Tesla remotely deactivates rapper's vehicle for singing about the Cybertruck? | Hacker News Reader

Tesla remotely deactivates rapper's vehicle for singing about the Cybertruck?

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223 pointsAnalemma_152 comments

The signature from Dinna Eskin at the bottom of the letter appears perfectly identical to the one on this letter from 2022: https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/tesla-sends-cease-and-desis...

It's possible that she copy-pastes her own signature, but this is evidence in favor of the Cybertruck incident being a hoax.

The Cybertruck letter also lists her as "Sr. Director and Deputy General Counsel". But her LinkedIn page lists "Deputy General Counsel & Director, Infrastructure & CapEx" as a previous title; her current title is listed as "VP, Legal": https://www.linkedin.com/in/dinna-eskin-743a7435/

> But her LinkedIn page lists "Deputy General Counsel & Director, Infrastructure & CapEx" as a previous title; her current title is listed as "VP, Legal

Yeah, it seems very unlikely that a legal VP would send a doc out with an outdated title.

> It's possible that she copy-pastes her own signature...

I was under the impression that that was standard practice for this sort of letter, lest merely being in this role at a company results in numerous examples of your real signature being given to a ton of random people? I mean, the original there doesn't even look like a "real" signature.

(I agree that the wrong title, though, tells us this is almost certainly fake.)

I agree that the original doesn't look like a scan of pen-and-paper, but it looks real to me in the sense that it looks like a person made it, and it's not just a cursive font. It looks too messy, and some of the letters are too indistinct, for it to likely be a cursive font. It appears consistent with a signature entry pad peripheral, a stylus on a tablet, or similar. I would say that largely rules out a security practice; if that were the motivation, it would make more sense to use a cursive font. As I said, I do think it's possible that she copy-pastes her own signature; but if so, the motive I would expect is reducing effort.

> It's possible that she copy-pastes her own signature

I've been continually using Preview.app's feature to easily insert your signature from a menu using the same signature I scanned in using the camera on my MacBook back when they first added that feature literally 15 years ago. Is this considered weird? I just assumed at this point that other PDF systems had the same feature instead of people actually printing, signing, and scanning.

Yup, this is a confirmed hoax:

https://gizmodo.com/a-viral-cybertruck-hoax-got-so-big-tesla...

Is there any reason not to believe this is just a hoax? I am immediately skeptical I see reported only on Threads (or FB, IG, Twitter, Bluesky, etc) and not corroborated.

agreed. It's on-brand for Tesla, but still looks more like a PR stunt than reality

Would they really put "comply with cease & desist to reactivate" on the screen?

I don't think it's on-brand for Tesla. Why would they do that? Have they ever done anything like that?

It's on brand for rappers to do stuff to get publicity though.

I think the argument against that for the rapper is that he's pushing the Cybertruck as some tough/rich/machismo thing. Being stranded roadside is quite some distance from that. Who out there is going to want to listen to his song on the back of him suffering this kinda drama?

Another argument for it being legit is that he has to know that they'd send advance warning and that it would be a combo of certified and email (to get a quicker result). I've been pursued legally and there were email/physical copies.

The rapper possibly has a sense of humor.

Absolutely it is:

This is not the first time Tesla has done it, either. Before the 3 was released, a customer found some references to it in their software and made some posts.

Next thing they know, their vehicle's firmware was forcibly downgraded to a version that had no references, was forcibly version-locked at that firmware version, and had the Ethernet and OBD ports disabled.

They'll also release misleading telemetry data at press conferences to throw you under the bus. In one fatal accident, on the topic of AP/FSD, at a press conference: "Well, we do the right thing, and vehicle telemetry tells us that the car was warning the driver to pay attention before the accident".

When the NTSB report came out, it was found that there had been one attention warning issued, and it was eighteen minutes before the collision.

There is a huge difference between rolling back software while disabling some ports compared to completely bricking a vehicle as it is being driven. We can recognize they are both wrong and abuses without pretending they are equivalent actions.

I think the question we should be focusing on is why this is possible in the first place? It’s cute when Apple or Google can kick you out of your phone, but something like a car.. highlights the absurdity of the situation we’re in.

> I think the question we should be focusing on is why this is possible in the first place?

No, that's specious reasoning. OP points out the possibility this is not even real. Do you have any indication that any of this is true? That should be your first step. However, you're somehow arguing that hypotheticals serve as any kind of justification, and a potentially made-up scenario is worth anything.

