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Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

Could he not have just charged without using the superchargers?

Who's going to use a Tesla without superchargers? At some point, somebody will.

If one is going to plug into a US 220V outlet with an adaptor, then you're talking about adding back something like 180 miles range in 8 to 12 hours. Stealing such a car by driving it to a port city for shipment overseas would be a huge pain across most of the US. You'd at least need to tow it or haul it on a flat bed, unless you already lived in near a port city. (San Francisco and the Bay Area are fairly close to Oakland.)

> Who's going to use a Tesla without superchargers?

Well, if you stole the car, and now everyone is aware this is a way to track them...

Most people who steal cars either chop them up for parts or sell them. What do you think the new owner is going to do? Live without superchargers?

> What do you think the new owner is going to do? Live without superchargers?

Why not? Plenty of folks with electric vehicles charge at home and such.

I agree it's usually to chop or sell - in this kid's case though, he was probably planning on keeping it.

TSLA most certainly could have tracked it just using the GPS and woken the car (or even bricked it) remotely. Superchargers may have been used, but definitely weren't needed to track this vehicle.

From the article: "Since this person disabled GPS tracking on the car, the owner had to utilize a different method of tracking down the alleged crook."

I don't own a Tesla, but this implies it's possible to turn the GPS off.

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