A man says he accidentally unlocked and drove someone else’s Tesla using the app | Hacker News Reader

A man says he accidentally unlocked and drove someone else’s Tesla using the app

globalnews.ca

80 pointsredbell50 comments

The explanation is likely simple: the owner of the car left their car unlocked and either had the key card on the center console, or left their paired phone (which acts as the key) inside the car.

These details were likely left out to make a more interesting story.

This is why I hate journalists. "Man leaves keys in unlocked car" will get 0.1% of the clicks so it will never be published this way.

Do you regularly hate based on conjecture?

"This" means "this sort of thing" and I'm willing to bet the hate is based on confirmed instances in the past.

That would need the assumption that the owner of the car had two phones: the paired one that he left in the car, plus another from which he was able to text the purportedly oblivious driver.

However, as critical and sceptical as I am towards the fad of needlessly "smart-ing" and "app-ing" everything (Tesla being a prime example of this) I will admit I find the story suspicious. The fact that:

1- ...the owner of the car was able to so quickly intuit that his car had been driven off by mistake by the owner of another car next to it...

2- ...that the owner was able to find the other driver's number in said other car (how many people have their phone numbers in clear view inside their car?) and was confident enough about the situation that he texted that number to inform the driver of the mistake...

3- ...and the driver conveniently noticed a crack in the windshield and cared enough about it to phone his wife right now for an explanation, and then saw the text messages from the owner (texting and driving much?)...

...makes me seriously suspect that this whole thing is a set-up or intentional publicly stunt of some sort, done in collusion between both Tesla owners.

The first guy unlocked his car, but drove off in the other guys car, which was already left unlocked.

Said other guy thus found an unlocked Tesla next to where his was supposed to be and guessed what happened, found the document and texted.

So does that mean if the driver accidentally leaves their phone in your Tesla — which is something that’s easy to do accidentally — it stays unlocked and anyone can drive off with it?

Yes, just like when you leave a key for any car inside the car.

Am I the only one more shocked and outraged that Tesla's corporate email is bouncing mail saying it's full?

Certainly people shouldn't ever be able to get into somebody else's car, but it's the kind of bug that I can see happening. Your customer being unable to report it as your email is full is ridiculous.

Luckily they can bring the issue up with the dealership...

Perhaps somebody stopped paying the server bills?

they haven't had a PR department since 2020

That wouldn't forgive bouncing emails as the account was full. At a bare minimum, it should say the email isn't in use, but it doesn't make sense that a bug report like email would even go to PR.

It is frustrating. Especially since their support chat system does not give you the ability to view old chats.

When I was having an issue with my powerwall, I had to explain my story to 3 support agents, including "what the last person told me" which was met with doubt and incredulity and increasing belligerent insistence by each new support agent, until finally my a*holeness earned me the right to talk with a support boss who was able to confirm what the first agent had told me, which was that my software glitch necessitated the complete replacement of my powerwall under warranty (THAT process was seamless though in their defense)

> Am I the only one more shocked and outraged that Tesla's corporate email is bouncing mail saying it's full?

It would be hilarious if this happened because they sacked some admins who were also working at Twitter. Another possibility: they implemented some sort of whitelist of known addresses at mail server level, so that some selected people can write to that address, while mails by others are bounced. However, a full mailbox doesn't make them look that professional, so I'm not sure about that.

Reminds me of an episode of car talk. Caller says he parked his car and locked it before work. After work he goes to the parking lot to find his car missing. Before he can call the cops though, he sees that his car has been moved to a nearby spot. Nothing taken or broken, but the seat adjusted, radio station changed, and it’s locked. Caller wanted to know what the heck happened.

To the best of their abilities, the car talk guys surmise that someone with a similar car had the same key as the caller. They unlocked it and started the car without realizing it was the wrong one, drove a little before they realized their mistake, then parked and left it.

I forget the exact details, but I guess it was a cost saving measure to only make so many key variations.

Pretty wild probability for that to happen but definitely a credible theory. I miss that show.

With mechanical locks, they could be so worn that you can use anything as a key.

With moden digital keys it should be easy to make them unique.

I did the unlocking part once. Someone in my work parking lot had the same model and color Corolla, and I unlocked it but immediately realized it wasn't my car, so I just laughed and locked it and went to look for mine.

I’m pretty sure it was a Corolla or Camry that was the subject of the call. Maybe a Civic tho…

A lot of crown vics that were police interceptors had the same key.

This happened to me with a buddy's similar Ford model of the same color.

I ran into him in a restaurant one time and when I left he had parked in a prime spot right up front, which I had used when possible on previous visits.

I walked right up to his vehicle, unlocked the door and said "hey wait a minute I don't have those kind of seats!"

I went back in, showed him how it worked and we figured we could call each other instead of a locksmith if we got locked out in the future.

Many years ago I had parked my white SUV, with smart keys, in a San Jose Fry’s parking lot and went to do some shopping.

After I came back, I went to my SUV and touched and opened the door, which I attributed to smart key, and sat inside.

It felt different, leather was brown instead of original color, dash looked different, etc. I was confused so I came out and realized it was not mine but another white SUV that was parked next to mine. Saw a guy giving me a weird look. Quietly went to mine and drove away.

