Tesla made the news in an odd way again this weekend as thieves stole three Tesla vehicles from a dealership and led police on a chase in Northern Virginia.
Jazmin Desu shared on Reddit that her neighbors on the Nextdoor app were complaining about a helicopter circling overhead last night for an hour, around 3:00 in the morning. The vehicles were stolen from a Tyson’s Corner area dealership and one of the drivers was caught.
NBC Washington reports that a Fairfax County Police officer saw one of the Teslas driving on Route 7 around 3:00 am while sporting dealer tags. Police tried to pull over the vehicle and the pursuit began. One of the drivers crashed on Leesburg Pike near the Beltway and tried to escape on foot. The other two drivers drove southbound and later abandoned the vehicles near Route 236.
The police caught two of the three suspects. There could have been more since the police say there was an unknown number of passengers in two of the cars. One of the suspects, a man from Maryland, lied to the police about his age — claiming to be a juvenile.
In her Reddit post, Desu wonders how the thieves were able to steal the Teslas and what can be done to prevent this kind of thing happening again at dealerships. Tesla’s Sentry Mode could come in handy here. Tesla’s Sentry Mode is powered by 8 cameras that monitor the surroundings of the vehicle kind of like an electronic watchdog. It will let its owner know if something is amiss while documenting everything. That said, if the thieves walked up to the cars with keys in their hands, Sentry Mode shouldn’t be triggered. Also, you need a recording device in the car to save any Sentry mode incidents.
Presumably, the thieves somehow got keys to the cars and the cars did not have Pin to Drive set.