I think what he meant is that whether or not, in that particular instance, it happens to be the case that the company does not feel sufficiently motivated to actually do this (maybe his singing wasn't offensive enough, or the company just happens to have enough reasonable people in their staff right now), the much bigger issue is that they could theoretically do this. Which I think is a very important point.

It should be provably, technically impossible to do this - or at the very least, there should be heavy penalties (say, 10-20% of annual revenue) for doing this without proper judicial ruling. A company should only be able to afford 1 or 2 errors like this.

Are you free just because your master happens to like you and let you do what you want? Obviously not, since he could change his mind at any time.

No, the point is that capability is there. Don't matter if it happened or not. Matters that it can happen.

Have you seen photos of those "do you have criminal thoughts?" posters on London streets. That is art to highlight an issue.

To be fair Such art would not be rapper style)

This lockdown probably prevented thousands of thefts and helped thousands who got locked out.

Also making repossessions easier and safer is nothing to sneeze at.

This isn't real, you can see the UI element for closing the cars builtin media player on the top of the screen in the video. It's just a video playing on the car screen lol.

Took all of 15 minutes to recreate, you can see the same gray pulldown bar on the top of the screen in this one as you can see in the original video.

https://imgur.com/a/aCaZZEP

Your reproduction has a pulsating red background effect on the top 25% of the display in the imgur link.

Is there a reason why it does and the cited video does not?

EDIT:

I reviewed the original video again and noticed it, too, had a similar pulsating red background as the imgur link above had.

Difference being is the cited video's entire display pulsated red verses the imgur reproduction having only the top 25% pulsate. I cannot say whether this is significant or not .

Yeah, it's because I had to remake the video to show on my car and figured it wasn't worth my time to make it completely identical. In both my recreation and (I'm fairly certain) the original, everything on the cars screen except the black on the top with the gray line is a video, the video I made just doesn't perfectly match the one they made.

> Yeah, it's because I had to remake the video to show on my car and figured it wasn't worth my time to make it completely identical.

That makes sense.

And I hope it also makes sense the discrepancies identified could cause those of us not intimate with Tesla display logic to think the recreation you made is dissimilar to the original.

thank god for that.

Ok, I apologize, but I’ve seen so many fake posts by social media influencers / celebrities at this point that I have to ask: does anyone have a source / verification that this is actually true?

It’s not necessarily that I don’t believe this would be absolutely the par of the course for Elon, I just would like to see a more credible source than a threads post of the rapper. The cease & desist letter in the threads comments looks like it’s AI generated.

I don’t think you need to be sorry. I don’t believe this at all.

I would bet up to $5k through any trusted intermediary at even odds that this story is false.

Aha! A chance for the rapper in question to make money from their music!

especially considering that the C&D letter is from August 1st. If it is real, they've been trying to get ahold of him for sometime. It was probably in the terms of service agreement. If it's real, will be an interesting lawsuit.

Too many people would want this to be real. It's probably just publicity for bad music from a wannabe rapper - in which case the marketing is actually much better than the music.

If it is fake, it's a good one.

It very well could be AI generated. Many legal offices are using LLMs these days.

What's the alternative here? A rapper went to the effort to publish an MV, then figured out how to display a fake disabled message in the vehicle, then faked a C&D, knowing that these actions would give Tesla a very legitimate claim against them?

Ockham's razor is not favorable to the alternative.

"You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies?"

A rapper who wanted to promote their video created a fake C&D and corresponding warning video, uploaded the video to Youtube, parked his car on the highway, and played the video on the screen all as a "prank" to promote said video. You could do that all in an afternoon. That doesn't seem that unbelievable, especially considering half the runtime of the linked video is an ad for his music. I mean the guy is already at a buying a Cybertruck and rapping about it level of needing attention. Is stretching the truth for promotion really that big of a step from there?

It seems like a straightforward defamation case for Tesla if the whole thing is fake.

And remotely disabling a vehicle as it is being driven seems like a straightforward lawsuit if this whole thing is true. Who is more likely to make a stupid legal mistake that opens themselves up to a lawsuit, the random musician or the legal department of one of the biggest companies on the planet?

IP lawyers take dubious and aggressive measures to defend their clients without fully considering the implications of their actions all the time.

