A Tesla proprietor claims that management of their car was handed over to a European driver after the corporate by chance crammed within the flawed VIN data on the continent.
Reddit person Robert Quattlebaum, u/darconeous, claims in a narrative posted to r/teslamotors that shortly after taking supply of a Mannequin 3, his accomplice found that one thing bizarre was occurring to it. She first observed that the trunk and frunk have been open and the A/C system was going at full blast as she approached the automobile.
Extra alarmingly, the storage door, which was linked to the automobile, had been mysteriously opened. By the point the poster was free to take a look at the issue, one other member of the family had borrowed it for an errand.
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He, subsequently, determined to take a look at his account on the pc to make sure that they hadn’t been hacked, however discovered nothing. The automobile was gone.
“Now very involved, I checked the Tesla app on my cellphone,” he wrote. “For a second I noticed a short flash of the image of my automobile, which was instantly changed with choices to look into new autos to buy. My automobile was gone.”
They known as Tesla customer support and have been greeted by a confused consultant who rapidly escalated the problem. After a number of minutes of explaining the issue, offering data, and ready on maintain, they acquired a solution.
Quattlebaum claims that he was instructed {that a} European Tesla worker had by chance entered the flawed VIN data when assigning a car to a buyer there. That, allegedly, gave the shopper management over a number of necessary options, by the Tesla App.
Certainly, the smartphone app can management a car’s local weather controls, test on vary, handle fee data, buy upgrades, and extra. It additionally allegedly gave the presumably very pissed off and confused European Tesla proprietor entry to the poster’s storage door.
Thankfully, the customer support consultant was capable of type the problem out, handing the Quattlebaum again management of the car. Tesla doesn’t function a press relations workplace, so we’ve got not but confirmed this story or verified its risk. Teslas have, nonetheless, beforehand been focused by hacks that handed controls of American autos to a European programmer.
Some commentors additionally shared tales about vaguely comparable occasions that occurred to them. Quattlebaum, in the meantime, has been left feeling considerably unsafe.
“This was, as they are saying, an entire clusterfuck,” they wrote. “I’m left feeling considerably violated and shaken by the truth that this was even attainable with out bodily possession of the car or my participation.”