Probably the guy had unlocked his car just before I’d entered, not sure.

Luckily I was in the Bay Area and not in a handgun friendly state, otherwise who knows..

Nobody with a handgun would shoot you looking confused in an SUV you clearly seemed to be befuddled in. Use of deadly force would not at all be warranted in any State in the union in that situation.

Hell, we had a guy find his way into our caravan drunk one night, and the only way our having a gun factored into it was to ensure a police officer got the hell to the scene tut sweet.

For the curious, the guy was fine, mistook the vehicle for his yada yada...

Point being. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. It ain't rhetoric. It's a fact. I'd have personally laughed and started a conversation if it was my car, seeing as the individual in question clearly had peak taste in automobile.

So the other driver also had the same glitch happen to them?

>Randev said the other Tesla driver told him he was able to get his number because he had printed out a document, which was in his car and it had his phone number on it.

Or perhaps peeked thru the window?

Maybe the other guy's car was left unlocked and the app just unlocked his car, which was left unlocked after the main guy drove off with the other guy's car?

> Randev said the other Tesla driver told him he was able to get his number because he had printed out a document, which was in his car and it had his phone number on it.

How did the other Tesla driver get into Randev's car? Did the other Tesla driver's app also have a glitch?

I assumed they looked through the windows.

It is indeed possible, but still too convenient. How many people's phones just happen to be visible in documents left in their car? And how could the owner of the driven-off Tesla not only be so confident as to the number visible inside that car belonging to its owner, but was so quickly able to deduce that the reson his own car had disappeared was that the owner of this one that remains parked must have taken the wrong car?

It just seems that the protagonists of this story were not only able to very quickly understand what should be a very confusing situation, but also somehow out of shere luck came across just the right clues and were right in their assumptions without any significant priors.

Much as I like shitting on the failures of IoT-and-adjacent overtechnification, this story raises many alarm bells in my head.

I was wondering this too. I mean maybe he saw it from outside the car? I wouldn’t be surprised if this story was real but it’s missing some context.

> 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.

Try tweeting at the CEO.

"Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet"

- tweet by Twitter CEO, 2023-06-07

The actual tweet:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633240643727138824

And for some background, here’s an overview of the Halli saga: https://daringfireball.net/2023/03/thorleifsson_musk_twitter

Ah, that's great. His contract had some sort of "significant lump sum payout if fired" clause, and he baited Musk into publicly saying he's fired. Musk reeled it back, but still.

When I was a kid my dad accidentally unlocked someone else’s car with his key and we drove away in it. I remember the backseats looking a bit different. Then my dad started complaining about the clutch and blamed his sister who had been driving it earlier. Then he opened the ash tray and it was full of cigarettes. We finally returned the car albeit in a different parking spot, got into our own car, and left.

This was quite common in communist built cars, in Romania at least. There were very few brands, models and colors available and the keylock patterns had also a very small variety between them, meaning there was always a high chance that some drunk guy at night mistaking another car that was same model and color as his own and his key would also work to unlock and drive it.

I used to have a 4Runner and someone had a near identical one at my old gym. Sometimes I would try to unlock their car. One time it was unlocked and I tried to start it and thought it was broken. Thank god it didn’t work. We both kept our cars clean and free of clutter so there weren’t many cues as to which car was which.

I'm sure I heard it about cheaper cars in the 90s too, but it could also have just been friend-of-a-friend urban legend.

Mazda 323 and Ford Lasers had interchangeable keys. We found this while messing about as kids in the ‘90s.

I don’t think these were communist cars as suggested above.

As a beginner I locked the keys in the car. Dad just asked someone nearby in the parking lot with a similar ford laser to borrow their keys and it opened right up and even started the engine.

I remember back in the 80s—-think it was a Chevy Vega—-my mother and I got into the wrong one in a parking lot after she unlocked it. It’s a little weird realizing the car doesn’t smell quite right and then there’s everyone else’s stuff.

Guess the pins in those old locks were like bits. The ignition has to have all the bits right, but the door only had to match the highest ones.

The remote for my late 2000's Ford vehicle occasionally beeps the horn or unlocks other Ford vehicles. The key itself is a separate thing, and probably doesn't start them though.

I’ve opened other similar cars with a normal key in the past, they aren’t 100% unique…

When I was a teenager I once got into my parent's Mini, started it up and pulled it out when I realised "we don't have a radio" .... pulled it back in, got into the other yellow Mini parked behind it and went home. What are the odds two identical yellow minis in the same town had the same key?

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/magazine/lives-dude-where...

Do they yet have payment system in place? Wasn't Teslas going to earn money to their owners, is this part of that idea? Anyone with app can loan your car and you get paid with something. Maybe some sort of Twitter credit usable to promote your tweets or something?

Not quite sure how Teslas work after they are unlocked, but presumably someone else could drive off with them? So maybe he just unlocked his car, got in the wrong unlocked car, and the other guy later got in his?

The codebase is so brittle. Will need a complete rewrite.

- Upcoming Musk tweet.

So Musk was right about the robotaxi after all?

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