And remotely disabling a moving vehicle is so commonplace at this company that even the IP lawyers have direct access to that functionality without any oversight? This potential lawsuit is getting easier and easier.

I suspect we'll find out in short order since Tesla can pretty trivially deny that it happened and it's probably going to be picked up by a lot of media.

I feel like if that was the angle the song would have been anti-Tesla to use that as part of the whole thing, and not 'I am cool because I have this cool and expensive car'.

This doesn't have to be some elaborate plan. What I described could be accomplished in an afternoon, maybe after the initial pro-Tesla release didn't get enough attention.

Doesn't matter if it's simple. What you're suggesting goes completely against the guy's vibe. No one finding him as a new fan is going to be "I can't wait to be a fan of a guy who acted tough/rich and then got stranded roadside by faking a video." I'd be surprised if someone with the gumption to play-act like this in a music video would enjoy completely flipping things to play victim, rather than finding some other attention-grabbing scheme.

If your entire argument rests around the implied inconsistency of a rapper's "vibe", it doesn't sound like you have a very strong argument.

Odds are we'll eventually know the truth, but early indications are that I am right.[1]

[1] - https://www.theverge.com/tesla/757594/tesla-cybertruck-deact...

I'm kind of 50/50 on it being fake. Either Tesla or the rapper is doing something insanely stupid that opens them up to a lot of legal liability, and to be honest, both of those options seem quite plausible.

Tesla's screen is just a computer that can play YouTube and any other videos.

Just upload a video to YouTube, open up on Tesla, enable full-screen, done. Not even any hacking or any tech knowledge required.

Literally anyone can generate and print a letter. Finding the name of the legal counsel is just a LinkedIn search away.

100% fake.

Especially USPS and email thing.

Do we think the screen in the video is faked?

Hey anything is possible but there is content that's not just "dude said it happened" too.

Yeah, that's what gets me, too. Faking a letter would pretty obviously be a bad move legally-speaking, but people make bad moves sometimes. Faking the remote deactivation of the vehicle on the highway, tho... I mean, how would you even begin to do such a thing, even as a software engineer?

FWIW: As of two years ago[1], owners were not able to remotely disable their own cars. Not finding any indication that that has changed.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModel3/comments/16ebp1t/can_a_...

Other comments explained how he faked it without having to remotely disable his car, but the short version is he put the car in Park, then opened YouTube in fullscreen and played a video with a fake Tesla UI with the message he wanted to show.

Note that the person who signed it (Dinna Eskin) is on linkedin (I have mutuals), and they've been the VP of legal for 11 months now (Previously Sr Dir of Legal), and this was sent 10 days ago, people like that don't usually make this type of mistake in their correspondence.

In the video it shows him stopped in the left lane of the freeway as if the engine stopped. If you look online for other stories where a Tesla is shutting down it will ask the user to pull over. The car can still be operated in the mode at least in a limited state.

I'm like 99% certain this is bullshit.

1% unsure because.. well, I'm sure I Dont need to explain why.

When evaluating the truth value of claims like this, consider a few things--

1. "Comply with Cease & Desist To Re-activate" is rather unlikely for anyone to program as a standard error message. It's also in a slightly different font from the previous part of the message. The following part of the message says "Update Failed"

2. The creator of the video (a rap video creator) could easily generate the situation by playing a YouTube video (that he created) on his screen

3. The letter (possibly based on a real cease & desist) has all of the information concerning the deactivation in a single paragraph, which would be easy to insert

Via Certified Mail and Email RE: CEASE AND DESIST - Unauthorized Use of Tesla Intellectual Property - Cybertruck References in Musical Content

Dear Mr. Huey, We represent Tesla, Inc. ("Tesla") and are writing to formally address the unauthorized use of Tesla's intellectual property in musical content distributed under your name. Specifically, this concerns your use of the Tesla Cybertruck name and imagery in one or more songs, including but not limited to the track titled:

"Cybertruck"

Our records show that a Tesla Cybertruck associated with VIN 7G2CEHED8RA017384 was previously registered under your name or in your possession. Please be advised that this vehicle has been remotely deactivated due to violations of Tesla's Terms of Use, Including misuse of Tesla's trademarks and brand identifiers in media content that falsely implies endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation with Tesla.

