Man buys used Tesla with autopilot. Tesla remotely disables autopilot: "not a feature that you had paid for"

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/07/man-buys-used-tesla-with-autop.html

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Surely the way forward here is to return the car to the auction house, it was sold under false pretenses.

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I’m interested in the outcome of this story. The auction clearly indicated the car had the autopilot feature, but it didn’t include it in the price, so… should they pay the $8k? Will the buyer return the car?

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The full story is that the car was a lemon law buyback to Tesla. It had the self driving feature at that point. Then Tesla sold the car to the dealer. It still had the features. During the time the dealer had it, Tesla did an audit and removed the feature from the server, but it was still available on the car.

The car was sold with the features still active, and they were not removed until the software update removed the feature. So both times the car sold it had the features present.

This is just fair warning on how Tesla may treat those who buy used or are out of warranty. Why give away features such as cruise control and AC on a used car when you can make the new owner pay for it again…

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You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

ETA: Also the word “Sale/Sell”

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Isn’t this like selling a computer with a licensed copy of Windows, and then having Microsoft deactivate it because you “did not pay for it”?

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Probably a good thing he wasn’t allowing autopilot to drive at the time they turned it off…

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So I guess the question is did Tesla misrepresent the car to the dealer?

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Does that mean that the persons who sold it back as a lemon can buy another Tesla and get the autopilot for free, since he “Has a license”…

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#gimpyourride

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Most likely, the dealer was given the original window sticker for the vehicle along with the lemon law buy-back info. Unknown what the buyback paperwork stated.

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I’m guessing that license is for that “particular” car, not the person… see where this is going? Yeah… nowhere.

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No Tesla for you!

(Weren’t they kind of Tesla-Nazi towards the people who did that?)

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Really seems that the buyer should bring his issue to the auction house, since they advertised the licensed features of the car. If the auction house can show that Tesla said the features were present when they acquired it, then, sure, Tesla should turn them back on. If the auction house advertised features that weren’t actually licensed, then the auction house should pay to have them activated, or buy back the car.

Seems simple enough.

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Window sticker on a Tesla? They don’t do that, do they?

Would they put software options on the sticker?

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Also note that when Tesla themselves sells them used, they sell ones that already had the features installed. And that is factored into the price, just as the dealer did.

The owner also called up Tesla and asked if a feature could be removed to make the price cheaper on a used Tesla and Tesla claimed that they cannot remove features that already exist on a car…

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The window sticker included with the car when both sales were made included the options that were later removed.

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The features were there when the auction house sold it and when the new owner sold it. They were not removed until he took it in for service and the software was updated. He posted photos of the features being there prior…

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Were the features advertised as licensed when the vehicle was sold? If so, the seller is on the hook.

I assume at some point if people find a way to re-enable it without Tesla’s permission that then a swarm of autonomous drones will follow your car with a PA declaring you to be cheap and a bad person and DOUBTING UR VIBE.

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