Tesla vandal arrested after footage of incident was captured on Sentry Mode

Tesla’s new Sentry Mode is quickly proving useful as a woman who vandalized a Tesla vehicle was arrested after the footage of the incident was captured through Sentry Mode and reported to the police by the owner.

Over the last year, we reported an uptick in break-ins involving Tesla vehicles.

The automaker reacted by releasing its own dashcam feature using the Autopilot cameras around its vehicles.

Building on the dashcam feature, Tesla enabled the use of more cameras around the vehicle and activated a “stand-by” parking mode.

The feature became Sentry Mode, which Tesla started pushing to its fleet through an over-the-air software update last month.

Rafael Santoni, a Tesla Model 3 owner who goes by ‘Teslatino’ on Youtube, shared a video from the Sentry Mode on his friend’s who activated it car just in time to catch someone vandalizing it.

A woman parked next to his Model 3 used her key to aggressively scratch his door – badly damaging the paint in the process. Santoni said that his friend . was quoted $900 in damages by a body shop:

The entire incident was recorded through Sentry Mode and the video clearly showed the woman’s face.

They used the video to report the act of vandalism to the police and the woman was reportedly arrested.

He discussed the incident on Youtube where he also released the footage recorded by Sentry Mode (edited to remove the vandal’s face):

The Model 3 owner didn’t know the woman and her motivation for keying the Tesla is still unclear, but there have been several acts of Tesla vandalism lately.

We recently reported on someone vandalizing a Tesla Supercharger station. The vandal was also arrested in that case.

Last year, several Tesla vehicles were also set on fire in an apparent act of anti-EV vandalism.

Electrek’s Take

I cannot understand this. It might not be the case, but let’s assume that it is again an act of vandalism against Tesla since the owner didn’t know the woman.

That’s again just an act against the owner. The guy worked hard to be able to afford his Tesla and you are going to damage his property? What for? Because you don’t like what it represents?

Either way, glad to see Sentry Mode paying off already. The publicization of this incident will hopefully deter other vandals from doing the same thing in the future.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.