from there because good characters cause the story to tell itself almost by magic.

The problem with this particular advice is that it omits the first and most essential part: "be Stephen King"

<comment><USER6> I agree completely!

There are a million systems out there for organizing story construction, whether it's one of the various outlining systems, or the Hero's Journey, or whatever, but nearly all stories follow the same essential pattern of rising and falling action in X number of acts. There's even been meta-studies on story going back into ancient times, and all stories from all cultures can be fit roughly into the same pattern.

King and others like him either omit or have forgotten how they came to understand these patterns. Maybe it was natural instinct, maybe years of slogging through practice stories that no one ever saw, but most people instinctively know what a good story is, and all successful authors have matched that pattern one way or another.

Doing it without a plan, especially when you're just starting out, is asking for trouble. It's possible to write an amazing story on your first try with no plan, if you're the next Hemingway or something, but for most people you'll just end up drafting and re-drafting and probably end up like Chabon himself, five years and 1000+ pages into an insane rambling mess.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Writing OOP using OOP - <AUTHOR> http://raganwald.com/2014/03/10/writing-oop-using-oop.html <comment><USER4> This is a sociological problem.

The further up the abstraction hierarchy you customize things in languages that let you do this, the more differentiated your code is and - <USER2> speaking - the more awkward it is to integrate with other people's code.

Lisp and Smalltalk are at one extreme end of the scale here. They let you define rich DSLs. Unfortunately, application of their most powerful features to any given problem domain typically results in a custom language specific to that domain - so much so that you lose much of the benefits of sharing a language with other programmers. Understanding what's going on takes much more work, because you need to understand more of the system before its gestalt becomes clear.

DSLs are excellent when they're applied to problem domains that are otherwise very clumsy to express, when the problem is widespread, when it doesn't intermix too deeply with other domains (i.e. the abstraction is mostly self- contained), and when there is a critical mass of programmers using it - <USER3> that understanding the system at its own level of abstraction is enough for most people.

But when you apply the same techniques to relatively humdrum problems like object construction, function binding etc., it's best if the language or its standard library has a reasonable approach and everybody uses it. Developing your own ad-hoc language around class construction means that everyone coming into your code needs to understand it before they can truly understand what the code is doing. It's a barrier to understanding, and the pros of customization need to be substantially higher than the costs of subtlety.

In short, it's usually better to be explicit.

<comment><USER5> totally agree.

Take ExtJs core, it's a good exemple of over abstracting everything. But JS is also guilty,guilty of providing "weak" and loose structures.If JS had classes(like ES6),nobody would create all these complicated frameworks to build them.

<comment><USER6> > If JS had classes(like ES6),nobody would create all these complicated > frameworks to build them.

Having classes does not solve the meta-programming issue, which is what most frameworks additionally provide. Look at the Java world for an example that classes don't prevent the proliferation of frameworks.

<comment><USER5> well, having classes helps not to ask oneself how to write classes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Joose[1] took these patterns about as far as anyone has (open source) as of several years ago; it's based on Moose[2] for Perl.

When Bill Edney and Scott Shattuck finally release TIBET[3] upon the world (something like 15 years in the making), it will take "real OOP" for JavaScript to a whole new level. TIBET is basically a full-on Smalltalk system (including a kernel, images, modules) for JavaScript, but it's not a compile- to-JS kit; rather, it builds right on top of the language, kind of a "super library" for ultra heavy-duty browser based apps.

[1] [https://github.com/Joose/Joose](https://github.com/Joose/Joose)

[2] [http://search.cpan.org/~ether/Moose-2.1204/lib/Moose.pm](http://search.cpan.org/~ether/Moose-2.1204/lib/Moose.pm)

[3] [http://technicalpursuit.com/](http://technicalpursuit.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> _But if we do buy the proposition that OO is a good idea for our domain, shouldn't we ask ourselves why we aren't using it for our classes?_

"If X is a good thing, why aren't we using more X?" No. I've seen horribly convoluted and overly complex code written as a result of following this sort of dogma with things like design patterns. OOP can be incredibly useful when applied correctly, but don't think that it's a panacea or that "OOP-ness" is somehow directly correlated with code quality. Layers of abstraction and encapsulation are very good at hiding bugs too, and IMHO they're overrated.

