Salesman gives me EAP, 6 months later, Tesla takes it away via OTA

[OCR1]

This story has too many holes in it to make any sense. A salesperson says you will get the "advanced autopilot features"? What does that even mean? If he was intending to offer Enhanced AutoPilot (EAP) he should have said that and it should have been stated on the purchase agreement.

Tesla has a history of releasing cars with features enabled by mistake, only to be corrected after purchase through software. There were quite a few SR/SR+ owners who have features like rear heated seats and fog lights when they were not supposed to, and eventually the features were removed by Tesla.

If the OP intended to make his purchase contingent on having EAP included in the price it should have been spelled out in the agreement. But EAP was not even being offered on March 21 so the whole story makes no sense.

 

[BulldogsRus]

This story has too many holes in it to make any sense. A salesperson says you will get the "advanced autopilot features"? What does that even mean? If he was intending to offer Enhanced AutoPilot (EAP) he should have said that and it should have been stated on the purchase agreement.

Tesla has a history of releasing cars with features enabled by mistake, only to be corrected after purchase through software. There were quite a few SR/SR+ owners who have features like rear heated seats and fog lights when they were not supposed to, and eventually the features were removed by Tesla.

If the OP intended to make his purchase contingent on having EAP included in the price it should have been spelled out in the agreement. But EAP was not even being offered on March 21 so the whole story makes no sense.

But it's not Tesla corp., it's his local dealer...they were actually the ones that evidently added it, the user was I guess "utilizing it" and then 6 mos. later corp. offered him FSD and when he went to take them up on the offer at his local place they stated he didn't have it...which he proved he did, THAT is when they stated he shouldn't and then they removed it as he was in the vehicle.

 

[OCR1]

But it's not Tesla corp., it's his local dealer...they were actually the ones that evidently added it, the user was I guess "utilizing it" and then 6 mos. later corp. offered him FSD and when he went to take them up on the offer at his local place they stated he didn't have it...which he proved he did, THAT is when they stated he shouldn't and then they removed it as he was in the vehicle.

Tesla does not have any dealers. Everyone you interact with is employed by Tesla Motors, Inc. No local salesperson nor manager can enable an unpaid software feature on a Tesla. It is all controlled by corporate out of Fremont.

And we still don't know what if anything was really added to the car. EAP would have included summon, lane change and eventually navigate on autopilot. But the OP doesn't mention any of those features specifically so we are only guessing what he is referring to.

 

[rdskill]

The freebie would have been AP itself since it went from a 3000 option to "free" in April. When I ordered my car on the last day of Feb (after they unveiled the SR) I was told undelivered cars could no longer be coded for EAP. My car is a 2018 model that I got in March of 2019 so I know it could of had EAP but they wouldn't/couldn't code it.

Do you have any form of AP currently?

I have the same that you have. I paid $3,000. My understanding is that they raised the price of the car $2,000 and included AP. So you got AP for $1,000 less than I did.

It's all in the timing lol

 

[rdskill]

I love my M3, but Tesla does seem to be going for short term $ over customer satisfaction.

While waiting to receive a VIN on my SR+ order in December '19, I saw an inventory LR available at a lower online price than a new order LR...I called in and switched to that car, set up delivery for later that week and received an email from Tesla with an order agreement showing a $500 discount. Texted a screenshot of that agreement to my saleman to confirm, and he said everthing looked good to him.

Day before delivery noticed that online order agreement included $500 line item discount, but that purchase agreement price did not (total price was $500 more). Talked to someone who asked me to email copy of order agreement, but no reply from Tesla prior to delivery appointment. Told at Delivery that they do not discount new cars...choice was to refuse delivery (and lose out on expiring tax credits) or pay the extra $500. Showed sales manager order agreement (which can STILL be found in my online Tesla account)...he said that now only Freemont could approve the order agreement price discount, but that previously he could/would have honored the order agreement price (which was $100 more than the October price when I took delivery on my first M3 that I returned in the 7 day window because of a thudding under foot when going up/down elevation).

Now maybe the $500 discount was a "mistake" but one that was emailed to me, uploaded into my Tesla account AND confirmed by my saleman in a text...I think they should have honored the order agreement price.

Wow... now that defines a take it or leave it attitude. Nice to have a LR over the SR+.

 

[rdskill]

EAP wasn't being offered in March of 2019.

So you didn't pay for it? But you think you should keep it because they let you borrow it?

I have no idea what you are talking about. Seems you don't either?

 

[rdskill]

If you purchased the car on March 30th the options were AP for $3K and FSD for $6K. There was no EAP on March 30th.

