Should Tesla decide what you can or can not do with your car?

[rsr70]

Ok.... I'm sure this will draw the ire of many. No I am not a troll. I am not hear to speak about the cars themselves. I looked at but ultimately decided against a Model S purchase...for now.

I think what the company has delivered to date is quite impressive.

However, this article, if accurate, is quite disturbing.

Tesla banned customers from using its self-driving tech to work for Uber

If a person purchases/leases a Tesla automobile why can Tesla tell you what you can or can not do with it? If this was any other company people would be up in arms.

What if Microsoft said that your license of office can only be used to create personal documents? If you want to create something for gain (i.e. Resume, work agenda, etc) its not permitted. I'm not talking about giving away licenses or misappropriating license keys. That would be the equivalent of stealing the product in the first place.

Or Ethan Allen saying... this furniture can only be placed in a home. If its a bed and breakfast or hotel you have to pay other license fees.

Absurd right? If Tesla wants full control of how a product is used then perhaps they should give it away for free.

Just my 2 cents. This type of corporate over reach is not just limited to Tesla by the way, but there aren't many other 6 figure personal purchases that are limited in this type of way. (Limitations on house rentals being one example but for very different reasons.)

 

[chipmunk]

Ok.... I'm sure this will draw the ire of many. No I am not a troll. I am not hear to speak about the cars themselves. I looked at but ultimately decided against a Model S purchase...for now.

I think what the company has delivered to date is quite impressive.

However, this article, if accurate, is quite disturbing.

Tesla banned customers from using its self-driving tech to work for Uber

If a person purchases/leases a Tesla automobile why can Tesla tell you what you can or can not do with it? If this was any other company people would be up in arms.

What if Microsoft said that your license of office can only be used to create personal documents? If you want to create something for gain (i.e. Resume, work agenda, etc) its not permitted. I'm not talking about giving away licenses or misappropriating license keys. That would be the equivalent of stealing the product in the first place.

Or Ethan Allen saying... this furniture can only be placed in a home. If its a bed and breakfast or hotel you have to pay other license fees.

Absurd right? If Tesla wants full control of how a product is used then perhaps they should give it away for free.

Just my 2 cents. This type of corporate over reach is not just limited to Tesla by the way, but there aren't many other 6 figure personal purchases that are limited in this type of way. (Limitations on house rentals being one example but for very different reasons.)

I agree it sounds odd, however I'm guessing it could be a legal liability issue. They don't want to be liable if your Tesla is driving your Uber customer around their software causes injury to your customer. But, this is just my guess at a rationale.

 

[Xminus6]

Microsoft and plenty of other software vendors do sell licenses that only allow the software to be used for personal projects and that require you to purchase a separate license for commercial gain. Usually they sold as student, or home editions.

Tesla is not saying that you can't use a Tesla on Uber. If you want to manually drive your car around town for Uber, there's no way for them to restrict that. If you want to use the Autopilot features of your car while you're doing that, there's no way they can prevent that. I believe they're only hedging their bets against the future where people buy many self-driving cars and send a fleet of them out, without drivers, to drive for Uber. In that situation the liability for any accidents falls clearly on Tesla without them being able to set the parameters of the agreement.

I don't drive Uber and wouldn't even do it with an autonomous car, so it doesn't bother me.

 

[electracity]

It not about the car. It's about the network services required to control an autonomous vehicle remotely.

But don't worry. It will take years for level 5 to become a reality.

 

[rsr70]

Microsoft and plenty of other software vendors do sell licenses that only allow the software to be used for personal projects and that require you to purchase a separate license for commercial gain. Usually they sold as student, or home editions.

Tesla is not saying that you can't use a Tesla on Uber. If you want to manually drive your car around town for Uber, there's no way for them to restrict that. If you want to use the Autopilot features of your car while you're doing that, there's no way they can prevent that. I believe they're only hedging their bets against the future where people buy many self-driving cars and send a fleet of them out, without drivers, to drive for Uber. In that situation the liability for any accidents falls clearly on Tesla without them being able to set the parameters of the agreement.

I don't drive Uber and wouldn't even do it with an autonomous car, so it doesn't bother me.

It's neither here nor there for me. I don't drive for Uber either. Microsoft licensing doesn't preclude you from using your home computer to do professional work. It precludes companies from buying home user versions (usually reduced functionality) to roll out across a company. (Similar to how there are business internet lines, fleet car sales, etc).

So what if I buy a fleet of their cars at MSRP and use them for Uber? In reading the article it looks more like a way for Tesla to stop Uber from creating driverless cars which they are already piloting in Pittsburgh. The article reads like this is simply so THEY can own the taxi market too. A bit anti-competitive in my mind.

 

[JoaoD]

This is exactly as the software example you gave.
You can use the Tesla Self-driving tech to drive yourself, but if you want to sell that to a third party you have to buy a different license, in this case you will need to register in Tesla network, you can't just register your car as Uber driver.
That does not exclude you from being the Uber driver, it only excludes your car from being the driver, if you drive the car yourself you can Uber with it.

 

[Xminus6]

It's neither here nor there for me. I don't drive for Uber either. Microsoft licensing doesn't preclude you from using your home computer to do professional work. It precludes companies from buying home user versions (usually reduced functionality) to roll out across a company. (Similar to how there are business internet lines, fleet car sales, etc).

So what if I buy a fleet of their cars at MSRP and use them for Uber? In reading the article it looks more like a way for Tesla to stop Uber from creating driverless cars which they are already piloting in Pittsburgh. The article reads like this is simply so THEY can own the taxi market too. A bit anti-competitive in my mind.

Microsoft's student versions and other company's (Adobe) EDU versions of software specifically prohibit use for commercial gain. I'm not necessarily saying that Tesla's software should be like that, but there are software licenses out there that are commonly used that have that exact stipulation. So it's not unheard of.

 

[3Victoria]

Music is licenced similarily. Commercial use is regulated.

 

[diamond.g]

It not about the car. It's about the network services required to control an autonomous vehicle remotely.

But don't worry. It will take years for level 5 to become a reality.

My understanding mirrors this. If you are an Uber, how do you connect the car to that service so it can pick people up?

 

[Zaphod]

I think the differentiation you are missing is the limitation was for fully-autonomous use only. If you wanted to buy the car and use it for Uber/Lyft and drive it yourself, I think the intent was that's fine. However to use the car for ride sharing fully autonomous, that can only be done under Tesla's coming service. I'm sure the liability concerns on the autonomous part is why they want to be in control of that.

 

[Canuck]

A company can place any legally allowed restrictions they want on their product. If you don't like it, don't buy the product. The market will determine these issues since a competitor can come along and not place similar restrictions to try to lure customers to their product.

 

[Cyclone]

I think people are reading this with the wrong tone. I don't think Tesla will be outright banning their fully-autonomous vehicles (in fully-autonomous mode) from doing ride-sharing services. What they won't do is open up their API for integration to those platforms (only their own).

Let's take Uber as an example since I am more familiar with their setup than Lyft's (though they are likely the same). Uber requires you to be signed in via your phone and Uber's network tracks your location using your phone. So (1) first point, how does Uber track your vehicle coming to pick up a passenger and notify the passenger your vehicle is arriving when your phone is in your pocket at home or work? Assuming you somehow get over that, when the car arrives, (2) how does the vehicle unlock for that specific person and provide entry for that/those individual(s)? Do you just leave the doors unlocked and hope the person coming into the car is the Uber rider? Let's move on from that and say the Uber rider managed to get into the vehicle. Uber does not require a rider to put in the destination in all cases (though many riders do). So, assuming the rider did not provide the address in advance, (3-a) how does the rider provide the address to the Tesla in full autonomous mode? Said individual may be completely unfamiliar with how to interact with a Tesla. For the rider who provided the destination address, (3-b) how you tell the Tesla that while it is underway (you don't get the address until after accepting the offer). Do you create a calendar entry for it? If so, how does that work since Tesla will only display calendar data for phones connected via Bluetooth (even though the calendar data isn't shared via Bluetooth) and again, your phone isn't in the car. (4) If the rider has a question or a request (change the music), how does the Tesla handle that? Finally, when the Tesla arrives at the rider's destination, (5) how does it then plan the next fare request?

To me, all the statement about ride-sharing only being on the Tesla Network is simply Tesla NOT opening the API to Uber, Lyft, or anyone else. They will use the Tesla app and their proprietary calls to handle the above 5 questions themselves, but do nothing for addressing for others. Thus, you probably could have a fully-autonomous Tesla drive for Uber, but it will be a very poor user experience due to the lack of integration and have to work around the issues those 5 questions bring up.

 

[B8BB8B]

Lets look at it like this.

Someone with A LOT of money buys 1000 Tesla's and puts them in 1 city working remotely.

Now that cities super charging network will be overlogged with 1 persons cars all the time ruining it for the rest of normal people trying to charge.

 

[cgiGuy]

Lets look at it like this.

Someone with A LOT of money buys 1000 Tesla's and puts them in 1 city working remotely.

Now that cities super charging network will be overlogged with 1 persons cars all the time ruining it for the rest of normal people trying to charge.

That business plan would be doomed from the start, if they really were going to rely on public superchargers. Someone with the capital to buy 1000 Teslas would also invest in their own supercharging infrastructure.

 

[Frank99]

I agree with the OP if an Autonomous Tesla works without external communications. But if the car needs to communicate with Tesla's servers for the function to work, in my opinion Tesla has every right to put limitations on your ability to use those services.

Although the law in the US approves of shrink-wrap software licenses that limit your right to use a purchased item, I find them abhorrent. If you sell me an item, I have every right to use it as I see fit. Despite having lived in the software industry for the last 30 years, I don't understand why selling a piece of software gives a manufacturer more rights over the purchaser's use of that software than a manufacturer of hardware gets. Imagine Home Depot selling a hammer with the stipulation that you can't use it to strike nails purchased from Lowe's or other competing nail suppliers - we consider that ludicrous in the world of hardware, but normal in the world of software.

An ongoing service is a different beast entirely. If Autonomy requires Tesla services (meaning that likely you couldn't use it away from cell services), then they have every right to set the conditions on your continued use of the service. It'll be interesting to see what kind of service Autonomy requires, and where/under what conditions it'll work.

 

[msksus1]

That business plan would be doomed from the start, if they really were going to rely on public superchargers. Someone with the capital to buy 1000 Teslas would also invest in their own supercharging infrastructure.

well you would think that be the case, but yet there are plenty of chatter about locals using Superchargers frequently because its 'free' or they 'paid for it'.

 

[Rockster]

Software vendors can and do restrict the use of their software and license it differently based upon circumstances. From the screen sharing software I use to help my elderly father with his computer (free because it's a non-commercial use but fee-based if I ran a tech support company) to far more sophisticated applications, it's entirely reasonable for a company to have different licenses for different uses of their product.

 

[msksus1]

And tesla could be planning this as their approach. As easily as it can be turned on over the air, it prob can be turned off. I happen to agree with this philosophy. If you don't like it don't buy it. I am not impressed with all the shenanigans that others, google, facebook, and amazon to name a few, that attach to my laptop page visits and use them for further ad pop ups.

 

[diamond.g]

I agree with the OP if an Autonomous Tesla works without external communications. But if the car needs to communicate with Tesla's servers for the function to work, in my opinion Tesla has every right to put limitations on your ability to use those services.

Although the law in the US approves of shrink-wrap software licenses that limit your right to use a purchased item, I find them abhorrent. If you sell me an item, I have every right to use it as I see fit. Despite having lived in the software industry for the last 30 years, I don't understand why selling a piece of software gives a manufacturer more rights over the purchaser's use of that software than a manufacturer of hardware gets. Imagine Home Depot selling a hammer with the stipulation that you can't use it to strike nails purchased from Lowe's or other competing nail suppliers - we consider that ludicrous in the world of hardware, but normal in the world of software.

An ongoing service is a different beast entirely. If Autonomy requires Tesla services (meaning that likely you couldn't use it away from cell services), then they have every right to set the conditions on your continued use of the service. It'll be interesting to see what kind of service Autonomy requires, and where/under what conditions it'll work.

How would you summon an Autonomous Tesla without network comms?

 

[calisnow]

If a person purchases/leases a Tesla automobile why can Tesla tell you what you can or can not do with it?

You're getting all upset about two products which do not even exist (self driving Uber and Tesla networks). Short answer - this is 'Merica, Tesla builds the car and licenses you the software. Nobody puts a gun to your head and makes you buy the Tesla. Tough cookies.