Throughout the evacuation process, specifically during Hurricane Irma in Florida, Tesla owners received a strange upgrade.
Tesla owners were surprised with an additional 40 miles to the total range of one charge. This was to help with evacuation efforts and take away the uncertainty of family plans. The additional miles were upgraded to the Tesla operating system through a remotely enabled free software upgrade. This free upgrade ends Saturday. As you may think, there were many different reactions to this strange update, here they are:
1. There is the Tesla customer who is weary of Teslas abilities to 'add' mileage to the battery, but did not care in the moment because they were given the 40 extra miles. This is a more than fair opinion considering most owners just wanted to evacuate to a safe area. One owner said, "“I was totally blown away. It was super awesome of them to do that,” Mr. Forman said of the software upgrade. “Tesla is always thinking outside the box.”
2. There were the Tesla owners, AND non Tesla owners who were distraught over this.. Some tweets that were referenced in the article read, "Hold up. Tesla is hiding the max battery range until we need it? That's messed up" Which is another valid argument, why is Tesla able to add 40 miles? Shouldn't they get those 40 miles regardless?
Most other manufacturers brag that they "sell vehicles that are incapable of learning and improving and are highly vulnerable to obsolescence,” Adam Jonas, an analyst at Morgan Stanley. This seems to be a point of emphasis for other car companies now that Tesla took part in this action.
I am very curious as to what this will do to consumers perspective of Tesla. Personally, I think people should admire the initiative, but also be able to hold back on upgrades if they so choose.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/11/business/tesla-battery-irma-upgrade.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness&action=click&contentCollection=business®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront
I see both opinions on this issue. On one side, it is pretty awesome that Tesla was able to release and update, and instantly people were able to drive 40 more miles. However, it is also a little sketchy that Tesla was "hiding" the maximum battery range until people needed it. I'm interested to see how other car manufacturers will be impacted by this. I wonder if the technological level of Tesla will become the standard that other car manufacturers will have to live up to.
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting that a company can just add and or take away from a product that a consumer buys. It makes me think what else could i buy out there that is being held back by producers or companies. If Tesla knew they could add miles to there cars since they started producing them i believe that is sketchy but if they truly did just come out with a new update to allow for more range then i am happy they are still working on improving their products.
ReplyDeleteI find this information to be fascinating. I believe Tesla is taking advantage of the stressful situation people are in by helping their consumers by adding an extra 40 miles to the battery. Tesla is definitely benefiting from how "charitable or caring" it makes them appear. Yet, the program update proves how technologically advanced the car is and threatens other car manufacturers. If Tesla can keep updating their cars it makes purchasing the cars all the more reasonable for them because it's like being able to have the most updated technological features of their new cars without purchasing the new car. But on the other side of the spectrum, it makes the consumer feeling cheated and question why those extra 40 miles weren't added to the battery to begin with. Or worry about a possible glitch or bug in the new program that could cause more chaos.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a good move for Tesla if they can somehow get most customers to react positively. It is always a plus for firms to be socially responsible and this is a great example of a firm helping the community. This will provide the market with a positive outlook on Tesla and should have a slight increase in demand for their products. I believe the second perspective is, in some ways, narrow minded. There are many car manufacturers that hold back certain aspects of performance when selling their product. Otherwise the product would be more expensive.
ReplyDeleteObviously as everyones comments showed, this tends to be an extremely touchy subject for consumers. On one hand, it helped many people and was a beneficial update for Tesla owners. Although, the question arises as to why the update isn't just a baseline for all owners. Regardless, we will just have to wait and see what happens to the overall feeling about Tesla. With their cutting edge technology I doubt this will kill them.
ReplyDeleteThis could be a big step for Tesla and other businesses if they are able to get it approved by most of the consumers. This does seem uneasy to approach with optimism because of what Drew said, because they seem to be hiding the battery until people really seem to need it. That being said, if Tesla was able to get positive reactions from more consumers, this could be pretty big for their company
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