A lawsuit filed in February accuses Tesla of remotely altering odometer values on failure-prone cars, in a bid to push these lemons beyond the 50,000 mile warranty limit:
thestreet.com/automotive/tesla…
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2025/04/15/mus…
1/
reshared this
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
The suit was filed by a California driver who bought a used Tesla with 36,772 miles on it. The car's suspension kept failing, necessitating multiple servicings, and that was when the plaintiff noticed that the odometer readings for his identical daily drive were going up by ever-larger increments. This wasn't exactly subtle: he was driving 20 miles per day, but the odometer was clocking 72.35 miles/day. Still, how many of us monitor our daily odometer readings?
2/
Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 reshared this.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
In short order, his car's odometer had rolled over the 50k mark and Tesla informed him that they would no longer perform warranty service on his lemon. Right after this happened, the new mileage clocked by his odometer returned to normal. This isn't the only Tesla owner who's noticed this behavior: Tesla subreddits are full of similar complaints:
reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comment…
3/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This isn't Tesla's first dieselgate scandal. In the summer of 2023, the company was caught lying to drivers about its cars' range:
pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edi…
Drivers noticed that they were getting *far* fewer miles out of their batteries than Tesla had advertised. Naturally, they contacted the company for service on their faulty cars. Tesla then set up an entire fake service operation in Nevada that these calls would be diverted to, called the "diversion team."
4/
Pluralistic: Tesla’s Dieselgate (28 July 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Drivers with range complaints were put through to "diverters" who'd claim to run "remote diagnostics" on their cars and then assure them the cars were fine. They even installed a special xylophone in the diversion team office that diverters would ring every time they successfully deceived a driver.
These customers were then put in an invisible Tesla service jail. Their Tesla apps were silently altered so that they could no longer book service for their cars for *any* reason.
5/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Iinstead, they'd have to leave a message and wait several days for a callback. The diversion center racked up 2,000 calls/week and diverters were under strict instructions to keep calls under five minutes. Eventually, these diverters were told that they should stop actually performing remote diagnostics on the cars of callers.
6/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Instead, they'd just *pretend* to have run the diagnostics and claim no problems were found (so if your car had a potentially dangerous fault, they would falsely claim that it was safe to drive).
Most modern cars have some kind of internet connection, but Tesla goes much further. By design, its cars receive "over-the-air" updates, including updates that are adverse to drivers' interests.
7/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
For example, if you stop paying the monthly subscription fee that entitles you to use your battery's whole charge, Tesla will send a wireless internet command to your car to restrict your driving to only half of your battery's charge.
This means that your Tesla is *designed* to follow instructions that you don't want it to follow, and, by design, those instructions can fundamentally alter your car's operating characteristics.
8/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
For example, if you miss a payment on your Tesla, it can lock its doors and immobilize itself, then, when the repo man arrives, it will honk its horn, flash its lights, back out of its parking spot, and unlock itself so that it can be driven away:
tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/t…
Some of the ways that your Tesla can be wirelessly downgraded (like disabling your battery) are disclosed at the time of purchase. Others (like locking you out and summoning a repo man) are secret.
9/
Tesla allegedly remotely unlocks Model 3 owner's car, uses smart summon to help repo agent - Alt Car news
Paulo Acoba (Alt Car news)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
But whether disclosed or secret, both kinds of downgrade depend on the genuinely bizarre idea that a computer that you own, that is in your possession, can be relied upon to follow orders from the internet even when you don't want it to. This is weird enough when we're talking about a set-top box that won't let you record a TV show - but when we're talking about a computer that you put your body into and race down the road at 80mph inside of, it's frankly terrifying.
10/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Obviously, most of us prefer to have the final say over how our computers work. I mean, maybe you trust the maker's instructions and give your computer blanket orders to obey them, but if the manufacturer (or a hacker pretending to be the manufacturer, or a government who is issuing orders to the manufacturer) starts to do things that are harmful to you (or just piss you off), you want to be able to say to your computer, "OK, from now on, you take orders from me, not them."
