What if my Tesla got stolen?

Pretty hard for a thief to steal it, unless he steals your fob. And in College Station? Is car theft really a problem in Aggieland?

GregTexas said:

Pretty sure the carjacker would politely ask for the keyfob. I do venture out from Aggieland occasionally.

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IF they know to ask for it. There has been two (if I recall correctly) Model S's stolen. One was an employee or past employee that broke into a SC and stole a fob to one car. The car was quickly retrieved (in two pieces). The second incident someone appeared to have left their fob in the car. The owner came back to find their car missing, turned on their App and tracked the car. It was also recovered quickly and not far down the road.

The Model S is very easy to track. There are a number of threads on this forum discussing people checking their cars when they've let their children take it, when they've had it valeted, when their spouse has it, when it's being serviced, etc... People frequently pre-warm the battery or turn on the A/C in hot weather, or, or, or. Carjacking is one of the last things I'd be concerned about with the Model S.

There was a third where it was actually carjacked at Barstow (IIRC). The thieves wrecked it within two blocks. The thing is that the Model S is not very "stealable". Professional thieves don't want it as there is no market for the parts. Theft is very low on the "things I worry about" scale. It could happen, but so could getting struck by lightning.

jerry33 said:

There was a third where it was actually carjacked at Barstow (IIRC). The thieves wrecked it within two blocks. The thing is that the Model S is not very "stealable". Professional thieves don't want it as there is no market for the parts. Theft is very low on the "things I worry about" scale. It could happen, but so could getting struck by lightning.

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Ah, right! Forgot about that one. And you do make an excellent point about the parts market. And with how the car works, the most expensive part of the car (the battery) would be very hard to sell in that market since it would require Tesla to 'start the car' after the fact.

It has an immobilizer system. In this situation Immediately call tesla and they'll disable it. Also you can track it on your phone since shows a map with its exact location and even speed while it's driving. Call the cops and tell them exactly where it's at since its GPS tracked live. But the only way someone is going to steal it is if they have your key fob or know your password (yes you can unlock the car and start it with the phone without having the keyfob).

jerry33 said:

There was a third where it was actually carjacked at Barstow (IIRC). The thieves wrecked it within two blocks.

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They didn't just wreck it, they crashed it into a.... gas station.

That's funny, was it intentional?

stevej119 said:

They didn't just wreck it, they crashed it into a.... gas station.

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pox said:

That's funny, was it intentional?

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I want to know too

They had just escaped from prison. My guess is that they floored it and lost control.

GregTexas said:

Do you call Tesla and tell them to shut down the car? How does Tesla verify you own the car?
.

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Yes, you can do that. By the time your car is ready for delivery, Tesla will have a ton of identity info on you and you will probably have registered a password with them. Just give them the info they ask for and the VIN (the numbers at the end).

caddieo said:

Yes, you can do that. By the time your car is ready for delivery, Tesla will have a ton of identity info on you and you will probably have registered a password with them. Just give them the info they ask for and the VIN (the numbers at the end).

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I'm under the impression that tesla has so far refused toshut off stolen vehicles remotely. Also to the people talking about tracking, sure it's trackable, but only as long as the thief doesn't know they can simply turn off tracking. .. (tesla really needs to put a password on that! )

green1 said:

I'm under the impression that tesla has so far refused toshut off stolen vehicles remotely.

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Possibly a liability issue. What if the car gets shut down on a freeway and then rear ended by a semi? Or a family in a normal car? Everybody involved, including the thief or his family, might try to sue Tesla arguing the accident wouldn't have happened if the car hadn't been surprisingly shut down by a third party.

This would be a good opportunity for a legal initiative, saying you can't be held liable for remotely shutting down a car as long as there is a one-minute lead time and the power gets slowly reduced over another half minute or so.

They could shut it down when it's stopped and keyfob taken out of the car. Can that much info be seen remotely?

Even better would be progressive shutdown slowly limiting the speed to 0.

green1 said:

Also to the people talking about tracking, sure it's trackable, but only as long as the thief doesn't know they can simply turn off tracking. .. (tesla really needs to put a password on that! )

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Well, so far the three thieves haven't known to do that (and one of them worked for Tesla!) and in those three cases the cars were 'apprehended' in short order. Maybe over time the thieving profession will learn to take a few moments to turn off tracking and then Tesla can simply send out a software update so that can't be done. How cool is that?

Other manufacturers have figured it out, just not tesla. It's easy, you wait for the police to request the shut down, (generally when they are in position and deem it safe to do so) and then you slowly dial back the max power until it gets to zero. I'm under the impression that this is what on star does.

Krugerrand said:

Well, so far the three thieves haven't known to do that (and one of them worked for Tesla!) and in those three cases the cars were 'apprehended' in short order. Maybe over time the thieving profession will learn to take a few moments to turn off tracking and then Tesla can simply send out a software update so that can't be done. How cool is that?

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Just curious... have any links to articles on these thefts? Only two I've heard about are the one from the service center where they got the car ripped in half and the one where they crashed into a gas station.

I'm specifically interested in the "one that worked for Tesla."

wk057 said:

Just curious... have any links to articles on these thefts? Only two I've heard about are the one from the service center where they got the car ripped in half and the one where they crashed into a gas station.

I'm specifically interested in the "one that worked for Tesla."

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The one from the service center is the one that had the Tesla connection. The thief knew where the fobs were kept in the SC. I thought the person was someone Tesla had hired to wash/clean/detail cars or some such. The third incident was in a residential area. People were visiting or lived there, went into the house, came out again a short time later, car gone...along those lines...tracked the car on their phone while talking to the police and telling them where it was going.

Krugerrand said:

The one from the service center is the one that had the Tesla connection. The thief knew where the fobs were kept in the SC. I thought the person was someone Tesla had hired to wash/clean/detail cars or some such. The third incident was in a residential area. People were visiting or lived there, went into the house, came out again a short time later, car gone...along those lines...tracked the car on their phone while talking to the police and telling them where it was going.

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Oh right, I do remember that last one now that you mention it.

Didn't recall the service center connection on the other one, though.