Tesla retains exclusive rights to its registered trademarks and trade dress, including but not limited to "Tesla," "Cybertruck," and all associated names, logos, imagery, and designs. Your continued use of these protected marks in music, lyrics, titles, cover art, and promotional materials constitutes unauthorized use and may mislead consumers into believing that Tesla endorses or is affiliated with your work.

Accordingly, we hereby demand that you immediately:

1. Remove or revise all publicly distributed music, videos, and media content that reference "Tesla," "Cybertruck," or any derivative thereof;

2. Cease and desist from all future use of Tesla's trademarks, trade dress, and related terms in any creative commercial, or promotional materials;

3. Provide written confirmation of compliance with the above requests within seven (7) days of the date o letter. Fallure to comply monora de co compete per ravit evocation or accen to rasia venice systems can da micer injunctive

This letter is sent without prejudice to any of Tesla's rights, all of which are expressly reserved.

Very truly yours, Junish Dinna Eskin, Esq. Sr. Director and Deputy Ge Tesla, Inc.

Sounds like someone is playing a prank with GPT generated letter.

Did ChatGPT also disable his vehicle?

I've been advised by my ChatGPT lawyer to say "No."

Is his vehicle disabled? You realize you can show any content you want on the screen of your tesla, right?

It's weird that the deactivation screen mentions the C&D but if that's real there isn't a lot of reason to doubt the letter.

The vehicle, so evil, that it cannot be named. Life imitates art, and not in a good way.

[flagged]

Source for this?

It's in the video linked above (although the parent comment looks like a pretty badly OCR'ed version).

> Fallure to comply monora de co compete per ravit evocation or accen to rasia venice systems can da micer injunctive

This might be some error from OCRing or otherwise trying to extract the content from a frame from the video, but I laughed here when I got to 'monora de co compete per ravit' and I googled it thinking it might be an arcane Latin legal expression

In my defense I am tired and Latin and monora de compete sounds Latiny

I know Latin. That is gibberish, actually just badly OCR'ed English.

Looking at the letter in the video it says: "Failure to comply may result in further legal action, including but not limited to claims for injunctive monetary damage, and permanent revocation of access to Tesla vehicle systems and services."

In addition to the other signs that this is fake, you can't "check your mail" and find a certified letter.

Where's that referenced? You can check your (e)mail and receive a copy of a letter that separately also arrives certified.

"Certified Mail and Email", yeah, right, because it totally makes to wait 10 days before suddenly disabling a car for no reason!

This guy didn't even bother to hire a tow truck to make the story at least somewhat more believable!

VIN decoding per [1]:

  7G2CEHED8RA017384

  ^^^-- World Manufacturing Identifier (WMI) = 7G2 = Tesla Inc.
     ^-- Make/Line/Series = C = Cybertruck
      ^-- Chassis/Cab Type/Restraints = E = Truck with Type 2 manual seatbelts (FR, SR*3) with front airbags, PODS, side inflatable restraints, knee airbags (FR)
       ^-- Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) = H = Class H – Greater than 4082 kg. to 4536 kg. (9,001-10,000 lbs.) (Designated for Cybertruck)
        ^-- Fuel Type = E = Electric
         ^-- Motor/Drive Unit/Braking System = D = Dual Motor – Standard (Designated for Cybertruck)
          ^-- Check Digit = 8
           ^-- Model Year = R = 2024
            ^-- Plant of Manufacture = A = Austin, TX
             ^^^^^^-- Sequence Number = 017384

Is the check digit correct per [2]?

Step 1. VIN of 7G2CEHED8RA017384 is mapped to the number 77235854891017384.

Steps 2-3. Position weight factors applied, results summed and the sum divided by 11: (78 + 77 + 26 + 35 + 54 + 83 + 52 + 410 + 99 + 18 + 07 + 16 + 75 + 34 + 83 + 42) / 11 = 36.363636364

Step 4. Assign check digit of "4" from remainder 0.364 (4/11). Check digit should be 4 not 8 therefore the VIN is invalid.

https://service.tesla.com/en-US/vin-recall-search also reveals no knowledge of 7G2CEHED8RA017384 as a valid VIN.

[1] https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/mid/home/displayfile/9e960dca-5b8...

[2] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/part-565/section-565.1...

The screen says UPDATE FAILED RETURN TO DEALER. I don't believe this is possible with Teslas as their OTA updater can do rollbacks on failed updates. You also can't perform an update when the car isn't in Park. Also, Tesla doesn't have dealers their cars can be returned to, so...

