Man climbs into a strange Model 3 and drives off
On Tuesday this week, Rajesh Randev did what he does regularly: He got into a Tesla and drove off. However, this time everything was different, because instead of moving his own Tesla, the Canadian got into someone else’s Tesla vehicle.
The whole thing happened unintentionally, he said Global News, because the car parked next to his own was the same color and model. It wasn’t until he noticed a crack in the windshield while driving, which was new to him, and also couldn’t find his charger where he usually keeps it, that the Tesla driver realized something was wrong.
Then, when he got a cellphone message from an unknown person asking him if he was driving a Tesla and telling him he was in the wrong car, it all became clear to him. Randev’s phone number was found by the rightful Tesla owner on a document from Randev’s car, the other white Tesla Model 3.
The question that now arises is: How is something like this possible? How can someone with no criminal background easily unlock someone else’s Tesla and drive off in it?
Randev doesn’t know how that could have happened. He was in a hurry to pick up his kids from school, so it never occurred to him that he wasn’t in his own car. And why should he? After all, he had unlocked and started the car in the normal way with his mobile phone.
He met the rightful owner of the “fake” Tesla a little later. “We both laughed,” he said. The two also informed the police, but they said they could not assign a file number to the case because nothing criminal had happened. But she would investigate, she told the two men.
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The bizarre action was probably made possible by the Tesla app, which allows access to your own (!) car as long as the phone and the vehicle are connected to each other. The app can also be used to lock and unlock the vehicle, control the air conditioning and locate the nearest charging station.
Randev has contacted Tesla with his curious case, but says he has not yet received an answer. gizmodo points out in this context that Tesla boss Elon Musk dissolved the company’s PR team years ago, so there could be no answers to media inquiries either.