If you had purchased the car a month earlier, the option was EAP for $5K. FSD was extra. I think it was $5K, not positive about that.

So if you look on your purchase agreement, you should have paid $3K for AP. You say you had the features of EAP. What features specifically did you have that were then taken away?

Your prices and timeframe are close. I think they did away with EAP earlier than March. Otherwise I probably would have paid the 5K.

I had NoA, Summon and Self Park. I did offer to pay the extra $2,000 (5k-3k=2k).

 

[rdskill]

The central question here is: what did you pay for?

As of March 2019, EAP was no longer offered as an option you could purchase. So either you have AP, which was included with the price of the car, or you had FSD, which was a significantly priced upgrade (ranged from $5000-$7000 depending on when you bought it).

When EAP was available some months prior to that, EAP was priced around $3000-$4000, and the FSD on top of that was another $2500-$4000. (Prices varied throughout the time that both were available).

So, the question is, what did you pay for on your invoice? If you have an invoice showing that there was some Autopilot-related option that cost $3000+, then you have a case. If not, then your car has standard AP.

I empathize that the sales person misled you. This is probably why he's no longer working there.

Thanks for replying and I agree with you about the salesman not working there anymore.

I just think the way it was handled by Tesla was rather low handed. They saw the change order. I didn't put it thru. If our positions would have been reversed I would let the customer's change order stand. It cost them nothing to set a parameter.

I had stopped using NoA, I can only see people with overflowing garages using summons (lol) and i know how to park much quicker than the car did. Its the principle of the thing and pretty damn shortsighted of a company to have those policies.

 

[rdskill]

Tesla does not have any dealers. Everyone you interact with is employed by Tesla Motors, Inc. No local salesperson nor manager can enable an unpaid software feature on a Tesla. It is all controlled by corporate out of Fremont.

And we still don't know what if anything was really added to the car. EAP would have included summon, lane change and eventually navigate on autopilot. But the OP doesn't mention any of those features specifically so we are only guessing what he is referring to.

True I did fail to spell that out. EAP = NoA (which includes lane change and enter/exit highway), Summons and Self-Park. I had EAP so I had all of those.

 

[OCR1]

Your prices and timeframe are close. I think they did away with EAP earlier than March. Otherwise I probably would have paid the 5K.

I had NoA, Summon and Self Park. I did offer to pay the extra $2,000 (5k-3k=2k).

I’m going to take a wild guess and say you purchased a car that was built when EAP was still being offered but then purchased it after they eliminated EAP and switched to AP, which was right around March. So the car left the factory being programmed for EAP but when you purchased it they only charged for AP so the computer flagged it as a configuration mismatch. So the salesperson erroneously told you that because the car was built with EAP that you would be able to keep it even though you were only paying for AP. He probably did not realize that Tesla can remotely reconfigure the car to match the order agreement and just assumed it would stay as is.

Others have reported buying an AWD and discovering it has Performance software enabled for a period of time. And some early SR buyers took home an SR+ that had the rear heated seats enabled only to find them removed later. Tesla has the ability to remotely reconfigure any car to match the order specs. Sometimes they catch it and sometimes they don’t.

 

[ry-ballz]

I have no idea what you are talking about. Seems you don't either?

EAP wasn't being sold in March of 19. There was AP and FSD.

Sounds to me like you bought an inventory car that was made earlier. It's possible it had EAP on it. You however never paid for EAP, so at some point Tesla removed it.

 

[iaflyer]

It seems like the OP wanted to purchase Autopilot - he was not aware enough (not his fault, Tesla was changing things by the week back then) to know the different between AP, EAP and FSD and when it was offered.

The Tesla representative who completed his paperwork is the one who said he would be getting EAP, and in fact, it does seem like car DID have EAP for six months. Clearly, the OP cannot "turn on EAP" himself. Someone at Tesla did - not the OP's fault if it wasn't documented properly. Also, Tesla's system knew he had EAP because it offered him FSD at the upgrade price at the time.

Tesla should honor the fact that the original Tesla representative that sold him the car said it had EAP. Because clearly the car DID have it. It's a little disingenuous of Tesla to take it away - it's like the floor mats someone mentioned. It shouldn't matter whether it's a software switch or physical item. Perhaps the EAP was added in error, but it's not HIS error.

He even offered the pay the difference, realizing that perhaps he didn't understand enough about what he was getting. But Tesla also shares responsibility (more even), so giving him EAP at $2K would be a fair solution I think.