In addition to all the other evidence pointing to this being a fake, Tesla is VERY clear that they don't have dealers.

Wow, if this is true this is some serious Black Mirror line crossing.

Seems likely, have we seen "comply with cease and desist to reactivate" messages on Tesla's before?

I would like to hear the other side first, because at face value, this "news" sounds insane even for Tesla.

"Please be advised that this vehicle has been remotely deactivated due to violations of Tesla's Terms of Use, Including misuse of Tesla's trademarks and brand identifier..."

Yup. There's not a lot of legit reporting on this just yet, but it's also breaking news -- they're presumably verifying as we speak. The only way this is somehow fake is if

1. The driver published an old video out of context of his truck having a software malfunction on the highway, or

2. The driver somehow induced this to happen after he received the letter saying that the truck "has been deactivated".

Both of those seem... unlikely, to say the least. People are interpreting this as Elon's work, but all it would take is the absurd capability to remotely deactivate someone's car (we know this is possible) and a shortsighted decision by the legal department.

You forgot 3. The driver parked his truck in the road even though it was driveable, and then played a fullscreen YouTube video of a fake Tesla UI with his desired message.

This is embarrassing, and everyone who commented here without skepticism should seriously examine their priors.

Tesla claims this is a hoax on Twitter.

https://x.com/Tesla/status/1954992987223757149

No matter what the legal dispute is between the rapper and the company, if the claim is true, disabling a vehicle remotely at a in a way that puts the driver at risk, not only should be illegal but a criminal liability. The man is in the middle of the freeway, this should be tried as attempted murder.

It's so crazy and dangerous I still have trouble believing it's true. Looks like we absolutely need laws regarding when and where a car company can remotely disable a vehicle.

You shouldn't need any laws, because it can be argued that by paying for the vehicle the owner purchased actual functionality, not just bare parts and chips. Any post-sale agreement is therefore inherently suspect from the beginning. If this is actually real I can't wait to see how it develops legally.

I have a similar understanding that the TOS doesn’t matter in this case and should not be enforceable, therefore making the company liable for civil penalties. But I really think such a reckless action should be tried as a criminal case and individual people within the company need to be held accountable. Not sure if there are any laws or precedent for that though.

Would that logic also apply to subscriptions like Full Self Driving and supercharging? I think that even if Tesla can't disable the car over a terms of use issue, they could cancel full self driving and maybe ban you from supercharging.

If the self driving is fully paid for then no, they should not be able to disable it.

For denying the monthly subscription and supercharging, a case could be made that these were the features that influenced the decision of the purchase, and denying them has now made the purchase less valuable. A civil suit could be filed, but not sure how the courts would rule.

Why? Tesla has long been run by an extremely petty person.

I think that's likely the reason this story is getting traction.

Fake news is so ubiquitous these days that I think you need to apply a higher standard than "it feels likely to be true". Especially for things that trigger outrage.

I think the question you should be asking is "has it been verified by a trusted third party?" And if not, you should treat it as something with a significant probability of being untrue.

How about a law that a company can't disable your product remotely, full stop? Or at least make it a negative right, so that any company can't disable your car/dishwasher/thermostat/video game, unless there's a very good reason to (say theft for example), with the burden of proof being on the company and not the consumer's shoulder?

It’s all fun and games until your car is stolen.

I was curious what the laws in Michigan might say about that, since it seems both plausible and absurd that attempted murder codes might apply. The below was originally sourced by Claude Opus and written by some random kid, so I would obviously appreciate an actual expert's armchair opinion!

1. Both Michigan[1] and the US[10] have statues that criminally prohibit "Access... to a computer program... to alter... or otherwise use the service of a computer program... without authorization or by exceeding valid authorization." Potentially a stretch, I can't find any super-relevant precedent.

2. The same statute[2] also prohibits ~"using a computer program... to (attempt to-)commit a crime", which obviously doesn't matter on its own, but could be added on to other charges, such as (drum-roll please)...

3. Attempted murder[3]. This one seems like a stretch indeed -- the law does leave room for "any means not constituting the crime of assault," but proving "intent to murder" seems basically impossible (unless there's some absolutely crazy texts to be found in discovery?).

4. More appropriate is assault[4], which leaves room for any "assault" with a "dangerous weapon without intending to commit murder or to inflict great bodily harm less than murder."

