HW3.0 upgrade for basic AP owners now free?

[gearchruncher]

This is how you ruin goodwill, guys …. Just waiting for the hammer to drop.

Earlier in this thread you said this was just finding an employee that didn't know what they were doing, and that clearly Tesla never meant to do this. Which is the exact opposite of Goodwill. Which is my exact experience, when I asked for Tesla to goodwill this under warranty, especially since other people were getting it. they very directly said "absolutely not."

Now you're claiming this is being done under goodwill? If it is goodwill, why do only people in SoCal get goodwill? Why is it "goodwill" when the car was advertised as having this hardware?

At this point, I think it's totally fair for anyone to do whatever they can to try and get HW3, and if Tesla is so disorganized to not even have a solid policy on this, that's on them. As a shareholder, you should be annoyed at Tesla's complete mess of a service organization, not trying to blame the customers.

 

[dmurphy]

Earlier in this thread you said this was just finding an employee that didn't know what they were doing, and that clearly Tesla never meant to do this. Which is the exact opposite of Goodwill. Which is my exact experience, when I asked for Tesla to goodwill this under warranty, especially since other people were getting it. they very directly said "absolutely not."

Now you're claiming this is being done under goodwill? If it is goodwill, why do only people in SoCal get goodwill? Why is it "goodwill" when the car was advertised as having this hardware?

At this point, I think it's totally fair for anyone to do whatever they can to try and get HW3, and if Tesla is so disorganized to not even have a solid policy on this, that's on them. As a shareholder, you should be annoyed at Tesla's complete mess of a service organization, not trying to blame the customers.

I don’t mean goodwill as in what they put on the invoice, but in how a company approaches their customer. Some companies go above and beyond for their customers, and others don’t. I’ll use Costco as an example. They have a very generous return policy. But people began abusing it - returning perfectly good TVs every year just so they could “upgrade.” What that did was burn Costco’s goodwill and now there’s a bunch of restrictions on electronics returns. That’s what I mean by goodwill. It’s the old “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Yeah, I’m sure it’s someone who’s not entering things correctly. But calling it a “hack” and creating, moving, cancelling service appointments when someone is clearly told what the price will be is a waste of resources at best, taking advantage at worst.

Obviously you don’t agree and think it’s a game. And that’s fine - we’re all entitled to opinions. But mine is clearly opposite of that.

 

[gearchruncher]

Appreciate you point of view.

I don’t mean goodwill as in what they put on the invoice, but in how a company approaches their customer. Some companies go above and beyond for their customers, and others don’t.

Would anyone right now consider Tesla service to have any "goodwill" towards customers by your definition? I haven't even had a loaner in 2 years.

Yeah, I’m sure it’s someone who’s not entering things correctly. But calling it a “hack” and creating, moving, cancelling service appointments when someone is clearly told what the price will be is a waste of resources at best, taking advantage at worst.

My point of view is that Tesla specifically advertised these cars as having all HW needed for FSD. They clearly do not. Putting these in for "free" is not going above and beyond. The fact they are unwilling to do so means that it's up to the customer to figure it out, and just like Tesla is taking full advantage of their position and playing hardball, then they should expect to get the same from their customers.

 

[dmurphy]

Appreciate you point of view.

Would anyone right now consider Tesla service to have any "goodwill" towards customers by your definition? I haven't even had a loaner in 2 years.

I fully recognize this isn’t true for some (many?) - but my service experiences with Tesla have been nothing short of great. Really; I mean that. The few issues I’ve had have all been addressed, and yes, I’ve even gotten a loaner when needed.

I know many struggle and I put the blame for that squarely on Tesla’s service management. My personal opinion (worth what you paid — nothing!) is that we have some strong management here in my area, and that trickles down to the employees on the floor. That’s not true for many other service centers and that’s a *major* problem. Honestly, I’ve got a few service folks I can recommend who should be national trainers in how to do it right. Doing it right doesn’t mean just do whatever the customer asks, but be polite and understanding. Service economy 101 stuff.

