this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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Electric Vehicles
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CPUs have been sold limited to market demand, not their actual capabilities for ages. Back when I had a Phenom II X3 I could actually unlock the fourth core and therefore make it into a X4 without any problem. There was no defect, it was just deactivated because the market demanded more X3s than X4s. It also happens, albeit much less often, with hard disks.
Many car manufacturers actually put in more capacity than is advertised. Not for later upsell opportunities, but to increase battery longevity. Where do we draw the line? Is 5% ok, or 15% or 30%? Or do we ban later „unlocking“ the reserve capacity for money?
As a prospective buyer I would be outraged if they made me haul a bigger battery for only their benefit of a later potential upsell. But it is not that easy. Even if they impose a charging limit the buyer would still be getting a much larger reserve capacity and with it a longer battery life. That’s the reason I would actually prefer buying a car with a bigger, „locked“ battery compared to one with a battery at exactly the size I ordered.
Do note that not all cpus worked stable and reliably with unlocked cores. I remember trying it on my X3 and had crashes and bsods, so in that case it wasn't merely a product choice, but X4s that didn't pass qc, but with one core off they did. You just got lucky, as many did, but there was a reason it was sold as an X3.