Tesla vehicles are notoriously hard to steal, but this is being questioned as a couple of thieves were caught on camera easily and mysteriously unlocking and stealing a bunch of them in Miami.
The vehicles have been recovered, but the thieves are still at large and might be linked to more Tesla thefts lately.
In North America, Tesla thefts are relatively rare due to the vehicle’s safety features and real-time tracking.
In Europe, where they have some more sophisticated thieves, they have been more frequent and there has been strings of Tesla vehicle thefts through relay attacks.
In response to those attacks, Tesla started rolling out extra layers of security with an “improved cryptography” key fob and optional “PIN to Drive” feature. Once applied, these measures can decrease the chances of your Tesla vehicle being stolen.
‘PIN to Drive’ requires drivers to enter a PIN on the center screen before putting the vehicle in drive. This helps prevent theft if someone was able to do a relay attack on the key. Tesla has also recommended owners carry their Tesla key card in an RFID card holder to protect against the attack, but it wouldn’t apply if you use your phone as a key, which is what most Tesla owners do.
There have also been a few hackers who have been able to take control of Tesla vehicles.
It looks like some North American thieves might be catching up now.
A couple of Tesla vehicles were stolen out of a parking lot where a car rental company was holding them.
Two thieves were seen jumping the fence of Balado Tires’ parking lot, which Drivewhip, a car rental company, is renting to hold a dozen Tesla vehicles waiting to be rented on Thursday morning.
Based on security camera footage, they were misteriously able to quickly unlock and drive three Tesla vehicles out of the lot:
They first used a Model Y to smash the fence and abandoned the damaged vehicle so that each could get a different undamaged Tesla vehicle out of the lot.
It’s unclear how they were able to unlock and drive the vehicles, but relay attacks and hacks are possible explanations.
Alyssa Hidalgo, who works at the tire shop where the cars were held, commented to local news:
“I don’t know. I don’t know how they did it. I don’t know if they were like watching or something like that, but yeah, they did it pretty easily. It was crazy. It’s terrifying; we got the video late last night. My dad called me, and he had to spend the time here with the cops and stuff. It’s really sad and scary to know that this happens so frequently, I guess.”
While the thieves were able to steal the vehicles easily, they weren’t able to turn off the location tracking – something other thieves and hackers have been able to do.
Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office confirmed that they recovered the vehicle Thursday afternoon, but the thieves are still at large. The police say there has been another similar theft lately, and the suspects might be the same people.
Electrek’s Take
This is strange. I’ve heard of a few new hacks and cheaper devices that can help unlock and drive Tesla vehicles.
I am just speculating here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these thieves got their hands on such a device, but they were not sophisticated enough to turn off location tracking, which is the good news.
I wouldn’t mind if Tesla spends some effort addressing that, as they did with the string of relay attacks in Europe in 2018-2019.
