I don't think you can call any artificial technological limitation "digital rights management."
"DRM" has generally referred to limitations that prevent you from transferring media from one device to another, preventing both illegal and legal uses of that media. The obvious alternative is to let people transfer the media freely. People hate DRM because it's an annoyance that doesn't prevent people from pirating things, but interferes with legitimate uses.
In this case, however, there's no media involved. Furthermore, it seems pretty obvious that allowing anyone to modify the battery controller software willy-nilly would be a bad idea, unless you like watching cars explode. The complaint seems to be mostly that Tesla is disabling functionality the car has, but in software. However, the only obvious alternatives are to charge everyone more to be able to manufacture and stock a greater number of models, or to eliminate the 40-Wh battery option entirely. Out of these three options, it seems obvious that the one that Tesla chose is the best for the consumer.
"DRM" has generally referred to limitations that prevent you from transferring media from one device to another, preventing both illegal and legal uses of that media. The obvious alternative is to let people transfer the media freely. People hate DRM because it's an annoyance that doesn't prevent people from pirating things, but interferes with legitimate uses.
In this case, however, there's no media involved. Furthermore, it seems pretty obvious that allowing anyone to modify the battery controller software willy-nilly would be a bad idea, unless you like watching cars explode. The complaint seems to be mostly that Tesla is disabling functionality the car has, but in software. However, the only obvious alternatives are to charge everyone more to be able to manufacture and stock a greater number of models, or to eliminate the 40-Wh battery option entirely. Out of these three options, it seems obvious that the one that Tesla chose is the best for the consumer.