My point of view is that Tesla specifically advertised these cars as having all HW needed for FSD. They clearly do not. Putting these in for "free" is not going above and beyond. The fact they are unwilling to do so means that it's up to the customer to figure it out, and just like Tesla is taking full advantage of their position and playing hardball, then they should expect to get the same from their customers.

No, but if it’s not meant to be done at no cost, and folks are gaming the system to get it that way (c’mon, that whole make appt, change it, cancel, move it thing is a game!) .. I don’t agree with that. It’s like someone narrowed in on the one guy who’s entering it wrong and found a way to make sure his gets routed there before the employee is corrected.

I’d love to be wrong. I’d love for Tesla to say “yeah, let’s do this!” I’d love for it to be policy. I’d love to see every HW2.5 computer recycled.

But till that’s said, it just smells sneaky. That’s all.

 

[vickh]

San Diego "hack" didn't work for me

 

[MrFusion4]

San Diego "hack" didn't work for me

i really doubt its based on location, its more on if the person who assigns your ticket will input the wrong code.

 

[vickh]

i really doubt its based on location, its more on if the person who assigns your ticket will input the wrong code.

isn't that person location based? most of the success stories on this thread have been SoCal.

 

[MrFusion4]

isn't that person location based? most of the success stories on this thread have been SoCal.

yeah most but there's some outside of california as well

 

[dmurphy]

yeah most but there's some outside of california as well

Wonder if that TPS report coversheet memo went out ...

 

[stopcrazypp]

isn't that person location based? most of the success stories on this thread have been SoCal.

It's still case by case, one or more people may make the same mistake in that location, but that doesn't mean whoever got assigned your case would make the same mistake, as I don't imagine there is only one person at a location that is handling coding the cases coming in.

They may also have caught on something unusual is going on or an internal memo may have been issued, especially given this is being discussed so publicly (Tesla personnel may lurk here).

 

[tlr1000]

Personnel differ from SC to SC and that is understandable. At the end of the day, if there is a loophole to getting a free HW3 upgrade, many people would take advantage of it. The ideal solution is one that removes the loopholes and takes personnel variances out of the equation. Simple - Tesla should just have a clear policy on HW3 hardware upgrades. Either make it clear that everyone gets it free or no one at all. Of course I prefer the former.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Personnel differ from SC to SC and that is understandable. At the end of the day, if there is a loophole to getting a free HW3 upgrade, many people would take advantage of it. The ideal solution is one that removes the loopholes and takes personnel variances out of the equation. Simple - Tesla should just have a clear policy on HW3 hardware upgrades. Either make it clear that everyone gets it free or no one at all. Of course I prefer the former.

The official policy is very clear, you get a free upgrade if you bought FSD in full. You have to pay if not. Tesla have not indicated otherwise. The mistake being made is whoever is processing the request (which is done by a human) is likely entering the wrong code. It's not possible to take the personnel fully out of it because these are human written requests and AI is not good enough to process it.
Tesla can add additional checks to try to prevent this, although that depends on if they are aware of the issue and how much priority they place on fixing it.

 

[gearchruncher]

FYI, I sued Tesla over this exact situation and won. Judge agreed that the car was advertised as having all HW needed for FSD, which clearly is not true, and the damages were the $1K upgrade fee.

How to sue Tesla over historical claims

I sued Tesla in small claims and won. Twice! You can too. I had two claims: I have a car with AP2.5. Tesla advertised this car as having “all hardware needed for full self driving capability.” When I went to subscribe to “Full Self Driving Capability,” Tesla required a $1,000 hardware upgrade...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[tlr1000]

The official policy is very clear, you get a free upgrade if you bought FSD in full. You have to pay if not. Tesla have not indicated otherwise. The mistake being made is whoever is processing the request (which is done by a human) is likely entering the wrong code. It's not possible to take the personnel fully out of it because these are human written requests and AI is not good enough to process it.
Tesla can add additional checks to try to prevent this, although that depends on if they are aware of the issue and how much priority they place on fixing it.