</comment><comment><USER9> _The basic proposition of OO is that objects encapsulate their private state._

I'd say the most basic proposition is that you solve problems by representing the nouns in the problem domain as objects in software. You could have a version of OOP that doesn't involve hiding internal state.

<comment><USER10> > You could have a version of OOP that doesn't involve hiding internal state.

I think that would make writing sentences with those nouns somewhat difficult.

<comment><USER11> Right. The basic tenets of OO are (1) identity and (2) encapsulation. Many would also throw in messaging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I generally prefer to KISS than to OOPOOP, but if you are building a large, sophisticated framework for large, long-term projects with large, stable teams, then yeah, it is a good idea to turn your patterns and structural standards into semi-custom languages within the language.

</comment><comment><USER13> Isn't this the scenario that is going to be solved by ES6 'class' syntax sugar?

<comment><USER14> No, that will only allow to subclass "Object", not "Class". Also with ES6 you have to define the prototype all in once and you can't call `defineMethod` for each one, the ES6 sugar is more like just using `MyClass.prototype = Object.create(BaseClass.prototype, { /* properties */ });` today. Which the author apparently doesn't feel is even worth mentioning.

<comment><USER13> But as I understand, the extension of Class was mainly to introduce a self- binding variant. I assumed that a proper class implementation would take that into account.

And what is bad about defining the prototype at once? I don't see a great advantage to the defineMethod() style.

<comment><USER14> Sorry, I was being sarcastic about the `defineMethod`-style. IMHO the author overvalues the class/inheritance part of OOP and discards the considerable risks posed by using it. For example in the case of the self-binding he misuses inheritance to express "a Class with SelfBinding" which is a strategy/trait relationship and inheritance is the absolutely wrong hammer for that screw. A simple function would be less intrusive, have less indirection, and be more flexible.

EDIT: I'm not sure self-binding is part of ES6, to address your actual question. self-binding introduces a certain overhead to every function call, so I'm not even sure it would be a good thing if it would.

<comment><USER13> :) thanks for clarifying..

And assuming one wants to express the problem in terms of objects, then the slight overhead might be worth being able to pass bound functions around, "without thinking about it"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like it as a theoretical exercise. I would not use it in production.

</comment><comment><USER16> I prefer to keep things simple.

[https://gist.github.com/rahulkmr/9482010](https://gist.github.com/rahulkmr/9482010)

It makes working with teams easier.

<comment><USER17> In the case of User.getName, why do you re-define that method just to call the prototype's method? Doesn't creating the object from the parent prototype bring that getName method to the User object for free?

Or, were you demonstrating the method overriding + calling to parent use case?

<comment><USER16> > Or, were you demonstrating the method overriding + calling to parent use > case?

Yep. This gist is what I run co-workers through for demonstrating OOP in JS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very nice article. Though, syntax highlighting would really add to readability of the snippets. Good job though.</comment>


Investing in Art - <AUTHOR> http://the-easel.com/essays/for-love-or-money-the-merits-of-investing-in-art/ <comment><USER2> Insider trading and conflicts of interest are uncontrolled in this market. The major shows of works of an artist are scheduled long before they are publicly announced. These shows usually increase the value of works by the artists selected. The big donors to the museums that hold the shows are the kind of people who enjoy and buy art and wind up sitting on their boards. It would be bad enough if they steered the museums to schedule shows of the artists whose works they hold, but even if they do not hold any, they may have months of insider knowledge of future shows during which they can acquire some such works before the show is publicly announced and the market prices of the works rise.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tangentally, I don't think "investing" is the right term here. When you invest in something, you buy/create an asset (like a machine, or stocks in company) that is creating returns. Meanwhile, buying assets that don't create returns, with the hope of selling them for more later, is just speculation, not investing.

</comment><comment><USER4> There are now companies like Masterworks that let you crowd-fund the purchase of million-dollar artworks. Problem is that the fees are 1.5% a year and 20% of profits and your gain will be realized when they decide to sell at some point in the future.

It would be good to a Vanguard-like trust owned by investors where the trust invests in well-known types of art - a trust for Impressionists, and a trust for Baroque, for example. I'd perhaps invest in an art ETF that's traded on the public market and owned hundreds of works. It's just not clear what should be bought and when they should be sold.

[https://www.masterworks.io](https://www.masterworks.io)

<comment><USER5> >> _It 's just not clear what should be bought and when they should be sold._

Maybe this will be an incentive for shareholder voting to come back into vogue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd love to make moderate investments in art. The problem is I'm a prime candidate for over-pricing, forgery, etc. Basically I have no idea how to validate or value a piece of work.

So I guess I'll stick to the safe cheap stuff.

<comment><USER7> Not to sound too cynical, but I am wondering how over-pricing can be a problem when the price for a piece of art is however much someone is willing to pay for it?

<comment><USER8> Further, if there is any _measurable_ value to much art other than how much someone pays for it? Which is seemingly driven by hype, not any intrinsic worth such as beauty/utility.

For example, anyone going through Gloucester Road tube station in London might wonder if the platform 'art' there does anything noteworthy but hide the brickwork behind.

<comment><USER7> >> the platform 'art' there does anything noteworthy but hide the brickwork behind.

Too true. I guess the value of the platform "art" might be equivalent to the financial cost of actually fixing the hole, which in this case, could be millions if you factor hiring the hole fixers and the lost of revenue due to closing of the tube station.

<comment><USER9> So the value of art by Jeffrey Koons could be the gainful employment of the people that physically produce it, though their number appears to be dwindling.

[https://news.artnet.com/art-world/jeff-koons- downsizing-1442...](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/jeff-koons- downsizing-1442788)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Shameless plug:

If you're interested in the art market and factors which affect price/value, I work for Arthena (YC W17) and we're hiring for a variety of roles. If you're interested check out [https://angel.co/arthena](https://angel.co/arthena) or reach out to me directly: firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER11> Hey Adrian, I've recently been looking into this area and stumbled upon your site only several weeks ago. I was wondering if musical instruments would fit into the "art" investment category as well, or is it a separate asset class? Stradivarius/Cremona violins, Steinway pianos, etc. Would rare musical instruments yield similar returns on average?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm curious, does anyone here invest in books (or trade in rare books in order to get the books they want)?

<comment><USER13> Perhaps not exactly what you are asking, but my grandfather collected antiquarian books. It was quite the collection and even had a first edition of Alice in Wonderland with beautiful colour plate illustrations and one book that looked like it had been signed by Queen Victoria. My mother had previously sold a miniscule little book of (I think) Patrick Kavanagh's poems for around £1000 or £2000, but had opted not to sell the Lewis Carroll because it was so beautiful.

So one summer, many years ago, she tasked me with valuing and selling off some of the rest of these books that had just been collecting dust under their bed and I hopped online to sites like Abe Books, made a little spreadsheet, then set off with a rucksack of what I thought was around €1000 worth of books. Now, as I was quite young and unemployed this seemed like a lot of money.

Alas, my first few trips to various bookshops specialising in this very thing were all futile. I eventually managed to sell a few but for much less than I thought, and to get anything reasonable I ended up having to part with the Alice in Wonderland. Thankfully I read it before.

This is all to say I would not recommend investing in books. They take up a lot of space, gather dust, are not particularly liquid, and most won't even appreciate and you've got to be careful not to damage the ones that will. Anything less interesting than a signed first edition by a renowned author will barely even get a second glance.

