I think we can all probably agree that the
real solution here is for Tesla to configure and deliver vehicles matching the MVPA out of the gate. My situation might have been due to "growing pains" and could be something that no longer is a problem at Tesla. No idea about that.
I think we can also agree that, regardless of whatever my car currently says it has, if I was to ever try to sell it to anyone (dealer or private party) ... that my
ethical obligation would be to describe the vehicle that I paid for, regardless of what it currently thinks it is.
For me, the controversial bit is that, with software-centric cars (like Tesla), there is a new challenge that hasn't been sufficiently addressed, in my opinion, in comparison to legacy automobiles. And that is that the vehicle's capabilities (and therefore its intrinsic "market value"), are harder for your average shopper to
independently verify. I doubt many prospective used-Tesla owners, prior to this thread, would walk up to a for-sale Tesla ... see that it has some software-enabled add-on (e.g., stealth performance, EAP, FSD, Boost, etc.) and think to ask "Ahhh cool ... but was that add-on paid for?" I contend that most would likely
presume that what they
see is what they
get ... and what they will indeed
retain for as long as they choose to own the vehicle.
Maybe that will change (by stories/situations like this) ... and used-car purchasers WILL indeed begin to inspect, not only what the car currently has, but also find some way to confirm with the manufacturer that the car's current software configuration is actually correct (and so shouldn't be expected to be subject to arbitrary removal at some future date). But my uninformed suspicion is that
not many would think to do that ... today.
A point that seems to be somewhat more controversial is, when things
don't go perfectly (e.g., a
misconfigured car is delivered, purchased, signed-for, and titled) ... whose responsibility is that? And in light of whose responsibility that is ... what would be a "good way" to go about rectifying the situation ... 5 days after purchase?, 5 weeks after purchase?, 5 months after purchase? ... and in my case
2.5 years after purchase?
In my specific case, I believe that ultimately it was Tesla's responsibility to deliver to me the properly-configured vehicle. And therefore, I believe it would have been a far better approach for Tesla to
at least have had some kind of conversation with me before removing features I drove off the lot with, in an automated manner ... after 2.5 years. In my
obviously-biased perspective, given that the misconfiguration was simply software (i.e., the mistake didn't actually cost anything to Tesla's bottom-line) ... I think one could easily argue that the best way to retain customer goodwill might be to leave it alone.
As
@jjrandorin basically said earlier in this thread. I too believe this series of events was most likely due to human input errors and back-end automation that was allowed to run indiscriminately ... and so no actual malice was intended. I never accused Tesla of any malice in this thread. The thing I
have done is tried to raise awareness of this
potential situation ... as a cautionary tale to others ... and as, I guess, a way to comiserate a bit about the carelessness with which the situation was handled to a group of people who I presumed I might share some camaraderie & fraternity with ... around Tesla products.
I have a mobile service appointment scheduled to correct my exterior badging for my de-spec'd M3 ... at least now I am doing
what I can to prevent confusion about this specific vehicle in the future.