This reminds me of an old story about Hertz and Ford Mustangs.
Goes something like this:
- Ford makes the original Mustang (which everyone loves)
- Ford makes different versions of the Mustang (some more powerful than others e.g. the Shelby)
- Hertz had a special custom Shelby model made for them
- You could rent that special model from Hertz
- So, people would buy a lower end Mustang, rent the higher end Mustang from Hertz, swap out the engines and return the Hertz Mustang
There is actually a lot of extra detail in this article if people are interested: https://www.motorcities.org/story-of-the-week/2024/rememberi...
The current urban legend is swapping a junkyard 5.3 for the Chevrolet 6.0 in a U-Haul truck, rent one and switch them and return it.
This is actually what HP is doing.
They are taking a sku without telemetry, and quietly swapping in a machine with extensive telemetry and hardware locks that they can drive after you have taken possession.