11/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
In a state of nature, this is how computers work. To make a computer ignore its owner in favor of internet randos, the manufacturer has to build in a bunch of software countermeasures to stop you from reconfiguring or installing software of your choosing on it.
12/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
And sure, that software might be able to withstand the attempts of normies like you and me to bypass it, but given that we'd all rather have the final say over how our computers work, *someone* is gonna figure out how to get around that software. I mean, show me a 10-foot fence and I'll show you an 11-foot ladder, right?
To stop that from happening, Congress passed the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
13/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Despite the word "copyright" appearing in the name of the law, it's not really about defending *copyright*, it's about defending *business models*. Under Section 1201 of the DMCA, helping someone bypass a software lock is a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine (for a first offense). That's true whether or not any copyright infringement takes place.
14/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
So if you want to modify your Tesla - say, to prevent the company from cheating your odometer - you have to get around a software lock, and that's a felony. Indeed, if any manufacturer puts a software lock on its product, then any changes that require disabling or bypassing that lock become illegal.
15/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
That's why you can't just buy reliable third-party printer ink - reverse-engineering the "is this an original HP ink cartridge?" program is a literal *crime*, even though using non-HP ink in your printer is *absolutely* not a copyright violation. Jay Freeman calls this effect "felony contempt of business model."
Thus we arrive at this juncture, where every time you use a product or device or service, it might behave in a way that is totally unlike the last time you used.
16/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This is true whether you own, lease or merely interact with a product. The changes can be obvious, or they can be subtle to the point of invisibility. And while manufacturers *can* confine their "updates" to things that make the product better (for example, patching security vulnerabilities), there's nothing to stop them from using this uninspectable, non-countermandable veto over your devices' functionality to do things that harm you - like fucking with your odometer.
17/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Or, you know, bricking your car. The defunct EV maker Fisker - who boasted that it made "software-based cars" - went bankrupt last year and bricked the entire fleet of unsold cars:
pluralistic.net/2024/10/10/sof…
I call this ability to modify the underlying functionality of a product or service for every user, every time they use it, "twiddling," and it's a major contributor to enshittification:
pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twi…
18
Pluralistic: Cars bricked by bankrupt EV company will stay bricked (10 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Enshittification's observable symptoms follow predictable patterns: first, a company makes things good for users, while finding ways to lock them in. Then, once it knows the users can't easily leave, the company makes things worse for end-users in order to deliver value to business customers. Once these businesses are locked in, the company siphons value away from *them*, too, until the product or service is a pile of shit, that we still can't leave:
pluralistic.net/2025/02/26/urs…
19/
Pluralistic: With Great Power Came No Responsibility (26 Feb 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Twiddling is key to enshittification: it's the method by which value is shifted from end-users to business customers, and from business customers to the platform. Twiddling is the "switch" in enshittification's series of minute, continuous bait-and-switches. The fact that DMCA 1201 makes it a crime to investigate systems with digital locks makes the modern computerized device a twiddler's playground.
20/
Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 reshared this.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Sure, a driver might *claim* that their odometer is showing bad readings, but they can't dump their car's software and identify the code that is changing the odometer.
This is what I mean by "demon-haunted computers": a computer is "demon-haunted" if it is designed to detect when it is under scrutiny, and, when it senses a hostile observer, it changes its behavior to the innocuous, publicly claimed factory defaults:
pluralistic.net/2024/01/18/des…
21/
Pluralistic: Demon-haunted computers are back, baby (17 Jan 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
But as soon as the observer goes away, the computer returns to its nefarious ways. This is exactly what happened with Dieselgate, when VW used software that detected the test-suite run by government emissions inspectors, and changed the engine's characteristics when it was under their observation. But once the car was back on the road, it once again began emitting toxic gas at levels that killed killed dozens of people and sickened thousands more:
nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/…
22/
How Many Deaths Did Volkswagen’s Deception Cause in the U.S.?
