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1/ This is an interesting issue for regulators. They are used to testing a car and having that the model will be stable, ie the cars sold 6 months from now will be the same as those tested. With $tsla OTA updates, that assumption is no longer true.
2/ Essentially, with the latest OTA updates, the performance of Teslas being sold today might bear little relationship to the Tesla the government did official range testing on, making those numbers useless (or worse, completely misleading).
3/ The effect of OTA changes that substantially change tested vehicle specs is similar to that of the VW diesel test cheating, except it would be unfair to label the $tsla updates as cheating, but nevertheless they have the same effect of making the official numbers moot
4/ But the next company, maybe Tesla itself, WILL be intentionally cheating now that the cat is out of the bag on this. Tune your first car to ace the government tests, by perhaps cutting corners on battery life or safety, and then OTA it back to a lower safer rate.
5/ OTA updates have a lot of consumer value so the government is either going to have to catch up on this or else it should just stop publishing these numbers altogether and recognize they are always going to be behind.
6/ I am libertarian enough to believe the latter may be the right answer. Can you imagine the government trying to certify other fast-moving technologies, eg graphic card speeds?
7/ Not sure the government regulators have caught up with the effect of changing software updates on more heavily regulated passenger jets (see: Boeing mess) and so its unlikely they have the manpower or expertise to keep up with cars