That last one is the most plausible+serious potential charge IMHO, but it really gets at the heart of the issue, as my understanding of assault is based on "harmful contact"[5]. Would shutting down someone's pacemaker be "contact"? On one hand it could be seen as akin to throwing something (which is definitely still assault), but on the other hand, the massive distances involved (CA -> MI?) stretch the colloquial understanding of "contact" by a lot.

There's a whole section on Civil(/tort?) penalties, but I'll spare y'all the details since that comes down to contract debates I don't comfortable even vaguely attempting to sorta-kinda speculate about! Namely: "was this authorized by some clause in the bill of sale?" In short, Claude brings up 1. Conversion[6] (" intentionally destroying or altering a chattel in the actor's possession") and 2. a variety of statues[7] prohibiting deceptive advertising. The latter would be particularly tricky in a world where searching "Tesla remote shutdown" returns many hundreds of articles on this being possible!

Claude cites the Michigan precedents of Owens v. Allis-Chalmers Corp. (1982)[12] and Prentis v. Yale Mfg. Co (1984)[13] to establish that you can't sell dangerous cars, but those cases were about manufacturing defects and not intentional tampering.

Finally, on a federal level: the NHTSA has broad authority to regulate therein "vehicle cybersecurity"[8,9] and the FTC is similarly charged to regulate "unfair or deceptive [commercial] acts or practices"[11], tho IDK how helpful those would be in the post-Chevron hellscape that we now reside within, to say nothing of the "First Buddy" angle.

TL;DR: No matter what happens, I think it's clear that there's little precedent on any level for such a brazenly-dangerous act of digital sabotage of a "protected computer" by the computer's manufacturer. I doubt much will happen either way, but I'd really love to see some precedent get made here one way or another!

[1] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-752-7...

[2] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-752-7...

[3] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-750-9...

[4] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-750-8...

[5] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault

[6] https://withoutmyconsent.org/50state/state-guides/michigan/c...

[7] https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-445-9...

[8] https://www.nhtsa.gov/research/vehicle-cybersecurity

[9] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/30111

[10] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

[11] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/45

[12] https://law.justia.com/cases/michigan/supreme-court/1982/619...

[13] https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/torts/torts-keyed-to-eps...

> "disabling a vehicle remotely at a in a way that puts the driver at risk, not only should be illegal but a criminal liability"

This actually happened to me some years ago. I rented a car from one of those "on demand" rental services - a Zipcar competitor who are no longer in business (AFAIK). While picking it up from Heathrow airport, either I managed to not unlock the car correctly from the app, or the device inside the car which controls this was buggy/faulty. Either way, I was still able to start the car and drive away normally.

But after about 10 minutes of driving, the car suddenly stalled and shut down in a live running lane on the M4(!!) and would not restart. Thankfully traffic was slow moving at the time so there wasn't too much danger of being rear-ended at high speed. Called the customer support line from within the app and within about 30 seconds of explaining the problem the car was unlocked again and started normally. The way they responded to my situation so quickly and without seeming at all surprised suggested that it was certainly not the first time it had happened...

My past GM trucks I’ve removed that stupid cell module. There is literally 0 reason a car needs an Internet connection. None.

It’s so bad these days I consider it a national security risk. Imagine a Ukraine like scenario where the enemy (or “friendly”) government hacks/disables all cars. This could severely disrupt underground supply lines or be used to concentrate civilians to areas for protecting military targets.

I’m all for deregulation, not regulation, but monopoly laws aren’t being enforced right now and consumers do not have choices in the market.

> I’m all for deregulation, not regulation, but monopoly laws aren’t being enforced

This is a good point. Being against regulations as a matter of principle is not at odds with wanting regulations that a person likes bec

Any issues, tablet warnings. etc?

on my friends 2002 and my 2008 zero issues or warnings. Haven't tried on my 2018 yet.

Afraid to upgrade truck any further now because of the dumb ipads in new trucks.

I think this is fake or incomplete and our biases are making us less skeptical,

Flagging because I see no news coverage of this.

Though there is a lot of news coverage of the Cybertruck that was allegedly a gift from Elon Muck to a Chechen warlord being remotely disabled.

Apologies for unintentional typo in the name.

Whether it’s fake or not, the fact that “remote vehicle deactivation over a rap song” feels plausible says a lot about the state of ownership in 2025.