 

[vickh]

OP What does your MVPA say?


https://www.tesla.com/teslaaccount/document-hub/show-document/order-agreement/

 

[rdskill]

This story has too many holes in it to make any sense. A salesperson says you will get the "advanced autopilot features"? What does that even mean? If he was intending to offer Enhanced AutoPilot (EAP) he should have said that and it should have been stated on the purchase agreement.

Tesla has a history of releasing cars with features enabled by mistake, only to be corrected after purchase through software. There were quite a few SR/SR+ owners who have features like rear heated seats and fog lights when they were not supposed to, and eventually the features were removed by Tesla.

If the OP intended to make his purchase contingent on having EAP included in the price it should have been spelled out in the agreement. But EAP was not even being offered on March 21 so the whole story makes no sense.

As I stated.... I did not know what EAP was... I had never heard the term EAP or Enhanced Autopilot. I did not know that was what he was referring to.

as I also stated... the car did NOT come with EAP. It was changed the next day. I assume that was when the order was processed as I placed the order in the morning and waited for to receive the car.

Needless to say the last 2 days of Q2/2019 was very hectic. They had a bunch of cars available and were slammed at the store/dealer.

 

[boriszima]

I’m going to take a wild guess and say you purchased a car that was built when EAP was still being offered but then purchased it after they eliminated EAP and switched to AP, which was right around March. So the car left the factory being programmed for EAP but when you purchased it they only charged for AP so the computer flagged it as a configuration mismatch. So the salesperson erroneously told you that because the car was built with EAP that you would be able to keep it even though you were only paying for AP. He probably did not realize that Tesla can remotely reconfigure the car to match the order agreement and just assumed it would stay as is.

Others have reported buying an AWD and discovering it has Performance software enabled for a period of time. And some early SR buyers took home an SR+ that had the rear heated seats enabled only to find them removed later. Tesla has the ability to remotely reconfigure any car to match the order specs. Sometimes they catch it and sometimes they don’t.

This makes sense as its the easiest explanation here. Salesman made a mistake EAP VS AP thinking EAP was still part of the package at that time frame.

@rdskill - I feel your issue. If you believe you paid for something and you did not get it from Tesla, contest it. Otherwise it feels like you got what you paid for

 

[rdskill]

OP What does your MVPA say?


https://www.tesla.com/teslaaccount/document-hub/show-document/order-agreement/

I didn't know it at the time, but I learned later this was enhanced autopilot. I thought i was just AP at the time and did not know to look for this designation in the paperwork.

It shows AP for the reasons above.

 

[Sherlo]

Tesla Changes Autopilot Feature Availability | Current Automotive

Reference for those interested in timeline for when EAP discontinued

 

[rdskill]

I’m going to take a wild guess and say you purchased a car that was built when EAP was still being offered but then purchased it after they eliminated EAP and switched to AP, which was right around March. So the car left the factory being programmed for EAP but when you purchased it they only charged for AP so the computer flagged it as a configuration mismatch. So the salesperson erroneously told you that because the car was built with EAP that you would be able to keep it even though you were only paying for AP. He probably did not realize that Tesla can remotely reconfigure the car to match the order agreement and just assumed it would stay as is.

Others have reported buying an AWD and discovering it has Performance software enabled for a period of time. And some early SR buyers took home an SR+ that had the rear heated seats enabled only to find them removed later. Tesla has the ability to remotely reconfigure any car to match the order specs. Sometimes they catch it and sometimes they don’t.

Thanks for contributing to this discussion. Its good stuff.

It did NOT have EAP when I drove it home. The next day it was changed. The manager of the store/dealership confirmed a change order had been placed. I asked if we could speak to the person that put the change order in. She said they did not know who put it in.

This is what is bugging me.

 

[vickh]

It shows AP for the reasons above.

I had something similar happen with a CPO 2016 S purchase. The delivery manager emailed to confirm I would have EAP. Turns out it was AP1.0 computer and it was impossible. They would not budge on any some credit back etc so I refused delivery. In your case at least FSD is possible.

With Tesla rep. emails etc don't mean anything you get what you get....

 

[rdskill]

This makes sense as its the easiest explanation here. Salesman made a mistake EAP VS AP thinking EAP was still part of the package at that time frame.

@rdskill - I feel your issue. If you believe you paid for something and you did not get it from Tesla, contest it. Otherwise it feels like you got what you paid for

Thanks for the reply. I am not sure how I can proceed from here.

In the end I ended up with AP, which not what I was told I would be getting and was not what I received. After thinking about this for months I am just putting this out there on principle....

And the fact they can change the configuration of our car after it was delivered, which I am not sure if that is even legal. And they way they changed the configuration of the car without a heads up and I found out the next day driving down the interstate wondering why the car wasn't changing lanes when I signaled.