Obsolescence, upgrades, and product support

[Ogre]

Found a really fascinating article on how the phase out of AT&Ts 3G network is impacting some older Tesla Model S owners. Apparently, the MCU in the older Model Ss don't support LTE. When AT&T shuts down their 3G network in February of 2022, those older Model Ss lose their network connectivity. This is where the story gets interesting to me. This is the place where a typical auto company shrugs their shoulders and you end up with a car that has a huge chunk of functionality disabled.

For Model S owners there are actually 3 different paths to retain connectivity.

- The owner can use their wifi hot spot from their phone and retain much of the existing functionality.
- Tesla is offering a $200 LTE upgrade their existing MCU to allow LTE connectivity.
- You can upgrade the MCU for $2000 ($1500 in some cases).

While this may not sound exciting, in my eyes all of these options show a fantastic commitment to customer service. Just the fact that you can use your wifi hotspot to bypass Tesla's Premium connectivity option is unusually customer friendly. Tesla supporting a 6-7 year old cars with an affordable—$200 upgrade—to keep relevant is pretty unusual in the auto industry. Finally, the fact that you can upgrade to the latest MCU on those same 6-7 year old cars is outstanding.

While that last upgrade is expensive, it means your $70,000 investment can remain relevant into the future. Think about how crappy the infotainment system on a 10 year old BMW looks now. What are the chances you'll be able to upgrade that system and retain any sort of integration with the car's functionality?

This is one of those things I was a little concerned about with regards to a car where the computer was such a critical piece of the offering. Tesla supporting these older cars is hugely comforting to me as I'm eyeballing what will be a 10-15 year investment in technology. This means Tesla's oldest cars are going to have access to many of their latest safety features with a simple, reasonably affordable upgrade.

Hopefully the major auto companies are paying attention to this because this is something they've sucked at.

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[Throwcomputer]

Thats what happens when you have tech/software design focused company instead of a traditional auto manufacturer jamming tech into their vehicles. Gone are the days where you are stuck with obsolete entertainment/nav systems after 5 yrs and only thing you can do to improve it is spend 200 bucks every couple years to upgrade stupid map files which they got free from openmaps, or rip it all out and replace with 3rd party hardware that doesn't quite fit right.