As a model y juniper owner this is really fucked up. Full stop this will forever be in my brain when it comes time to buy my daughter her vehicle in 2 years. This is a brand destroyer for Tesla. i really hope it's fake.

There is absolutely no reason an electric car (or any car) should be 'phoning home'. I am completely opted out of that ecosystem, all my vehicles were manufactured well before that became a thing, even my ev.

OK, it is confirmed to be fake. Thank God!

Yes but, they do have the power to do this: https://theoffroading.com/can-tesla-shut-down-your-car-remot... One of the reasons I refuse to own any car that can phone home.

> This feature allows Tesla owners to remotely disable their vehicles using the Tesla app on their smartphones.

This is fake news. The article reads like someone asked ChatGPT to describe “the Tesla remote shutdown feature”.

Also, I have a Tesla and there is no such button in the app.

Also, “theoffroading.com” is the only thing that comes up when you Google “Tesla remote shutdown app”

Please do more thorough research before making statements about things you clearly don’t know anything about.

The Tesla and other connected cars aren’t the only problems. In general devices we buy to own are becoming really more like rentals. We need new laws against this.

I love how Threads, a multi-billion dollar company, just infinitely loops if you don't let it set its spying cookies.

If true, there should be prison terms and the end of Tesla as an ongoing concern. There won't be, but there should be.

As a certified Tesla bear, I would also bet that this is a fake. It does say quite a lot about what people think of Tesla though, if this gets almost 200 upvotes.

Could be the vehicle stopped for some other reason and the rapper falsely accused Tesla. It would help as PR for his song as people will want to hear it.

Note most gas powered cars now can do this. General Motors has been able to remotely deactivate vehicles since 2009 using their OnStar technology. Biden administration has mandated all cars to have this technology.

Freedom of speech absolutist

All the slogans these days just seem to be "For me and people I like..."

New genius product by Elon Musk: Hardware as a Service!

First, just noticing I haven't seen much from threads show up on HN. Then this video doesn't really have much in the way of details and 3/4s of it is just his rap video?

The video is pretty clear, he shows that he received an official letter from Tesla about the rap video, and thats why his car was deactivated.

The letter states: "Please be advised that this vehicle has been remotely deactivated due to violations of Tesla's Terms of Use"

I stand corrected o_O, I glazed over the legalese and did not notice that. Thanks!

Amazingly I see just 8 links to threads, and the first four are to whatever it was before Meta bought it!

I'm LMFAO because I just made a Threads account like 15 minutes ago because I want to stuff my photos any place I can [1], like https://nextdoor.com/profile/01QZ_TJjbFxhyjc7L or https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-houle-a18809320/ or https://www.behance.net/paulahoule (glad for more suggestion... particularly if I can teach my autoposter to import from my real social https://mastodon.social/@UP8) Threads was easy because you can post there automatically if you post to Instagram but Instagram is next for the autoposter because it's got the slowest and most difficult posting interface of about 11 that are on my list)

I think they bought and rebranded to threads.com only recently, the service started as threads.net, and there's a bunch of links to dot net.

If someone else can remotely disable a device that you own, you don't really own it. This kind of thing is why we need full control of our devices as device owners.

You're obviosuly just leasing a 100k dollar vehicle here, but you can't get your money back... Or get free service... Or use it for longer than 3.8 years...

I’m not disagreeing with this, but early (like very early 1900’s) Ford vehicles had a little brass plaque with the serial number and some wording that if you misused the vehicle Ford could force you to forfeit it back to them. This concept is as old as the horseless carriage itself.

AT&T actually owned all the telephones on their network (which was effectively all the telephones in the United States). If you wanted to use a telephone that wasn't made by an AT&T subsidiary, you had to transfer ownership of that phone to AT&T before they would allow it on their network. A significant legal precedent from the 1950s (Hush-A-Phone) relates to AT&T threatening to cut service to customers who dared to install a metal cup on their telephone receiver to muffle the sound of their conversation.

The 1900 equivalent then would be if Ford showed up at your house and removed the car’s starter. Making the thing you own functionally useless (while you still own it) seems categorically different to me than repossession in violation of a contract.

Yup. The supercars also famously ban some owners from purchasing them again, e.g., Ferrari:

https://www.hotcars.com/banned-for-life-celebrities-ferrari/

I remember joking about this possibility - that I wouldn't want a vehicle that could be turned off remotely because I hurt someone's fragile ego.

