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Theft or security concerns?

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T

Tae Jo

Member
Jul 18, 2014
22
0
Toronto, Ontario
#1
I plan to purchase a Model S early next year and having never owned a vehicle (I'm 33, and having lived in cities with very good public transportation system and bike trails, I never had a reason to purchase a car) getting it stolen is something of a concern for me. Do you ever lose sleep over whether or not your car will get stolen?
What kind of security system do you have in place to deter potential thieves, and in case of theft, what actions should you take?
 
#2
I don't worry about car theft. I have transferred the majority of the financial risk associated with such a loss to my insurance company. While inconvenient along with some financial impact, I certainly would not consider this a component of the purchase decision.

Life it too short to worry about things that are out of your control and can be dealt with rather easily.
 
#4
To reduce the likelihood of theft you will need a secure off street parking space for your car when at home.
When parking it on the street never leave anything visible to tempt a break-in.
If going out at night to a high risk area find pay parking with a ticket and take the ticket with you.
Your Tesla comes with pretty good security and can be tracked in real time using the app.
This makes stealing it without the key difficult so find a secure place to hide your key/fob as most thefts involve theft of the key/fob first.
 
#5
But I do recommend getting the security package. It costs next to nothing and gives the car true sensors to detect intrusion as well as a separate battery that the alarm runs off. I think the default alarm only triggers in case doors/frunk/trunk are opened. The package brings in a ton of mass sensors etc as well as allowing it to be turned off, allow tilting detection to be turned off etc if needed. But in any case if it's any worry for you, get that addon package as it costs just a few hundreds.
 
#6
Mario Kadastik said:
But I do recommend getting the security package... get that addon package as it costs just a few hundreds.
Click to expand...

Mario, in the US, Tesla does not sell a "security package" option as far as I know. It's not on their Design Studio web page.

So what is it you are referring to? Is it sold in Europe?

To the original poster: without the key fob your average thief is not going to be able to steal a Model S. It would take a very technologically sophisticated individual to access the cars computer and trick it into believing the fob is present. So far I have not read any reports of a Model S being stolen without the fob. The car stolen in LA a few months ago and then totaled after a high speed chase (the thief subsequently died from crash-related injuries after he was ejected from the car: he was not wearing a seatbelt) was stolen by someone who took the fob from the Tesla Service Center.

Don't worry about it. I am sure that many people have been trying to figure out how to steal Teslas in the past few years. They are not succeeding. There are millions of much easier cars to steal.
 
#7
ecarfan said:
...
To the original poster: without the key fob your average thief is not going to be able to steal a Model S. It would take a very technologically sophisticated individual to access the cars computer and trick it into believing the fob is present. So far I have not read any reports of a Model S being stolen without the fob. The car stolen in LA a few months ago and then totaled after a high speed chase (the thief subsequently died from crash-related injuries after he was ejected from the car: he was not wearing a seatbelt) was stolen by someone who took the fob from the Tesla Service Center.

Don't worry about it. I am sure that many people have been trying to figure out how to steal Teslas in the past few years. They are not succeeding. There are millions of much easier cars to steal.
Click to expand...

And, Tesla's apparently taking these concerns pretty seriously, arguably more seriously than the other car manufacturers:
Tesla at DEFCON
 
#8
Tae Jo said:
I plan to purchase a Model S early next year and having never owned a vehicle (I'm 33, and having lived in cities with very good public transportation system and bike trails, I never had a reason to purchase a car) getting it stolen is something of a concern for me. Do you ever lose sleep over whether or not your car will get stolen?
What kind of security system do you have in place to deter potential thieves, and in case of theft, what actions should you take?
Click to expand...

The things you worry about don't happen. Things happen that you hadn't worried about. This shows that you worry the right amount, but about the wrong things.
 
#9
Very cool. They have the former Apple 'hacker princess' Ms. Paget on their side too which is very smart. You would think more companies would attend events like this and ask for people to hack their product and show they where their security is weak.
 
#10
I am not a car thief, nor am I or anyone I know involved with law enforcement. However, based upon anecdotal evidence, car thefts fall into several categories:

--Rite of passage or initiation requirement for gang membership; --Enabling of commission of other crimes like robbery or kidnapping; --joyriding; --break in for theft of easily fenced personal property or auto components. These types of thefts are likely eliminated because of Tesla's fob and all-electric infrastructure, not to mention the general lack of intelligence of these sorts of thieves. Time is of the essence for these folks.