With the frequency of people getting free HW3 upgrades I would say that it is at least not clear to those staff making the mistakes. If they tell all their service staff clearly that no one should get free HW3 unless they pay for FSD, the human errors wouldn't happen as much as they have. I have asked my service center about this and they did not know the answer which would imply that it isn't clear.

 

[Big Dog]

FYI, I sued Tesla over this exact situation and won. Judge agreed that the car was advertised as having all HW needed for FSD, which clearly is not true, and the damages were the $1K upgrade fee.

How to sue Tesla over historical claims

I sued Tesla in small claims and won. Twice! You can too. I had two claims: I have a car with AP2.5. Tesla advertised this car as having “all hardware needed for full self driving capability.” When I went to subscribe to “Full Self Driving Capability,” Tesla required a $1,000 hardware upgrade...

teslamotorsclub.com

Just out of curiosity, did a Tesla Rep even show up to court?

 

[gearchruncher]

Just out of curiosity, did a Tesla Rep even show up to court?

The post covers that, but nope. Tesla ignored all 5 attempts to contact them, including legal summons. The only response I ever got was from their accounts payable department once I had a judgement in hand.

This from the company with a stated policy of: "never to give in to false claims, even if we would lose, and never to fight true claims, even if we would win."

 

[stopcrazypp]

With the frequency of people getting free HW3 upgrades I would say that it is at least not clear to those staff making the mistakes. If they tell all their service staff clearly that no one should get free HW3 unless they pay for FSD, the human errors wouldn't happen as much as they have. I have asked my service center about this and they did not know the answer which would imply that it isn't clear.

Yes, it's not clear to at least some of the SC people (or else this wouldn't happen), but they deal with tons of different requests and if there are two options that seem to describe the same thing, and there isn't a tool tip or a internal memo they can quickly reference (ideally it shows up automatically when they select either option) it's easy to make a mistake. But you were talking about an external policy, for that Tesla have never suggested they would offer HW3 upgrades for free to everyone. If they were doing that, the app wouldn't charge you for it when you go the subscription route.

I would note also, the amount of people that had success seems to be quite low. There are some in this thread that tried many different times and they got denied each time. The only people with some success were at certain SCs and even so, some people that tried at those SCs got denied.

 

[tlr1000]

Yes, it's not clear to at least some of the SC people

I think we agree here. If it's not clear to some SC people, it needs to be made clear to all the SC people.

But you were talking about an external policy, for that Tesla have never suggested they would offer HW3 upgrades for free to everyone.

Not sure what your refer to as "external policy" but I simply said the situation lacks clarity and therefore needs clear policy. When I used the term "policy" I am referring to a corporate guideline on how a particular issue is handled by the company, so if I was to label this I would add the word "internal" and not "external". If the official (internal) policy is very clear to SC staff no one would have received the free HW3 upgrade w/o FSD. Furthermore, no SC staff would need to research the question when asked. I am pretty confident that if Model 3 owners of cars with single pane front side windows asked if there was a free upgrade to double pane, 100% of them would receive an answer of a hard no from the SC staff without needing to look into it and none would ever slip by the cracks of getting it for free.

 

[MaxYasgur]

Wonder if that TPS report coversheet memo went out ...

Is that you, Lumbergh?

 

[emptyspaces]

I mentioned this to someone in the biz and they suggested that my car (and yours who have found success) may have had the FSD computer or FSD overall paid for by a previous or the original owner. They said that when the person on the other end receives the request, and checks the car's history or VIN they may be seeing the option as paid for, as it was indeed taken care of, but never "installed/upgraded" I am the second owner, so I suppose that might be the case for me.

For those who were successful- how many of you are the original owners of your Model 3s?