> Tesla could say that it wasn't a feature that Buyer 1 paid for
Tesla sold the car to Buyer 1 (the dealer) with the feature enabled. I think that means that it was in fact a feature that Buyer 1 paid for, even if they didn't purchase the feature in a separate transaction.
If you sell someone a house with a roof, you don't get to go back and say "sorry I just noticed that the roof upgrade was never purchased for this house so I'm going to remove the roof unless you pay another $6000."
I could see an argument that Buyer 1 was accidentally given this feature, if it was not advertised as present, and if there was no way for Buyer 1 to know the feature was enabled at that time (auctions probably don't have test drives).
Under those circumstances, the fact that it was in fact enabled was sort of a windfall to Buyer 1. If Tesla could have pulled it back and notified Buyer 1 prior to the subsequent sale to Buyer 2, maybe this wouldn't seem so bad. But to hit Buyer 2 with this — especially since Buyer 2 is a person, not a business — makes this very unsavory.
The Monroney sticker is only valid for new cars. Yes, the car had FSD when it was new. What Tesla alleges is that when they re-sold the car at auction, they didn’t include FSD.
Let’s say a car had a motor swap from a V8 to a V6, and is then sold at auction. Pointing at the Monroney sticker to say the car was sold with a V8 is not relevant.
Except it wasn't swapped ,it had the v8 in it, as also advertised, and then post auction they broke into your garage and swapped for the v6 because they were unhappy with their final sales price. If the sticker was on the car uncorrected, I beelieve it would hold up in court as advertising.
One issue that I have with that explanation is that the Monroney may not necessarily be the sole contract between Tesla and the dealer. Without hearing the dealer's side of the story, this part is hard to know conclusively.
Exactly. All Tesla is doing here is destroying the resale value of their cars.
If Ford sells me a car that has ADAS installed, it's listed on the sticker, and the features work, then the price is completely immaterial and if they later try to disable it remotely I can't imagine the courts would look favorably on that.
This just killed any remaining desire I might have had to buy anything from Tesla.
> Exactly. All Tesla is doing here is destroying the resale value of their cars.
Not just the resale value, but the value, full stop. If I buy a car, I'm more worried, at least in the short term, about its features ceasing to work for me than I am about their not working for the next buyer.
This article doesn't make clear if the sticker on the first sale listed this feature. I think this could be relevant if Tesla were dealing with Buyer 1, but totally irrelevant with regard to Buyer 2 (who would have never seen the sticker from the first sale).
Tesla sold the car to Buyer 1 (the dealer) with the feature enabled. I think that means that it was in fact a feature that Buyer 1 paid for, even if they didn't purchase the feature in a separate transaction.
If you sell someone a house with a roof, you don't get to go back and say "sorry I just noticed that the roof upgrade was never purchased for this house so I'm going to remove the roof unless you pay another $6000."