A Canadian Tesla owner mistakenly got into the wrong car and his app allowed him to drive into the visible vehicle, Motorist said Tuesday.
Vancouver’s immigration consultant said Rajesh Randev, 51, used his app to get inside his 2021 Tesla Model 3 — or so he thought — at 2:30 p.m. March 7 to pick up his two children from school.
Minutes into the journey, Randev was horrified to see a crack in the windshield and found that his phone’s charging cable was missing.
“I called my wife, ‘What happened to the windshield?’ Randev said. “Then it was, ‘Where did my cable go?’ ,
Randev ignored several phone calls from someone identified as “Mehmood” because he did not know anyone by that name. Then the strange experience turned even more confusing when Randev got a text message: “Do you drive a Tesla?”
“I thought maybe a customer saw me or maybe an old friend or whatever maybe someone recognized me (driving by) and texted me?” Randev said.
Randev didn’t put it together until the texter texted it: “I think you’re driving the wrong car.”
Randev said he stopped in an alley, noticed the tire rims were not off his car and realized he mistakenly mistook his white Model 3 for a white Model 3 owned by the person in the other row Was.
Luckily, that other Tesla owner, who is an Uber driver, noticed a prescription bottle in the car with a cellphone number on it, allowing them to connect.
“I was completely shocked,” Randev said. “I mean how was this possible? How was I able to access and get the drive?”
Randev picks up his children and nonchalantly returns to the crime scene, where all parties share a laugh and some concerns.
Randev said, “They (the kids) were laughing together. I mean my kids are young so they like computers and things like that and they were laughing.”
“But then on the other hand, they were also a little scared, you know, how was that possible?”
The Vancouver snafu marks the latest oddity involving the high-end car line that includes elements of driverless technology.
- A Tesla driver was killed and a passenger was seriously injured on February 18 when the car collided with a parked fire truck on a Northern California freeway waiting for drivers to get away from another accident, officials said. The team can be saved. It was not immediately clear whether the driver may have been intoxicated or whether the Tesla Model S was operating with automation or driving assistance features.
- Authorities said limousine driver Kevin George Aziz Riyad was driving his Tesla Model S on Autopilot in California in late 2019 when he ran a red and slammed into a Honda Civic, killing Gilberto Lopez and MarÃa Guadalupe Nieves-Lopez. died. The driver has been charged with two counts of vehicular homicide by gross negligence and a trial is pending in Compton.
- Regulators revealed this month that they have begun an investigation into Tesla’s Model Y SUV after receiving complaints that the steering wheel could lock up while driving.
A representative for Tesla’s investor relations department could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Randev said he has been trying to reach Tesla since the incident. And other than an email from a local Tesla dealer asking for his phone number, there has been no response, he said.
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