Last week, a man was captured on a Tesla customer’s Model S cameras setting the car on fire. J.R. Harriston, the owner, reported the incident to KREM2, stating that Tesla’s Sentry Mode recorded the incident, which occurred around 12:40 a.m. on a Saturday night while he was visiting a friend in Spokane, Washington.
Harriston shared the footage with the news station, which showed a man pouring liquid from two cans onto the electric car, causing it to burst into flames. Harriston expressed his disbelief, stating that he could not understand why anyone would want to set fire to his “dream car” for any political reason.
After owning the Tesla for more than a year, Harriston confirmed that no motive for the alleged crime has been reported. Nevertheless, opponents of the EV revolution have targeted electric cars and utilized tactics like ICEing, such as filling EV charging stations with gas trucks or stuffing ground beef into them to prevent EVs from recharging.
Sentry Mode is a feature exclusive to Tesla cars that records the vehicle’s surroundings when it detects any “suspicious activity,” giving Tesla owners an advantage. The feature has been helpful in the past to catch Tesla vandals, providing an additional layer of protection for Tesla owners.
Privacy concerns surrounding the cameras used by Tesla have been heightened following a recent Reuters report. The report disclosed that Tesla employees shared customers’ footage images, leading to a lawsuit, and although Tesla has not responded to the matter, the report has garnered more scrutiny towards the use of these cameras.
For those interested in watching the video footage from the Sentry cameras, it is available on the local news outlet’s website.
