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by cynix 1416 days ago
> If you take the money out, or move it elsewhere, they cannot just break into your house and take the cash however

That’s because they don’t have the technical means to extract that money from your house without entering it. I’m sure they would gladly do it if they could.

> Also you haven't answered my question, which I think compares better to this situation than a random million dollars deposited into my account.

In your “car with unpaid option” example I think the manufacturer is in the right to remove it if they didn’t explicitly say you can keep it.

> No one randomly gave this guy an upgrade - it was a warranty replacement with a better item, that happens literally all the time in all kinds of industries. What doesn't happen is the manufacturer turning around few years later and taking the item back.

It’s not clear from the tweet thread if Tesla actually said “sure, you can keep the larger battery”. It seems it was an assumption made by the original owner based on… passage of time and Tesla’s inaction I guess?

1 comments

>>In your “car with unpaid option” example I think the manufacturer is in the right to remove it if they didn’t explicitly say you can keep it.

See, this is where we're going to disagree. Manufacturer's control over an item ends when the item is sold. If they have an issue with how the car was released from warranty repair, then they can go after the service centre that did the repair, not the owner. Or even if they want to go after the owner, they should do it through legal means, not just modify your product without asking.

>>It’s not clear from the tweet thread if Tesla actually said “sure, you can keep the larger battery”.

Tesla doesn't need to say that. It literally doesn't work like this anywhere, ever. The car was released after the warranty repair, documents were signed for that I'm sure, and after that point the car is what it is. If they installed a larger battery(and enabled it), whether intentionally or by accident, then it belongs to you at that point. Manufacturer should not be able to modify a product you own without your explicit permission, full stop.

I'll use one other analogy and then will give analogies a rest I think.

Imagine picking up a brand new car from the dealer, the car is advertised as having CarPlay support. You buy it, drive it around, then after a year bring it in for its first service - during which the manufacturer goes "oh, but this car was never actually speced with CarPlay support, it must have been a mistake at the factory, we'll remove it now". They might be technically correct, but it literally should be illegal for them to remove it. It's not different than them saying "oh the car was built with 7 seats but we can see that it was ordered with 5, so we removed the 2 extra seats during service" - again, that would be just theft. The car was released from their ownership as-is, and if they have an issue they can pursue it through courts, not just remove an item they think doesn't belong to you.

Like, what if they got it wrong? What if the battery upgrade was actually paid for and Tesla says it wasn't? Do we want them to have unlimited right to modify a product that YOU OWN, just because their database says something? Or should they go through the legal system if they think something is wrong? Because I'm very sure I know what the answer to this one is.