Tesla Battery Gossip cut n paste

Harvey51 wrote:
A line is being crossed with this action and some others happening now. Farmers are finding that when a combine or tractor breaks down and they run to town to get a part, rush back to the field and replace the broken part - the machine will not work until a manufacturer's tech appears in the field to tell the machine's computer to accept the replacement. That will be $500, sir.

I'm not sure what to call this trend where owners are losing part of their ownership to manufacturers. We have grown used to paying the cost of making a car plus a reasonable markup, then being able to do whatever we like with it. Over the last decade cars have been made so owners find it increasingly difficult to do maintenance and repairs on vehicles they "own". If the trend continues having a car will be more like renting it while the manufacturer retains the ability to charge for an increasing number of things whose costs have already been collected from the customer at the time of "purchase".

In most countries electric cars are heavily subsidized. Are the governments just using tax money to save the planet or do they have something else in mind? In Canada the provincial governments most eager to subsidize essentially own the electric power grid. Their subsidies and promotions discourage people from going off grid. That suggests to me that they wish to control more than our household power use and add another means of collecting our hard earned money for their next move.

Those of us who grew up in the old ownership paradigm are going to be uncomfortable.

I agree that trend is going to continue. Along with this trend is that manufacturers are discontinuing the prior version very quickly. This keeps people buying the more expensive "new" item - even if they don't want all the new features they are stuck.

However, I don't think the governments up to anything. I don't think they're that clever as an organization.