Pros and Cons of CPO Signature

[Olle]

Here's the problem with that... it's going to be very, very difficult to keep any car post 1990 as a classic in a few decades, unless manufacturers make it a practice to open up their information on ECM's, BCM's, etc. My 1965 GTO? Everything is basic and mechancal with no software...

So what happens in 50 years, when 2/3's of the subsystem suppliers for Model S are out of business? When the TPMS module fails and leaves you with a rather permanent error message on the IC? Or the caps in the MCU fail and the touchscreen is stuck in an endless reboot loop? I'm sure there will be some parts cars around, but without Tesla's service software, it may not be possible to do swaps.

Based on this, I'm figuring that any car I own now will have no value as a "classic"... it's merely a stationary museum piece at best, IMO.

I was under the impression that OEMs store a few extra of all parts, including ECUs and all other control units, large and small, to later be sold as spare parts. But let's say they don't and people are stuck with swapping from parts cars 50 years from now.

Don't you think Tesla will let classics' owners access the software so people can do swaps? It seems unlikely that unlocking 50 year old sw would hurt present day sales?

I agree with you that today's cars will be stationary museum pieces, but not primarily for driveability reasons. How about complete autonomy, new laws, astronomically higher safety standards and everything else that we can't even imagine.. Its hard to even begin to fathom how much will happen in 50 years, but probably 10000 times more than in the past 50.

 

[FlasherZ]

I was under the impression that OEMs store a few extra of all parts, including ECUs and all other control units, large and small, to later be sold as spare parts. But let's say they don't and people are stuck with swapping from parts cars 50 years from now.

Don't you think Tesla will let classics' owners access the software so people can do swaps? It seems unlikely that unlocking 50 year old sw would hurt present day sales?

The question is whether you'll be able to run that software. Will you also have to keep a copy of Windows 7-8-10 around to run said software? Will there even be anything resembling a computer like this in 3, 4, or 5 decades?

I have a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 from the mid-1980's -- only 30 years old -- and already the floppies are losing their readability, the capacitors are going kerput, it's getting harder and harder to find displays that can display the output of the computer's analog TV modulator output on ch 3 or 4, etc. It's a real pain just trying to get the thing to display anything, much less getting it to boot OS-9. There are some emulators out there, but they don't work perfectly. We're talking about a timeframe that is 70% longer than that!

From a parts perspective, OEM's generally stock the parts, then find a partner (or partners) to buy up all the old stock and sell it later; I go to Ames for my Pontiac's needs. But there are many parts in Ames' catalog that aren't available as OEM's anymore, they are reproduction pieces, but few have software in them. So will these houses have to reverse engineer and re-write the software? Or will manufacturers release their code after a certain point? I don't know - I haven't seen a case of this yet, but maybe others here know...

I would love to keep my Signature Model S for the long term, but I am not confident that it will be worth anything but scrap aluminum and/or a museum piece in a couple of decades.

 

[Olle]

I would love to keep my Signature Model S for the long term, but I am not confident that it will be worth anything but scrap aluminum and/or a museum piece in a couple of decades.

Rest assured that your Sig will be worth a lot more than scrap aluminum in 50 years, if it is in presentable shape, driveable or not! If its only worth scrap, I'll offer to buy it from you for 10% over the scrap metal price and display it in my living room, if I'm still alive :smile: