@Tam, that's a very insightful observation. And likely more accurate than my guess.
When I purchased my '17 S, I paid for EAP and FSD. I believe its morphed into AP and FSD with a more current update since I bought it. I don't know which one it is, but I am getting the same version updates that 2018, '18 and '20 are getting. Of course because I have AP 2.0 HW, I am not seeing the same features that AP 2.5 gets. But I believe the EAP is now AP.
But let's go back and talk about the Auction house Tesla. I think there's parts of the story that Jalopnik didn't research and should have before they stirred this pot.
1. They should/could have connected the dots to the original owner/first owner and verified that owner paid for EAP/FSD or had it on trial/test. Maybe it is/was one of the TMC OPs that have posted about their similar experiences. They could promise not to reveal which, but could at least checked their story against their truth about this car.
2. I think this was an unfortunate series of disassociated events that caused that last owner to lose AP/FSD. Here's how. He reported (via the Jalopnik) that AP/FSD disappeared as a result of a Dec OTA update. That does not sound like someone at Tesla purposely drilled down into the history of that car and singled it out to disable AP/FSD because someone had it after Tesla sold it. Because it was associated with an OTA update, I think that OTA has a subroutine in the software that compared the feature codes for each car against a database of paid for or cars without paid for AP/FSD and when it found one that was not paid for/trial, it flipped a software switch and disabled it. I recall reading just yesterday on the TM forum of someone that was complaining their 3 had AP/FSD for more than a year and suddenly after the same Dec update, his AP/FSD was gone/not working. So since a couple of owners have stated the loss was triggered by OTA, seems to me it was an automated process. So the innocent last owner was simply wrong place in ownership timeline to be impacted.
The person at Tesla that was selecting or keypunching VINs into a database or interfacing the subroutine to existing list of AP/FSD trial/permanent cars probably didn't even know what the consequences were while working. Maybe doesn't even know this happened.
I wonder how many Tesla owners did not pay for FSD and it was enabled for months/years and they didn't use it, ignored it, didn't care and now that its disabled will not miss it or notice its gone. If you are one of these owners, will you please hold up your hand? LOL.
I wonder, had the used car dealer or the auction house still owned this car would we have heard about the loss of AP/FSD on that car? Probably not. Its even unlikely that while owned by the auction house or used car dealer that it was connected to WiFi. I don't recall seeing how long the last owner had it before that Dec OTA changed his car, but he's just unlucky.
We heard about this because of the Jalopnik because of a private owner? Would it have been noticed or skipped if it was owned by the used car dealer?
I think it was is unfortunate these events collided like they did in a negative way. Its not a irreversible big deal though. Tesla is not losing millions if they just re-enable the software on this car or for that matter on others that lost it after the OTA update. I think they should simply turn it back on. I believe they will when it finally comes visible to those in a position to do so.
