Rivian Now Selling EVs With Software-Locked Batteries
Rivian Now Selling EVs With Software-Locked Batteries
Software-defined vehicles are automakers' wet dreams right now, but they could become a nightmare for consumers. Here's an example
This should be illegal on products this large. We shouldn't be throwing out entire cars. Imagine if your spark plugs had DRM
This should be illegal
on products this large.FTFY
Yes
Careful, don't give automakers more ideas!
They'd DRM gas if they could. And Tesla already did DRM fast electrons
I think we've got a company man downvoting us
Imagine if your engine had drm and refused to run without the original spark plugs unless the OEM installed new ones
Hell
A few month ago i saw a video where a guy dented his rivian on the rear left. A classic dent for a utility car, especially when you use trailers. The body shop they went to suggested it's a 40k repair job because how the car was build. This shit is absolutely fucked
That seems ridiculous even with the design though.
I saw that too. That made me die a little inside.
I don't get why the article mentions this as some smart savvy business move. They are putting artificial limiters in place to squeeze money out of people. That is so anti-consumer.
Savvy business is squeezing money out of people.
Thats why capitalism is a scourge on our society
At this point, society has given capitalism enough rope to hang itself, and it has done so so.
People refuse to see the rotting corpse it left, they will keep sending more rope to the address listed on the subscription until the credit card declines payment.
Anti-consumer practices by an Amazon-owned company⁉️⁉️😱
They have many owners. Amazon has 18%, and a big Saudi firm is next in line at 13%. They are not a subsidiary of Amazon.
I think you mean American owned. Amazon is only a partial owner, whereas anti-consumerism is incredibly American.
DRM batteries? WTF?
Countries should start passing laws that say customers should have access to the full capacity and or speed of a consumer product without having to pay.
Only exception for throttling should be, like with CPU manufacturing, if a product off of the manufacturing line is incapable of achieving targeted peak performance.
CPUs have been sold limited to market demand, not their actual capabilities for ages. Back when I had a Phenom II X3 I could actually unlock the fourth core and therefore make it into a X4 without any problem. There was no defect, it was just deactivated because the market demanded more X3s than X4s. It also happens, albeit much less often, with hard disks.
Many car manufacturers actually put in more capacity than is advertised. Not for later upsell opportunities, but to increase battery longevity. Where do we draw the line? Is 5% ok, or 15% or 30%? Or do we ban later „unlocking“ the reserve capacity for money?
As a prospective buyer I would be outraged if they made me haul a bigger battery for only their benefit of a later potential upsell. But it is not that easy. Even if they impose a charging limit the buyer would still be getting a much larger reserve capacity and with it a longer battery life. That’s the reason I would actually prefer buying a car with a bigger, „locked“ battery compared to one with a battery at exactly the size I ordered.
Do note that not all cpus worked stable and reliably with unlocked cores. I remember trying it on my X3 and had crashes and bsods, so in that case it wasn't merely a product choice, but X4s that didn't pass qc, but with one core off they did. You just got lucky, as many did, but there was a reason it was sold as an X3.
congrats Rivian, you have now become the HP equivalent for cars🗑️
Uh. Tesla did this years ago.
They're the old HP of cars. Rivian is the new HP of cars.
They're Lexmark
man, I used to be interested in the pickup, not so much anymore. If I buy a car, it's mine to do whatever the F I want to do with it, I'll never buy any vehicle I don't own. (In this case no consumer ever owns a rivian)
The article talks about an optional HP upgrade. While that is anti-consumer, it certainly isn't a "software-locked battery".
Edit: NM, they just buried that info 20ish paragraphs in.
When are people gonna start jail breaking their cars?
They already did.
I mean, it all depends on the price
You're paying for the whole battery and drag it with you any where you drive, it's extra weight. It also means you don't own the car you bought