However, the area of most concern would be when Teslas become more popular. There is a whole underworld of chop shops and crooked body repair shops and export companies that have orders for body and drive train parts of selected makes and models for the more expensive or popular automobiles. Stolen parts can be passed off and sold as "factory new;" they can be exported to other countries for cheap replacements; they can be used to modernize an older model.

While I believe that this sort of theft is nil today, we have no way of knowing just how extensive the knowledge of the vulnerability of Tesla's anti-theft controls will become available to tow truck drivers, disgruntled service center employees, tire companies, and others in the future as popularity soars.

Doubtless Tesla will try to stay a step or two ahead of the thieves, but if you give a skilled car thief enough time, he can steal anything--even if he has to tow it away!
 
#11
I agree, particularly with the third paragraph on chop shops . Right now it isn't a problem because of the tight control Tesla has on authorized repair shops and being the sole source of parts. However, as Tesla increases in market share and total numbers, there will start to be a secondary market, with used parts, especially if Tesla has high prices for replacement parts. One way to mitigate against this is for Tesla to keep the price of replacement parts at a reasonable mark-up, not making it a big profit center, as it is with many manufacturers. Also clear tattooing with unique serial numbers of the hidden side of replacement parts will also make it more difficult to pass off chop shop or other non factory sources of parts. The standard practice could be that the repair shop take pictures of the serial numbers of each part which then could be checked on the Tesla website as to when it was purchased and to which authorized repair shop, etc.

cpa said:
I am not a car thief, nor am I or anyone I know involved with law enforcement. However, based upon anecdotal evidence, car thefts fall into several categories:

--Rite of passage or initiation requirement for gang membership; --Enabling of commission of other crimes like robbery or kidnapping; --joyriding; --break in for theft of easily fenced personal property or auto components. These types of thefts are likely eliminated because of Tesla's fob and all-electric infrastructure, not to mention the general lack of intelligence of these sorts of thieves. Time is of the essence for these folks.

However, the area of most concern would be when Teslas become more popular. There is a whole underworld of chop shops and crooked body repair shops and export companies that have orders for body and drive train parts of selected makes and models for the more expensive or popular automobiles. Stolen parts can be passed off and sold as "factory new;" they can be exported to other countries for cheap replacements; they can be used to modernize an older model.

While I believe that this sort of theft is nil today, we have no way of knowing just how extensive the knowledge of the vulnerability of Tesla's anti-theft controls will become available to tow truck drivers, disgruntled service center employees, tire companies, and others in the future as popularity soars.

Doubtless Tesla will try to stay a step or two ahead of the thieves, but if you give a skilled car thief enough time, he can steal anything--even if he has to tow it away!
Click to expand...
 
#13
Rheazombi said:
relevant article: Tesla Model S now the least-stolen car in the US (even in proportion to how many sold).

Makes me feel a little better about parking it on the street in Boston. The window tint I got is also supposed to make it more difficult to do a quick smash and grab.
Click to expand...

Do you or have you considered covering your car at night? We have an X reservation and live in Somerville so I have similar concerns. We are fortunate enough to have a garage but there will be occasional nights when we leave it on the street and I worry about inviting thieves.
 
#16
robby said:
Do you or have you considered covering your car at night? We have an X reservation and live in Somerville so I have similar concerns. We are fortunate enough to have a garage but there will be occasional nights when we leave it on the street and I worry about inviting thieves.
Click to expand...

nah, it's a very quiet side street that I've seen expensive Mercedes, Audis, BMWs, and even a Tesla Roadster park on with no problems (resident permit parking only). A car cover is more effort than I would be willing to deal with anyways.

I used to park my other car on Comm Ave which was fine 98% of the time. A drunk driver did run into our parked car once tho on that street. >_< She hit 4 other cars before landing into ours. Was fixable, insurance covered some pretty bad panel damage. (RIP carfax) I wanted to strangle the drunk biatch. (She'd turned 21 a few hours before, omg)

I feel better about where I'm parking the Tesla now tho (won't go into actual detail cus public forum and all that).

Generally, thieves will avoid breaking into a car if there's nothing tempting in view. I try to park where I know rowdy drunk people won't be, they're my major concern.
 
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