Margot Sanger-Katz (The New York Times)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Cars are among the most demon-haunted products we use on a daily basis. They are designed from the chassis up to do things that are harmful to their owners, from stealing our location data so it can be sold to data-brokers, to immobilizing themselves if you miss a payment, to downgrading themselves if you stop paying for a "subscription," to ratting our your driving habits to your insurer:
pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/ren…
23/
Pluralistic: Autoenshittification (24 July 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
These are the "legitimate" ways that cars are computers that ignore their owners' orders in favor of instructions they get from the internet. But once a manufacturer arrogates that power to itself, it is confronted with a tempting smorgasbord of enshittificatory gambits to defraud you, control you, and gaslight you.
24/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Now, perhaps you could wield this power wisely, because you are in possession of the normal human ration of moral consideration for others, to say nothing of a sense of shame and a sense of honor.
But while corporations are (legally) people, they are decidedly *not* human. They are artificial lifeforms, "intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic" (as HG Wells said of the marauding aliens in *War of the Worlds*):
pluralistic.net/2025/04/14/tim…
25/
Pluralistic: Machina economicus (14 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
These alien invaders are xenoforming the planet, rendering it unfit for human life. Laws that ban reverse-engineering are a devastating weapon that corporations get to use in their bid to subjugate and devour the human race.
The US isn't the only country with a law like Section 1201 of the DMCA. Over the past 25 years, the US Trade Representative has arm-twisted nearly every country in the world into passing laws that are nearly identical to America's own disastrous DMCA.
26/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Why did countries agree to pass these laws? Well, because they had to, or the US would impose tariffs on them:
pluralistic.net/2025/03/03/fri…
The Trump tariffs change everything, including this thing. There is no reason for America's (former) trading partners to continue to enforce the laws it passed to protect Big Tech's right to twiddle their citizens.
27/
Pluralistic: Ideas Lying Around (03 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
That goes double for Tesla: rather than merely complaining about Musk's Nazi salutes, countries targeted by the regime he serves could *retaliate* against him, in a devastating fashion. By abolishing their anticircuvmention laws, countries around the world would legalize jailbreaking Teslas, allowing mechanics to unlock all the subscription features and software upgrades for every Tesla driver, as well as offering their own software mods.
28/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Not only would this tank Tesla stock and force Musk to pay back the loans he collateralized with his shares (loans he used to buy Twitter and the US predidency), it would also abolish sleazy gimmicks like hacking drivers' odometers to get out of paying for warranty service:
pluralistic.net/2025/03/08/tur…
29/
Pluralistic: Gandersauce (08 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*.
Catch me in #NewZealand at UNITY BOOKS in #AUCKLAND (May 2, 6PM):
eventbrite.co.nz/e/an-evening-…
and #WELLINGTON (May 3, 3PM):
unitybooks.co.nz/news-and-even…
More tour dates (#PDX, #Pittsburgh, #London, #Manchester) here:
martinhench.com
30/
An Evening With Cory Doctorow
EventbriteCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Image:
Steve Jurvetson (modified)
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil…
CC BY 2.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/b…
eof/
File:Tesla Model S Indoors.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
commons.wikimedia.orgBradley
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
excellent thread thank you. Of the 100 questions I have the first is why is the ability to mess with the odometer even an option. Why does that ability even exist over the air?
I was under the assumption that tampering with an odometer is a crime.
Edit - not actually looking for an answer.
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
FElon&Felon47🇺🇦🇨🇦🇩🇰🇹🇼
in reply to Bradley • • •Sensitive content
@bradley Used Teslas are getting so low that they can be worth it even just for the pack and motor/controller to use in a conversion. I would def not buy one to use as a driver after hearing this technabuse horror.
WRT consumer rights (& right to repair) I have a lot of hope in the future for cheap open-firmware vehicle components (and all the other multi-market power electronics products also applicable to vehicles) as would be used in EV conversion. If such markets thrive, then abusive OEMs might be held in check.
Bradley
in reply to FElon&Felon47🇺🇦🇨🇦🇩🇰🇹🇼 • • •Sensitive content
@RustedComputing open source software would definitely be a great improvement. I like most things about electric vehicles except the software
I remember reading about the Fisker? bankruptcy that left all the existing cars useless. What a waste.
On top of the shenanigans described in the original thread.
Mark Whybird
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This bombshell way down on toot 27 of the thread would be astounding and beautiful - hey #Australia, let’s do this!
