https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

That’s part of the process of him making a home in your heart.

Though it also has the potential to flash boil. https://youtu.be/0JOxuS0SBHc?si=BnKVZWw5xcjalQy_

So be careful out there.

Haven’t done that yet, but it’s pin 236 on DDR3 240 pin ram which I believe is a power rail, so low risk of issues.

Hybrid Integrated™

The pin was crushed by the previous owner. I was able to remove enough plastic to expose the conductor. Then I used my 0.1mm soldering tip to solder a small jumper from the crushed pin directly to the stick of ram.

Yeah, they were tssop, so not hard. It was only necessary because the parts shortage crunch had the vendor shipping them without the chips installed.

We ship a $50k instrument product running Windows, and everyone hates it.

As the only EE on staff, I got to spend a portion of covid soldering TPM chips to motherboards. Fun times.

This is the same reason why watching a movie on TV with ads is easier than pulling it up on whatever service you use.

Once you choose the movie, you’re committed to it.

Yeah but that actually works tho

I mean, they can just give the batteries away for free too, but most businesses have a vested interest in making money. In Tesla’s case, they also have an interest in paying back the massive investment it took to get the first car off the lot.

Saying “they can sell the same battery” is ignoring the fact that they would not be able to sell the limited capacity version of the battery if nobody was buying the full capacity version.

proprietary software gives the developer power over their users.

Agree here, but that’s a much larger issue than just this particular pricing structure.

Sure:

It’s cheaper to manufacture and maintain a single version of a product. It’s cheaper to ship and store a single version of a product. It’s also easier to adapt to quickly changing market needs if you don’t need to spend six months spinning up a production line for a different version of a product.

Also, the existing market for low-range EVs might not be large enough to justify the expense of maintaining a separate line.

If there is competition in the space, it’s safe to assume that some portion of these savings are passed on to the customer to better edge out competitors over price.

If you want to be very charitable: wealthier people who can afford the full-range version are partially subsidizing the lower range (tighter margin) version for more budget-conscious consumers.

Edit: Especially when talking about the structural battery of the Model Y, it may help to understand how these packs are made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozesI3OZEG0

The batteries themselves maintain the rigidity of the pack. If they removed some, they’d have to slide some dead weight in there. Also, once the packs are sealed, it’s impossible to remove a portion of the batteries without destroying the pack. These are designed features developed to reduce the overall weight and cost of manufacturing the pack.

You are not required to purchase your vehicle from Tesla. I mean, we’re butting up against the primary tenets of capitalism here. I’m a socialist personally, but if there’s one thing that capitalism is supposed to do well in theory, it’s find market efficiencies. Tesla appears to have found one here. If anybody else could sell a non-software locked smaller-battery version of a similar vehicle for a lower price, people would buy that one instead.

When it comes to things that are trivial to include but locked behind exorbitant paywalls (i.e. heated seats), I agree.

However, range/battery capacity is the primary price differentiator for EVs and also the primary cost for manufacturing. Finding a way to offer options that suit the needs of different people at varying prices just allows more people to enter the market.

to become the de facto standard

I feel like it might be nice to have a sliding scale of ranges available for people who have a sliding scale of needs. If I need a second car strictly for my 20 mile commute, it might be nice to have an option to pay less for 100 miles of range over 200. And I assume if a market is established for low-range EVs, manufacturers will compete with each other on how to deliver that for the best price. Perhaps if the market is large enough, Tesla will find it better to actually remove the extra batteries and put them in other cars.

It’s only cheaper because they inflated the price from a limitation they created.

TIL Tesla has a 100% monopoly over the electric vehicle market space.

Tesla is offering a wider variety of products at more diverse prices to try to better fit the needs of a larger portion of customers. They must have determined that it was cheaper overall to do it this way rather than physically rip the batteries out of the vehicles or they wouldn’t do it.

to create an artificial divide to upsell people on the “”higher”” capacity.

I mean, isn’t not offering a cheaper version at all already upselling? When the F-150 Lightning came out, people had a really hard time finding the standard range version because dealers didn’t want to sell a lower trim version of the car with lower commission.

You don’t have to buy the car. People aren’t getting conned here… They would buy a more expensive version of the car with a higher range if they thought that would suit their needs.

It’s funny how frequently this business model is used in the digital space, but when it comes to physical hardware, people freak.

Like look at movies. Does anybody really think it costs substantially more to deliver the 4K version of a product over the HD version? Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is $12 on Blu-ray on Amazon. It’s $20 on 4k UHD.

The movie was mastered at 4k or higher, so why not just give you the UHD version with the Blu-ray version? The physical disc can’t cost more than a few cents to manufacture.

It’s because some people have decided they don’t need 4k and are happy to take a shittier version of the product for a lower price.

Don’t get me started how much people hate when content is included on the game disc locked behind a paywall yet somehow have less of an issue when there’s day 1 downloadable content also locked behind a paywall.

Or they could not reduce it for the same production cost. No money is saved by tasking an employee to develop the battery nerf.

Yes, but perhaps some money is saved by not having to manage multiple production lines for multiple battery capacities and also having to predict how many of each capacity is going to sell so you’re not stuck with cars nobody wants?

There are no benefits. You could simply unplug at 80%.

Right, after you just paid more for battery that you’ve decided not to use. The benefit is that it’s cheaper for the customer.

It’s possible that these vehicles are already built and Tesla needs a way to entice budget conscious buyers to clear out their inventory.