Let’s be honest. The first problem with this story is that Tesla owners can’t tell apart the Teslas. If you bought a TZero in 2003, or a Tesla in 2013 or 2023 you’d be forgiven for thinking its designers have been the laziest workers in automotive history.
Fun fact: different cars are required to have different license plates. But let’s not go there since we’re talking about Tesla owners who obviously don’t care about details (I mean they wouldn’t have bought a Tesla, eh).
The second problem is that Tesla software allowed owner A to unlock and drive away in owner B’s vehicle. Unlock functionality. That means the app gives the appearance of being a security device based on unique identifiers, which obviously should NEVER have a “collision” for the WRONG car to be unlocked.
It begs basic competence of Tesla engineering and whether someone reading this is about to go to a major airport and single-handedly drive away with any Tesla in the parking lot like Randev.
Randev said he opened the door with his app, got in and even drove off. It wasn’t until he was driving that he realized something wasn’t quite right. “Apparently I found some glitch,” Randev said. When he went to pick up the car, there were two Teslas parked side by side, he explained. […] “I was able to get access, a hold of that person’s car but while I start driving it, I realized there was a crack on the windshield,” he said. So he called his wife to ask why and she did not know. He also noticed his charger was not where he usually had it. [After realizing the problem finally] “I was surprised how I was able to drive someone else’s car, by mistake, for an hour-and-a-half while his car was in his hand,” he added.
He then angrily told his wife to never change the license plate without telling him. Ooops, sorry. I said I wouldn’t go there.
But seriously, this reminds me of an old joke from the country. Alice and Bob can’t tell their sturdy steeds apart so they measure them. Alice discovers her black horse is ten hands tall while Bob says his white horse is eleven hands tall.
The Tesla story goes on to say that the company is so dysfunctional it’s unable to respond to Randev’s concerns about his safety.
Randev said he reached out to Tesla, with the video evidence, but he had some emails bounce back and no one has contacted him so far. Global News also reached out to Tesla multiple times but did not hear back. “The corporate email in North America, it says the mailbox is full,” Randev said.
Talk about lazy. What do Tesla workers even do while they’re not doing their job?
Perhaps Randev should install the Tesla corporate email app and see if it lets him in as administrator? If their mail server is anything like their other “futuristic” BS talk, it probably still has default passwords and zero effort at security.
Related, the type of things Tesla knew when they designed their app:
- Bad physical entropy: “If you have a car made before 1995 you could be at risk of someone having a twin key to your car.”
- Bad wireless entropy: “After issues with keyless entry in some vehicles a few years ago, the technology was upgraded [before 2016], making getting into someone else’s car with your remote, pretty hard to do.”
- Car maker apathy: “Until more concern, publicity and complaints are brought out, this will not be of significant concern for auto manufacturers and they won’t spend the money needed to correct this.”
Tesla is a lazy fraud. Their brand is basically garbage engineering for careless people in a rush who don’t check details.