--- title: The Software Lock on Your Car Battery | daily.dev description: Tesla's 2016 Model S60 shipped with the same battery pack as the $9,000 pricier model, but software-locked it to deliver lower range. Owners could pay $9,000... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-software-lock-on-your-car-battery-3jqvpotbn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Software Lock on Your Car Battery | daily.dev og:description: Tesla's 2016 Model S60 shipped with the same battery pack as the $9,000 pricier model, but software-locked it to deliver lower range. Owners could pay $9,000... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-software-lock-on-your-car-battery-3jqvpotbn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/3JqVPOtbN.png og:image:alt: The Software Lock on Your Car Battery og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Software Lock on Your Car Battery **[Slidebean](https://daily.dev/sources/slidebean)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Tesla's 2016 Model S60 shipped with the same battery pack as the $9,000 pricier model, but software-locked it to deliver lower range. Owners could pay $9,000 to unlock the full capacity via a software patch. During Hurricane Irma, Tesla temporarily unlocked the extra 30-40 miles for affected Florida owners, then reverted the change months later. The post draws a parallel to BMW's subscription-gated heated seats, framing both as examples of hardware capability being artificially restricted through software for profit. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Did Tesla ever software-lock battery capacity and charge to unlock it? Yes. Tesla's 2016 Model S60 shipped with the same physical battery pack as the higher-tier model costing $9,000 more, but software-limited its range. Owners could pay $9,000 to unlock the full capacity via an over-the-air software patch. During Hurricane Irma, Tesla temporarily pushed an update unlocking an extra 30-40 miles for affected Florida owners, then reverted it months later. _Developers tracking software-defined hardware restrictions in consumer tech follow cases like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Tesla will only offer subscriptions for Full Self-Driving \(Supervised\) going forward](https://daily.dev/posts/tesla-will-only-offer-subscriptions-for-full-self-driving-supervised-going-forward-qaffir29n) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Tesla is at risk of losing subsidies in Korea over widespread battery failures](https://daily.dev/posts/tesla-is-at-risk-of-losing-subsidies-in-korea-over-widespread-battery-failures-izclwtdib) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your phone gets five years of updates by law. 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Tesla's 2016 Model S60 shipped with the same physical battery pack as the higher-tier model costing $9,000 more, but software-limited its range. Owners could pay $9,000 to unlock the full capacity via an over-the-air software patch. During Hurricane Irma, Tesla temporarily pushed an update unlocking an extra 30-40 miles for affected Florida owners, then reverted it months later. Developers tracking software-defined hardware restrictions in consumer tech follow cases like this on daily.dev."}}]} ```