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[quote=""Jeff V.""]I never disagreed with this part. My problem is them blocking it AT THE CAR. Doing so disables all fast charging. Not just the Superchargers.

They could block access AT THE CHARGER and leave the car alone. For some reason, they're not. The connectivity is already there to enable authentication and billing.
[/quote]
Fair enough... They could do that. But then some stupid fucker is going to burn his house down and then sue Tesla saying that they should've disabled fast charging at the car if they thought it was dangerous enough to disable Supercharging.

This is the last time I'm going to say it.

I do not like the idea of a company altering physical, tangible property that I OWN without my consent. The hardware is useless without the software, so stop trying to act like there's a distinction between the two.

I'm kind of shocked that you especially see no problem with a corporation having greater rights to your property than you do. That they are allowed to tell you they know better than you do how it's to be used and maintained. If this was being done by the government, say the NHTSA or EPA, you'd be pitching a fit.

Would you argue that it's ok for Cisco or Juniper to access a router and remove features without your consent?

If my Cisco router or Juniper switch malfunctions it isn't going to burn my house down.

I'm a little shocked that you don't seem to grasp the dangers of high voltages and battery technology that isn't all that forgiving when it fails. We're not talking about a puddle of gasoline that can be put out via conventional means - we're talking about several hundred pounds of toxic chemical battery containing a high charge that practically refuses to be extinguished until it has burned all the way through the packs. Need a class D extinguisher to have much of a chance, though putting out a battery that large contained in a steel box under your car is probably not going to happen with anything you have at home.

Who do you think the insurance company is going to go after first?

BTW, I'm not saying I like it - but I can see why Tesla would take that stance.

Matt wrote:I'm a little shocked that you don't seem to grasp the dangers of high voltages and battery technology that isn't all that forgiving when it fails.

I grasp it perfectly. Both you and Chris are making the argument that it's perfectly ok to kill yourself through any of a hundred other acts of ignorance, but high voltage is a unique case that gives a manufacturer the right to reach in and alter someone else's property to cover the corporation's own ass.

I give up. Apparently we should be grateful that our betters in Silicon Valley are looking out for us themselves.

[quote=""Jeff V.""]I grasp it perfectly. Both you and Chris are making the argument that it's perfectly ok to kill yourself through any of a hundred other acts of ignorance, but high voltage is a unique case that gives a manufacturer the right to reach in and alter someone else's property to cover the corporation's own ass.

I give up. Apparently we should be grateful that our betters in Silicon Valley are looking out for us themselves.[/quote]

That's a scary precedent.

perfectly ok to kill yourself through any of a hundred other acts of ignorance

Because you are in the car, you are in the car at the time of something failing, you are in the car at the time of something failing and the car is turned on.

The moment the Tesla burns down because it's on charge at 2am, because a value charge kicks in is the moment they get sued.

You seem to be conflating the two issues, if I superduper charge my Camaro and blow up the flywheel and get metal shrapnel in me I'm there causing that. If I superduper charge my Tesla and it fails to charge the battery properly because I implemented this one hack that allowed me to charge at 3x the rate, I'm not there to monitor the situation (and that could mean latent failure). You may think I'm nitpicking, but it's a super fine line the OEMs are very weary of walking when you have the car on plug and you're not there.

Even on the low voltage side this was a huge thing because of hydrogen gassing from a FLA battery and home wiring/power consumption.

manufacturer the right to reach in and alter someone else's property to cover the corporation's own ass.

The alternative is to not regulate what goes into their vehicles, wait for someone to implement a shitty charging system, burn their house down, and then sue Tesla for not implementing controls to protect the car from doing that. I would agree you should be able to do whatever you want with the car, if and only if that voids the OEMs responsibility to you to keep the car safe, but that is not the case.

It does bum me out a little that you think it's because the OEMs are big, evil and mean when the people designing those controls are there to make the car safe and reliable. I did a lot of work on the LV battery to make sure the internals weren't shorted, gassing, or corroded, so that when you walked away and it took 10 hours to charge it there would be no spark.

An example of this is a lockout to let any hydrogen gas clear from the battery area before we charged it, if you wanted to change that and make it shorter or get rid of it, you put yourself at a risk (very very low risk) of causing a problem because the battery wasn't underhood. Do you think the person recalibrating that timer understands that we tested a bunch of batteries and found that to be an issue in one of them after doing a FEMA? Or if you were to change the BMS sensor out for a 'cheaper one' that doesn't give me the same fidelity of information to make charging decisions?

That they are allowed to tell you they know better than you do how it's to be used and maintained. If this was being done by the government, say the NHTSA or EPA, you'd be pitching a fit.

No I wouldn't, and I would agree with your statement that Tesla understands the ins and outs of its charging system and all the edge cases it needs to encounter better than the 10 people here arguing. I'm not upset about this, but I'm just very staunch in my position because I've seen what happens when idiots fuck with the charging parameters (in the name of science) of a battery, over charge it, and it either releases noxious gasses or catches fire and one of those times, the guy wasn't there to monitor the situation.

And for the record, I don't think you should be messing with the monitors that are there to prevent you from unintendedly accelerating or the ones that monitor the drive, brake, or shift by wire systems.

I've repeated my point about a half dozen times now. You still aren't getting it and I'm tired of trying to convince you. The only person making this discussion complicated is you. It's a very, very simple concept, and you still insist on dropping pages of technical jargon about how complex it is, and setting up straw men with vague threats about lawyers. You haven't provided even one example of such a lawsuit actually happening.

This is about who actually owns a piece of property and whether someone can alter it without the owners consent. Not hydrogen outgassing or edge cases. What is so fucking difficult about this?

Then read this statement again, I would agree you should be able to do whatever you want with the car, if and only if that voids the OEMs responsibility to you to keep the car safe. I'm not trying to wash you with technical examples, but giving you reasons why they would do something- if you want to dismiss those as nonsense then you're discounting their motivation for doing what they're doing.

I provided you an example of a class action lawsuit brought against OEMs based on people forgetting to turn their cars off, stating that they didn't do their do diligence to ensure that the person wasn't in the car. People have died because of that. And you want to give people the ability to mess around with a HV charging system, which could charge the car, when you're not near the car- you're discounting how litigious people are.

I'll stop arguing the point now, I think I've made my case where the OEMs aren't evil assholes and are trying to make things safe- if you don't want to believe that statement then, I dunno and I'm sorry the discussion frustrates you. It's a good thing you have more options with regards to EVs, and Ford/GM don't have the ability down their stuff as much.

Chris wrote:I provided you an example of a class action lawsuit brought against OEMs based on people forgetting to turn their cars off, stating that they didn't do their do diligence to ensure that the person wasn't in the car.

What the hell does that have to do with the owner ALTERING the car after the fact? NOTHING. The car was designed and sold that way so yes, it can be argued that that's a defect or negligence.

If the owner had installed that system after the fact, then we'd be talking about the same thing. And that'd also mean they would be unable to sue Honda. Even the biggest chump lawyer would laugh them out of the room.

Because if someone is going to sue you for not designing a system that disables the car after it figures you're not in it, they'll sure as shit sue you for not designing a system that detects irregularities in software/hardware and disabling that from functioning. Tesla just has the added benefit (?) of being able to do it remotely. And since the OEMs are big evil assholes, the negative press alone is enough to hurt them if they don't.

Hate it, love it, I don't really care, but that's life to someone designing that stuff.

Lawsuits are part of life in the car business. Some justified (Takata, GMs ignition switches) and some aren't (Toyota's unintended acceleration).

None of that gives someone the right to alter my shit without my consent. Just because it's complex or dangerous does not give someone rights to my property. Especially when they're doing it without any actual evidence that the car has actually been tampered with.

And then there was the whole wk057 thing where they rolled back his firmware. Musk was on Twitter saying "good hacking is a gift" while someone in his corporation was fucking with the guy's car over said hacking.

As far as Tesla being evil or not, tell me how restricting supplies of things like fenders has anything at all to do with the HV systems?

Look man, I'm giving you motivation other than claims that they're evil monsters out to collect your money at all costs- perhaps Tesla isn't the right brand for you if you want to be free to modify the charging system and hack the shit out of the car. I'm kinda over arguing that with you, like it or not, that's life and I'm giving you the tail end of multiple hours of my life spent in meetings arguing over how much charging we should do when the customer is asleep.

I understand you want the car to be yours, but if you start messing with things you ought not to mess with, then the system is no longer under the control and standards the OEM certified to. Then, since it's trial by jury in a lot of cases, I can certainly see a prosecuting attorney making the argument that, "You could've detected an irregularity, and you didn't stop it? That's negligence." I would shield myself if I could from that type of negative attention.

As for your fender argument my thought there would be that they do a lot of reinforcing of the battery tray and don't want people to weaken that area, but honestly I wouldn't know their reasoning as I wasn't a chassis person and honestly don't care. Seems like more of a problem with their business model of not being able to supply/support their cars properly.

Chris wrote:Look man, I'm giving you motivation other than claims that they're evil monsters out to collect your money at all costs-

I know their motivation. It's covering their own asses. We're actually saying the same thing here.

I'm not arguing the motivation at all. I'm asking at what point the corporate priorities override the property rights of the legal owner of the object. (This is the tenth time I've said this now?)

Chris wrote:Then, since it's trial by jury in a lot of cases, I can certainly see a prosecuting attorney making the argument that, "You could've detected an irregularity, and you didn't stop it? That's negligence."

Then the defense attorney comes back with how the OEM can't and won't alter the owner's modifications without consent, because doing so would violate their privacy and property rights.