(Spoiler: we won’t, under either of our two major parties. Vote Green and selected Indies!)
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Nils Pickert 🚂
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Kim Scheinberg
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Doctorow just killing it today
"This is what I mean by "demon-haunted computers": a computer is "demon-haunted" if it is designed to detect when it is under scrutiny, and, when it senses a hostile observer, it changes its behavior to the innocuous, publicly claimed factory defaults
But as soon as the observer goes away, the computer returns to its nefarious ways."
[image added is mine]
Mark Whybird
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Mark Whybird • • •Sensitive content
Mark Whybird
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Aidan
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Tesla didn't even bother making it good first. I know someone here in Aus who bought his Tesla and chose the advanced autopilot option for $5K extra. 4+ years later and no advanced autopilot and no refund.
I'd call that straight-up fraud.
reshared this
Cory Doctorow and Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 reshared this.
Steve Scott
in reply to Aidan • • •@allsumnull A reasonable number of early UK FSD buyers have successfully claimed a refund after one brave individual said screw your NDA, I'm not just going to take the refund and stay quiet.
teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thread…
My experience taking Tesla to court about FSD
Tesla Motors ClubПротест и сопротивление
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I've learned to trust only myself.
Which is why I install a heavily customized Linux on my PC. Which is why my smartphone is 10 years old, and I use it only for calls, and only when I have absolutely no other options, and then I limit the conversation to the absolute minimum.
Thankfully, I have no need of a car. But if had to buy one, I'd never consider a Tesla. Musk's spyware-infested monstrosities are gross (even if we ignore the political angle).
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
see shy jo
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Cory Doctorow
in reply to see shy jo • • •Sensitive content
Andrew Plumb 🇨🇦
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
🤔 I wonder if this is at the root of all those “false forward collision warnings” (FCWs) triggering phantom braking, safety score downgrades, etc.?.
After all, if the vehicle suddenly jumps to >2x the speed-according-to-odometer-delta then their projected-curved-path will be significantly sharper and/or they’re clearly “driving recklessly”.
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Ray Gulick, he/him/wtf 🇺🇦 ❌👑
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
#WorldsRichestFraud
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Fitz Bushnell
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Is the xylophone bit for real? It sounds like it couldn't be, which makes me think it probably is.
Corporate malfeasance at its best. 🤢
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Fitz Bushnell • • •Cory Doctorow
Unknown parent • • •@nazokiyoubinbou You've fallen prey to the original Fediverse urban legend. While that is *clearly* how quiet posts *should* work, it is emphatically *not* how they work. More here (including detailed instructions for managing threads in your feed, and links to get my work off-Fedi if you prefer):
pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how…
How To Make the Least-Worst Mastodon Threads – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
Unknown parent • • •@nazokiyoubinbou You can uncollapse all the posts in a thread with one click.
Also, if you don't like how I thread on fedi, I urge you to unfollow me and read me via RSS, email, the web, etc.
There are machine-readable versions of every post as well, licensed CC 4.0 so you are welcome to reformat and republish them to your liking.
Abraxas3d W5NYV
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Ehay2k
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •And changing odometer readings is a federal crime:
nhtsa.gov/vehicle-safety/odome…
#tesla #OdometerFraud
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Eric T. MacKnight
in reply to Ehay2k • • •Sorry, but only actions committed by political opponents of the President are now considered to be federal crimes.
Ehay2k
in reply to Eric T. MacKnight • • •Solid analysis here. Sad, but solid.
Seth McCarthy
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •TrickTim
in reply to Seth McCarthy • • •And thank you for that very thorough and thoroughly entertaining ALT text! Lol
Robert H
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •#Orwell predicted the practice, but not the process, of rewriting history. Just rewrite the computer memory. There is something to be said for paper documents and signatures in ink.
There is federal law about altering odometers. Who thought the manufacturer would alter the record upwards? #Tesla ought to be strung up for this.
reshared this
Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷 and Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Bent Chinrest
in reply to Robert H • • •C. Scott Ananian (he/him)
in reply to Bent Chinrest • • •Maxi 12x 💉
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Wolfgang Müller (DE:er/EN:he)
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •