Vancouver Tesla owner unlocks, drives stranger’s car via app

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Rajesh Randev says he was hustling to pick up his children at school when he accidentally got into the wrong Tesla, which looked similar to, and was parked next to, his. It started and he drove off. After a few minutes, he noticed a crack in the windshield, and that his charger wasn’t where it usually was, so he called his wife, but she couldn’t explain the oddities. Then he got a text from a stranger.

“After, five, 10 minutes I got a text on my phone that said ‘Rajesh are you driving Tesla?’,” Randev told Global News. The stranger told Randev he had the wrong vehicle, and Randev soon confirmed this by pulling over and noticing the different wheels. “I was surprised how I was able to drive someone else’s car, by mistake, for an hour-and-a-half while his [key] was in his hand,” he said. “My family was shocked.”

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Once again, the app allowed him to access the vehicle, pick up his kids from school, and drive the Tesla to meet up with the other driver for a swap. 

“We were both laughing and I called the police as well,” he said, adding how the other driver had found his name and number in a document stored in the Tesla he’d left behind. “The police said they have my statement but they cannot give me a file number because nothing happened, but if something does happen to let them know and they will investigate.”

Randev also reached out to Tesla for answers and got the usual reply: crickets. “The corporate email in North America, it says the mailbox is full,” Randev said.