Man Accidentally Drove Away in Someone Else’s Tesla Using the Car’s App

Story Time: In an older, much less technical world, the VW Golf 1 and Golf 2 had only N different keys for all models. So instead of having a unique key for each Golf, VW had (I forgot the number) 1000 or 10000 different keys that were assigned randomly. I thought this was a myth until back in 99, my friends white, old Golf 2 was parked next to another white, old Golf 2. When we wanted to enter, there was sleeping guy in there. His Golf was parked next to ours. It was evening, he was tired, instead of driving home (the Golfs were parked outside a club) he had opened the Golf gotten in and fallen asleep. Just that he had entered the wrong Golf, because (even though very unlikely) there were to similar-looking golfs with the same keys next to each other (and it was dark).

This has to be fake.<p>So much stuff need to happen for two devices to interact securely that there&#x27;s seems to be no chain of events that could make this possible.<p>Either the app goes through their servers and back to the car, which would make it impossible to unlock the wrong car, or through BLE, which would make it easy to verify through digital signatures that the other device is who they say.

Last year, I found true my Tesla VIN was used to register a car in a different state. I never received the CA renewal notice, then eventually got a “driving with no registration” citation, and had to pay something like a $1k penalty to get it resolved. I never figured out how the same VIN was used?<p>Point being - perhaps ids can accidentally be reused or mis-entered into some system?

Back in the 80s, GM only had like 10,000 key barrels that they used for <i>all</i> GM cars. That meant that you had a 1&#x2F;10,000 chance of unlocking another GM car with your GM key. Didn&#x27;t even have to be the same model or <i>maker</i>, as long as it was GM.<p>They solved this by adding the little chip to the key, so that even if you could open the door, you couldn&#x27;t start the car with the wrong key, because it would read the chip in the ignition barrel. My uncle was involved in the testing and got to drive a Corvette for a while because that was the first model they tried it on.

This smells like BS to me. I&#x27;ve been in similar situations - in a rush I run to a tesla that looks like mine on the street, near where I parked. When I try to open it though I can&#x27;t I get frustrated for a minute before I realize I&#x27;m a dunce and my identical looking car is 2 spots over.<p>Everything worked there as expected. This other random car didn&#x27;t open. The way these key pairing systems are built it wouldn&#x27;t really make sense for it to open or start. Thats why to me this smells like BS.

This is the kind of thing where the lack of a traditional PR presence hurts Tesla. I&#x27;d like to say the story sounds unlikely but at the same time there is nothing about it that says impossible. If they aren&#x27;t going to respond with what looks to have happened from their system&#x27;s point of view then it&#x27;s hard to give them unilateral benefit of the doubt whenever these kinds of stories come out. Some problems are real, others aren&#x27;t, and it&#x27;s not feasible to say which this is right now.

How can you not notice that you are in the wrong car? Different people have different stuff lying around in their cars. Stickers, scratches, dents, dirt. Cars smell differently.

This story blows my mind. I can&#x27;t imagine how this problem wasn&#x27;t found during testing.

&gt; “After five, 10 minutes I got a text on my phone that said ‘Rajesh are you driving [a] Tesla,’” he explained to the outlet. Randev went on to say the person who messaged him told him he was driving the wrong car.<p>&gt; all he’s gotten from the automaker is radio silence<p>So...where did the text come from? No indication that the police were involved in the article. How did the other Tesla owner get his cell number?<p>This story seems implausible to me.

Dialup internet sound, otherwise known as “calling a fax line”

&gt; Randev said he attempted to reach out to Tesla with video evidence of the issue, but all he’s gotten from the automaker is radio silence.

People have lots of trouble with Paypal (e.g., accounts being locked). People have lots of trouble with Tesla. Twitter has been a complete disaster since Elon took over. So... how in the world has SpaceX managed to do so well?