When Features Disappear

[redi]

I think everyone is weighing in provide guesses to rationalize Tesla's said (and surmised) motivation for neutering the air suspension. While I can't catch every official announcement, I think Tesla, in general, has not said very much about detials behind their motivation, only that it was "changed", not outlining the eventual solution yet - only indicating "January".

I wish the shareholders only rising prices, Tesla only good PR, and no incidents, and continuing head-over-heels success. If this is a temporary fix I can't imagine how it does anything other than provide some infinitesimal benefit both real and PR, even though the benefits are completely unproven (at least outside of Tesla's inner sanctum/lab, and they're not disclosing more than superficial comments). If it (+5/16 increases and no lowering > 4mph) is a permanent fix, then like others have concluded, it appears a lot more folks are going to be chapped unless alzheimers kicks in and we all forget about it.

But in the future I would prefer to have the option to opt-out of stealthy feature removal, as in this update (I book relatively few highway miles). Not exactly sure how to do that as others have noted without Tesla's improving their approach. And they have been completely silent on this point as well.

 

[Beavis]

Re the comparison of coil vs. air ride height: it may be true but I don't think that those who miss the old low setting care how their air suspension now compares to the coil suspension. They just want their old air suspension settings back. I respect that and I am not going to tell them that their feelings aren't justified.

 

[Larry Chanin]

In the last year over the air upgrades have made the Model S a much better product then the one we originally bought.
However, the 5.8 unilateral downgrade of air suspension is a troubling harbinger of the potential of downgrades.

Steve,

Thank you for an intelligent and well-written cautionary article. I sincerely hope that Elon and his management team will read it. If they do, perhaps in the future when another challenge presents itself they will pause and take the time to notify Tesla owners, in advance, when initiating changes in vehicle functionality.

It seems that in their haste to proactively get in front of any National Highway Safety Administration investigation Tesla mishandled communications with their customers. I am convinced that if they had it to do over again that this software upgrade would have been handled in a much more transparent manner. The problem is that this failure in communications has weakened the trust of some owners.

Following this upgrade, some owners misinterpreted software glitches as another demonstration of Tesla's "policy" of deliberately modifying functionality without owner notification. For example, some owners noticed changes in regenerative breaking profiles following the upgrade. Since there was no mention of this in the release notes they naturally assumed this was just another example of Tesla deliberately changing the profiles without notifying the owners. However, it is now known that these changes in regenerative braking were actually due to a programming anomaly in which following the update the settings were changed from Standard to Low. A forum member discovered that this problem could be remedied by rebooting of the system.

I am confident in the future that Tesla will learn from this experience and will take pains to notify their customers of changes in functionality and customer trust will be restored.

Larry

 

[mjtgroup]

Steve,

Thank you for an intelligent and well-written cautionary article. I sincerely hope that Elon and his management team will read it. If they do, perhaps in the future when another challenge presents itself they will pause and take the time to notify Tesla owners, in advance, when initiating changes in vehicle functionality.

It seems that in their haste to proactively get in front of any National Highway Safety Administration investigation Tesla mishandled communications with their customers. I am convinced that if they had it to do over again that this software upgrade would have been handled in a much more transparent manner. The problem is that this failure in communications has weakened the trust of some owners.

Following this upgrade, some owners misinterpreted software glitches as another demonstration of Tesla's "policy" of deliberately modifying functionality without owner notification. For example, some owners noticed changes in regenerative breaking profiles following the upgrade. Since there was no mention of this in the release notes they naturally assumed this was just another example of Tesla deliberately changing the profiles without notifying the owners. However, it is now known that these changes in regenerative braking were actually due to a programming anomaly in which following the update the settings were changed from Standard to Low. A forum member discovered that this problem could be remedied by rebooting of the system.

I am confident in the future that Tesla will learn from this experience and will take pains to notify their customers of changes in functionality and customer trust will be restored.

Larry

Since the 5.8 download, I have had numerous issues. None of which existed before with 4.5: braking; battery warming; voice dialing; air suspension, ….. etc. What the hell. Upgrades yes! Downgrades . . . absolutely not! Question of the hour: who owns MY car? Who owns your car? If it "floats your boat", happy sailing!

 

[Larry Chanin]

Since the 5.8 download, I have had numerous issues. None of which existed before with 4.5: braking; battery warming; voice dialing; air suspension, ….. etc. What the hell. Upgrades yes! Downgrades . . . absolutely not! Question of the hour: who owns MY car? Who owns your car? If it "floats your boat", happy sailing!

I am sincerely sorry you are having difficulties with the upgrade. I have not experienced all those problems. I am not saying that Tesla shouldn't improve the quality of their programming, but I hope that you are not suggesting that all those defects are deliberate acts by Tesla to downgrade functionality. So far all we know for sure is that the automatic air suspension functionality has been temporarily downgraded.

If you will reread my posting you will see that I never expressed an opinion in which I specifically gave a pass to Tesla to downgrade our cars.

The points I did make were:

1) Tesla should avoid making changes without informing the owners.

2) Programming errors should not be interpreted as deliberate acts by Tesla to downgrade functionality.

3) Hopefully Tesla will have learned from this mishandled upgrade and avoid these mistakes in the future to restore trust.


Larry

 

[NigelM]

Mod Note: some posts went to snippiness