An Elon-esque CEO killing someone with a self-driving car was a plot point in a film that JUST came out, it's pretty funny

Big "told ya so" for privacy and security nerds and common sense

I Robot?

Naked Gun, I assume

The Naked Gun (2025). It follows the pattern of past classic spoof films by having a serious(ish) plot that all the jokes are layered into.

Did they remake/reboot iRobot? That thing is so old, Will Smith was still relevant enough to be casted for it

Imagine getting in an Uber and then dying in a pileup because your driver once posted something that bothered the owner of X™ The Everything App

edit: I didn't realize that there was more than his stalled car and the rap video. If you keep watching he posts the legal correspondence from Tesla. It does appear that Tesla did exactly what the headline says. Flame away

Read the letter in the video. Are you claiming that's fake?

>Dear Mr. Huey,

>We represent Tesla, inc. ("Tesla") and are writing to formally address the unauthorized use of Tesla's tellectual property in musical content distributed under your name. Specifically, this concerns your use of the Tesla Cybertruck name and imagery in one or more songs, including but not limited to the track titled:

>"Cybertruck"

The letter is a hint of proof.

The message on the screen literally says "COMPLY WITH CEASE & DESIST TO REACTIVATE".

You can make your tesla show whatever you want it to show on the screen.

I'd bet $1 that this is a rapper clout chasing and has absolutely nothing to do with Tesla itself.

If he's not in legal trouble, this would get him in legal trouble in a pretty open and shut way.

That's just the cost of going viral

The screen on the dash says "Comply with cease and desist to reactivate", which indicates that the vehicle was disabled by Tesla because of a legal dispute rather than a technical issue. The letter says that the vehicle was deactivated "due to violations of Testa's Terms of Use, Including misuse of Testa's trademarks and brand identifiers in media content that falsely implies endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation with Tesla."

It could be fake of course - I'd probably regard it as fake until I saw some corroboration, but saying that "It is just a video of a cybertruck broken down with software issues" is wrong. There's no evidence of a software issue in the video, but there is evidence of a purposeful de-activation due to a dispute over the use of Tesla's trademarks.

If true, that pizzachit Elon deserves criminal liability of some kind. That sort of reckless behavior should be punished severely.

How do we know Tesla deactivated his truck specifically because of his song?

Edit: I'm an idiot.

Who cares why they deactivated it? They shouldn't be able to, for any reason. That's not how vehicle ownership is supposed to work.

If you look at the video it isn't even clear that it has been deactivated by human intervention. It is the same message you get when the thing just has a software failure AFAICT.

Edit: I didn't realize that if you keep watching the video, he posts the legal correspondence. My bad. I just fast forwarded and found myself in a rap video and figured that was the whole story

I did look at the message, it looks like they abused functionlity that was intended for some other purpose, specifically to spite this particular vehicle owner.

This is just false - if there's a software failure you do not get a. message saying "COMPLY WITH CEASE & DESIST TO RE-ACTIVATE"

Whether this was the reason or not, it should be alarming that Tesla can remotely deactivate any car in their fleet without warning.

Even if you trust Tesla completely, a malicious actor could gain access to this feature and wreak havoc.

More and more if you buy a car on credit there will be a tracker installed so the repo man can find it if you start missing payments.

> We represent Tesla, Inc. ("Tesla") and are writing to formally address the unauthorized use of Tesia's intellectual property in musical content distributed under your name. Specifically, this concerns your use of the Tesia Cybertruck name and imagery in one or more songs, including but not limited to the track titled...

It's right in the letter in the video.

This is not exactly skeptical analysis of such an extraordinary claim. I can put the same image on my screen and print a letter like that with no involvement from Tesla.

You should watch the video. It shows the C&D received for using Tesla IP in musical lyrics, which says "your vehicle has been remotely described due to violations of the T&C".

The message on the screen of the Cybertruck literally says "COMPLY WITH CEASE & DESIST TO REACTIVATE".

How is it legal for Tesla to remotely deactivates rapper's vehicle for singing about the Cybertruck

https://grok.com/chat/3362d7ec-6eb5-49a4-a8cc-5d748a33c22b

Hmm, chat not found.

https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw%3D%3D_74dd8cc5-bdf2-45bf-a...

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