Bob Wolin, a Tesla Model S owner in Houston, was surprised to see an impressive spike in energy consumption after taking his car back from the valet service at Vic and Anthony’s Steakhouse last weekend.
Wolin quickly came to the conclusion that the valet took his Model S on a joy ride. As evidenced by the energy usage widget, he estimates that the valet floored his Model S and reached speeds of around 90 mph.
That’s why Tesla introduced ‘Valet Mode’, which limits power and acceleration to 25% (80KW), top speed to 70 mph, and disable certain settings. It even locks the glove box.
A Tesla owner even created alerts to show on the screen through the browser when using the ‘Valet Mode’ in order to discourage any misuse of the vehicle.
As for Wolin’s case, he made a complaint to Vic and Anthony’s Steakhouse and their valet service, which is managed by a separate company, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. He also requested to get the full logs from Tesla in order to know exactly what happened during the joy ride.
It’s still interesting that he managed to figure it out without the full logs, but through monitoring the energy consumption app, which is not something you can do in most vehicles.
In conclusion, it’s better not to take any chances and activate the ‘Valet Mode’.
Here’s the local news report on the incident:
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