<comment><USER12> Thank you for sharing your experience. Your last paragraph does make sense.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with an excess of opportunities? - <AUTHOR> After 16 years in the Airbnb space, 4 business models (all working, none gone wildly successful) I find myself now in front of several hard choices. I have 7 different business models I could push, 3 of them working, 4 only ideas. I am pretty confident most of them are viable and could be scaled. They are all extremely sexy, at least for me. I don't know what to do: choose one and drop the others? Or launch several startups with different people and me in the position of co-founder with limited day to day involvement? It's the first time I've found myself in such a position, I hope you guys can help. <comment><USER2> Pick whichever will get you paid first. Revenue and profits trump all other factors. Nothing is sexier than $$$!

</comment><comment><USER3> iirc statisticly any of those 4 ideas will not be better then the best of the 3 you already tested. and one startup is already enough work.

</comment><comment><USER4> Think long term.</comment>


Making Sense of Python Unicode - <AUTHOR> http://lobstertech.com/2009/jun/07/python_unicode_tutorial/

<comment><USER2> "But UTF-8 has a dark side, a single character can take up anywhere between one to six bytes to represent in binary."

What? No! UTF-8 takes, _at most_ , 4 bytes per code point.

"But UTF-8 isn't very efficient at storing Asian symbols, taking a whole three bytes. The eastern masses revolted at the prospect of having to buy bigger hard drives and made their own encodings."

Many asian users object to UTF-8/Unicode because of the Han Unification, and because many characters supported in other character sets are not present in Unicode. Size of the binary encoding has nothing to do with it -- in fact, most east-asian characters take 4 bytes in UTF-16.

"American programmers: In your day to day grind, it's superfluous to put a 'u' in front of every single string."

American programmers _who aren't morons_ : Use 'u' or the first time somebody tries to run an accent through your code, it'll come out looking like line noise.

<comment><USER3> In 2.6 you can use: "from __future__ import unicode_literals". Use b'...' to get a str() instance instead of a unicode() object after that.

<comment><USER4> Some gotchas: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/809796/any-gotchas- using-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/809796/any-gotchas-using- unicode-literals-in-python-2-6)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      Lobstertech wrote:
      > American programmers: In your day to day grind,
      > it's superfluous to put a 'u' in front of every single
      > string."*

      Good idea, who cares about internationalization? You can
      always just pay someone in India to go over all of your
      code the day you notice the rest of the world

      Regards,
      European developer

      (... who doesn't want more competition)

</comment><comment> s-phi-nl A good tutorial on Python Unicode is <http://diveintopython3.org/strings.html>. It's also my favorite explanation of Unicode in general.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> bonus tip:

don't forget to add:

      # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

also, if you're using vim, make sure your encoding as well as your fileencoding are correct (they're different):

      set encoding=utf-8
      set fileencoding=utf-8

<comment><USER6> > set encoding=utf-8

this will cause problems on windows.</comment></comment>


Facebook: Whose idea was it? - <AUTHOR> http://www.02138mag.com/magazine/article/1724.html <comment><USER2> I am reminded of the quote (variously attributed), "Ideas are like assholes. Everybody's got one; no one wants to see YOURS..."

</comment><comment><USER3> So the ConnectU guys expected to get a hacker who would do all the work for them... well...

</comment><comment><USER4> "Who's idea was it?" - Who cares.</comment>


Why Microsoft loves Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/why-microsoft-loves-linux-7000035218/

<comment><USER2> Well, who doesn't?!</comment>


Can an Army of Feral Cats Help Solve New York City's Rat Problem? - <AUTHOR> https://www.insidehook.com/article/new-york/sheila-massey-feral-cats-solve-rat-problem <comment><USER2> Answer to all of these questions about predators solving prey problems: no.

if the cats eat all of the rats, there will be no food left for them, so someone will start starving to death and the population of cats will diminish. As the predator population diminishes, there will be fewer cats to eat the rats so the rat population will increase. There will be more food for the cats at that point, so the cat population will increase. This cycle is called Liapunov Stability and it has been extensively studied. Predators do not get rid of their prey for the same reasons that we do not erradicate cows and chickens.</comment>