One of the best features of a Tesla vehicle is the ability to control your car through the mobile app. But according to one Tesla owner in Vancouver that technology has a glitch that allowed him to drive away in someone else’s Model 3.
The incident happened to Rajesh Randev, who told his story to Global News last week. Drive Tesla was able to contact Randev in an attempt to verify some of the information in his story, here’s what we found out.
Last week Randev was leaving to go pick up his kids from school when he got into what he thought was his white Model 3, which happened to be parked right next to his actual white Model 3. After driving for a while Randev told us a few things caught his attention, like a crack in the windshield he had never noticed before, and that his charger wasn’t in its usual spot. After calling his wife to ask if she knew about the crack (she had just been rear ended the day before and he thought the crack might have formed from the damage), Randev said he got a series of text messages from someone asking if he was driving a Tesla.
As it turns out that was the actual owner of the car, who told him he was driving the wrong Tesla. If you’re wondering how the actual owner obtained Randev’s number he told us the other owner was able to open his car and find a document that had his cell phone number.
After stopping the Model 3 to try and figure out what had happened, Randev said he was able to get back in, start the car, and drive away again, something which he should not have been able to do without the proper access, either through the mobile app or a key card. According to Randev he was driving the wrong Model 3 for an hour and a half that day, and wonders why he was able to do so.
Since the original story was published last week there have been a lot of questions about how this happened. One of the theories is that the owner was still nearby and the car recognized his mobile device, however Randev told us the other owner only uses a key card, which he still had on him when they met up to exchange cars.
Randev was also able to take videos of him getting in and out of the car, and driving it, all without a key card or mobile app access. We asked for copies of these videos but unfortunately Randev didn’t want to share them with us, so we can’t verify the entire story.
Randev and Global News attempted to contact Tesla to find out what had happened, but as we all know the automaker has disbanded their press department and the emails bounced back because the mailbox was full.
What do you think happened in this incident? Let us know in the comments below.
