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Highest production VIN in the wild
- Thread starter insaneoctane
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- Model 3
I believe that the VIN needs to be on your tax forms here in the US to claim the EV tax credit. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong here. My concern (and why I won’t be posting my exact VIN anywhere when I’m finally assigned one) is that someone else may try to claim my EV tax credit for themselves. That and who knows what other kind of info can be exploited with an exact VIN number tied to my screen name on TMC. My screen name here has been used by me in many other parts of the Internet. It would not take much effort for some malicious person to tie my identity here to my real name and I’m sure the same could be the case for many other members here. Yes it’s true that when I finally have my Model 3 both the VIN and license plate number will be in full public view and a name and address could be obtained just from a license plate number by those that know how to do it. But my VIN will be seen by far fewer people in person as opposed to posting it here for the entire Internet to see. I’ve already had a bunch of my personal info leaked by that ridiculous Equifax breach last year, although luckily so far none of that leaked info has been used by bad actors as far as I know. I simply don’t want to give some random bad guy on the Internet more ammo that could be used to potentially harm me in some way.
RTPEV
Active Member
The best argument I've heard for not wanting to post a full VIN is similar to what you said, and that is that someone that you've irritated on the net somewhere would be able to associate you with your VIN, and if they happened to live in your area and happened to see your car and happened to check the VIN, that maybe they would key your car or something.
Personally I find that scenario so statistically improbable that it's hardly worth worrying about, but I get that others may be nervous. I just feel that the hesitation to release full VINs is based more on the fact that "others aren't doing it, so there must be a good reason" rather than actual incidents happening with any kind of reasonable frequency.
As for the US tax credit, yes, you put your VIN into the tax form. While I think it would be smart of the IRS to use that as a sort of tracking mechanism to make sure the credit isn't claimed twice on the same car, I actually don't think they do much at all with it. Maybe they check the first few digits to make sure that it's really the kind of car you say it is. At any rate, if someone did attempt to use your VIN fraudulently, the fact that there is an incredibly crisp paper trail that points right back to the fraudster and can prove that they did not take possession of the vehicle and therefore risk tax fraud penalties would seem like quite the deterrent. Sure, it could potentially be a hassle for you to hire a lawyer and threaten litigation for recovery of expenses, but it would seem like a very cut and dry case that would almost certainly be settled immediately (if it even happened in the first place, which I seriously doubt).
I agree, the graphics and reporting are easier to access and read than the VIN tracker. But I am disappointed that Bloomberg didn't give clearer credit to those who built up the database (and approach) that they are relying upon.
Only by a person willing to be nabbed immediately for income tax fraud. Let's see... that person would have to file with their name, (SSN), address, and relevant tax information. Then sit at the address and wait for the feds to show up with their enormous booty of $7500. (and handcuffs).
And who's to say your giving the correct VIN anyway?
Reciprocity
Active Member
Lol, the vin's are incremented.. thieves don't need someone's specific Vin, they can just put in any number. But as you stated, they will catch you. But fraudster filling with someone else's identify could leverage this for bigger chunks of money.
True, but I think they just painted the old buildings white and moved in. Not very much actual "building" occurred.
Agreed. But we gotta watch those dealership lobbyists every second, they're tricky. The change to the law which temporarily stopped Tesla's expansion was one word. http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics/cl...8AB9411872576A80026BCE8?Open&file=1049_01.pdf (See Section 4.)
I visited my state representative this morning. She said the Tesla lobbyists dropped by, asked her whether she had heard from me recently. They're paying close attention to goings-on in the state legislature regarding Tesla.
Tom Randall was kind enough to reply me on twitter regarding their brand new Bloomberg model 3 tracker¹, and emphasized that their system allows everyone to submit their VIN anonymosly, and the actual number is not displayed.
So please go there to tell them your VIN if you like.
PS: he didn't ask me to write this post, but I'm doing anyway because I like Tom's Tesla coverage, and I think it deserves more attention. A good M3 tracker benefits all shareholders, so here it is.
¹ We Set Out to Crack Tesla's Biggest Mystery: How Many Model 3s It's Making
So please go there to tell them your VIN if you like.
PS: he didn't ask me to write this post, but I'm doing anyway because I like Tom's Tesla coverage, and I think it deserves more attention. A good M3 tracker benefits all shareholders, so here it is.
¹ We Set Out to Crack Tesla's Biggest Mystery: How Many Model 3s It's Making
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Agreed, but my beef remains that he should have credited obvious sources for likewise reasons.
He should have credited them better, I agree, but he mentioned them (ie Tesla forums, Reddit, etc.) Tom told me that he reached out to the developer of the VINbot, but he didn't want to be mentioned.
For what it's worth: 
Picked up our Model 3 on 2/8/18 in Rocklin, CA. We were the only delivery that day. The delivery person said that they deliver 4-5 on a busy day, depending how many they get.
Returned on 2/15/18 to resolve some issues with the Android phone and there were no deliveries scheduled for that day.
So, at least in Rocklin the problem is not the delivery but the availability of cars.
By the way does anybody else have problems with a smartphone. They can't get mine to work properly. I have to sign in every time to get it to work. Of course I'm using the key card instead for now.
Picked up our Model 3 on 2/8/18 in Rocklin, CA. We were the only delivery that day. The delivery person said that they deliver 4-5 on a busy day, depending how many they get.
Returned on 2/15/18 to resolve some issues with the Android phone and there were no deliveries scheduled for that day.
So, at least in Rocklin the problem is not the delivery but the availability of cars.
By the way does anybody else have problems with a smartphone. They can't get mine to work properly. I have to sign in every time to get it to work. Of course I'm using the key card instead for now.
RTPEV
Active Member
By the way does anybody else have problems with a smartphone. They can't get mine to work properly. I have to sign in every time to get it to work. Of course I'm using the key card instead for now.
Phone as Key Issues
HAL8950
Member
3Victoria
Active Member
I had thought this thread was abut Highest VIN, not phones or databases.
ℬête Noire
Active Member
Sort of, but ultimately not wrong in that it's all VINs so that the highest VIN can be extrapolated.
It's an area of statistics with an interesting history.
EV-lutioin
Active Member
For what it's worth:
Picked up our Model 3 on 2/8/18 in Rocklin, CA. We were the only delivery that day. The delivery person said that they deliver 4-5 on a busy day, depending how many they get.
Returned on 2/15/18 to resolve some issues with the Android phone and there were no deliveries scheduled for that day.
So, at least in Rocklin the problem is not the delivery but the availability of cars.
By the way does anybody else have problems with a smartphone. They can't get mine to work properly. I have to sign in every time to get it to work. Of course I'm using the key card instead for now.
I had the Tesla Ranger come out and do this: (works fine now)
Technician reset VCSEC certificate as per article 38671 and found that cellular device now
pairs to vehicle. Verified proper function of lock/unlock feature and vehicle start up.
While I think it's fun to track the highest VIN, I don't think parallels to the German tank problem apply, as German tank serial numbers were assigned sequentially, but Tesla's VINs are not.
There's no guarantee that any particular VIN will ever be used, as obtaining VINs is essentially free: up to a million VINs per particular model configuration (battery type + drive unit) per year.
Therefore, the person registering VINs at Tesla needn't coordinate at all with the factory; they could well just register VINs according to a static exponential table delivered to them months ago.
Similarly, VINs may be assigned to cars in arbitrary order, such as by truck delivery number, geographic region ("third shipment to Boston"), color, delivery week, production line, internal version number (v1.33), or my favorite: random(1, max_registered_vin).
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