Maybe you've noticed digital privacy is kind of a big thing right now? Guess how that'd play with a jury? Owner fucks up his car, doesn't give consent to the OEM to override or disable it, case closed. Judgement for defendant. And they win in the court of public opinion for respecting privacy and property rights.

Chris wrote:As for your fender argument my thought there would be that they do a lot of reinforcing of the battery tray and don't want people to weaken that area

There is no battery tray. The battery is underneath the passenger compartment. It's literally the floor of the car. It's actually a stressed, structural part of the chassis.





Limiting parts supply, restricting access to tools, and fucking with the firmware all serves one goal. Protecting their brand.

In and of itself, that's not wrong. All I want to know is how far we're prepared to let them go to accomplish that.

I don't want one for a few reasons, and none of them have to do with modifying anything.

1. Cost
2. I can't maintain/diagnose problems with it
3. Extremely limited, costly options for getting it serviced when a problem does occur
4. I hate that giant LCD in the center console

I spent $400 for a diagnostic tool so I could diagnose my Audi. The only things I've 'modified' with it are disabling the door chime when the ignition is on, and re-coding the body module to accept the new OEM LED taillights.

I don't even like not having an OEM-equivalent scantool for Vira's Mazda. But those are costly and a total crapshoot when it comes to the shoddy Chinese clone hardware and cracked software. At least with the VW/Audi VCDS stuff, it's a professional tool that was developed from scratch to implement OEM functionality and more. It's a unique product that isn't a clone or ripoff of any of the OEM stuff, and it's fully supported.

The only thing it doesn't do is make newer keys and re-code the component protection when replacing modules. Both of those features come back to the OEM covering their ass and forcing traffic to their dealers and licensed 3rd parties. Ross Tech isn't willing to try to implement it due to fears of a DMCA lawsuit.

I've got 3 Mitsubishi OEM MUT-II scantools in my basement. One is broken. The other two have damaged cables. I need to put the other two together into kits and sell them so I can buy an MUT-III.

Then the defense attorney comes back with how the OEM can't and won't alter the owner's modifications without consent, because doing so would violate their privacy and property rights.

The defense attorney also should be able to state that the person should be smart enough to not leave their car on in an enclosed area, yet that doesn't put a halt to the lawsuit. We're going to have to agree to disagree- your statements are reasonable, of course, and any reasonable person would think that if you modify something on your car you void any sort of certification the OEM has in place to protect you, but it doesn't reflect reality. You rightly assumed they have the responsibility to protect people from the car, and this is how Tesla is doing it.

As an alternative they could have detected something wrong with the firmware and put charging into limp mode too, but I fear that would've upset you as well. The argument I'm making is that their protections are benign and not malicious in their intent, those systems are made to work with what it comes out of the factory and if you don't have that then they won't anymore, perhaps they would've been better off putting it on board instead of off board- I dunno, I dun care.

Limiting parts supply, restricting access to tools, and fucking with the firmware all serves one goal. Protecting their brand.

Then don't buy the car and purchase the alternative, and let your free market voice be heard. Either way, I'm out, argument is getting stale.

Chris wrote:As an alternative they could have detected something wrong with the firmware and put charging into limp mode too, but I fear that would've upset you as well.

Then build it into the car and disclose that mechanism prior to sale if asked. Don't remotely access my shit and change it after the fact.

Chris wrote:Then don't buy the car and purchase the alternative, and let your free market voice be heard.

I won't. It might have been fun to pick up a wrecked one in a few years, but without the information, tools and parts to work on it, that's a non-starter for me. That philosophy kinda flies in the face of environmental friendliness when your car is considered as disposable as your broken iPhone.

Chris wrote: Either way, I'm out, argument is getting stale.

Well that sucks. There's still someone out there rebuilding a flooded electric car. I figured that'd still be entertaining to discuss.

I forgot the 5th reason I don't want an electric car. Multiple, incompatible charging standards.

Until the smart guys get that shit worked out, I think the best solution is a PHEV like the Volt.

The "standard" is J1772. That's what you'll typically find at public charging stations. Tesla includes an adapter with their cars to let you plug a J1772 into the Tesla charge port.

It's significantly slower than the Supercharger and Chademo standards though. I was just reading an article about the Chevy Bolt, and they said it's really an excellent car. But it's hindered by its reliance on slow chargers, and ignorant dealers. That last one has been an ongoing problem since the Volt was released.

You can easily charge the Bolt up from empty to full in about 8 hours at home overnight with a 32A EVSE. How often do you drive 200 miles in a day? If you do a lot, then a pure electric car might not be your best choice.

Ignorant dealers - yes. Rampant for all except Tesla. I'm not so sure that only applies to electric vehicles though. The dealer I bought my Stingray from, the salesman said to never take it out of Touring mode. I'd kill myself for sure with it if I ever put it in Race mode. LOL!