Ever since Tesla introduced Sentry Mode last March, the security-oriented surveillance feature has captured all sorts of wild shenanigans. Most notably, you may recall a handful of instances where Sentry Mode captured vandals inexplicably keying Tesla vehicles for seemingly no reason at all.
A more recent video out of Norway, though, is far more harrowing. Property damage is one thing, but the video below shows a masked man purposefully removing the wheel nuts from the rear tires of a parked Model 3. Tellingly, the man left one wheel nut on each tire untouched which suggests that he was hoping to cause the Model 3 to get into a serious accident.
While the man’s motivations behind his actions remain unclear, and while Ihlhaug himself noted that the person might have simply wanted to steal his wheels (his Model 3 is equipped with aftermarket rims), the fact that the man seemingly opted to leave one nut on each rear wheel suggests that the perpetrator’s motivations might have been more sinister. The man did not use any tools to lift and support the vehicle, for one, which would have made removing the Model 3’s wheels very difficult.
As to how the entire ordeal played out, a post from a Tesla-oriented Facebook group in Norway reveals that the Model 3 owner in question noticed that something was awry almost immediately after driving a few feet. The owner subsequently stopped the car to investigate and noticed that the majority of the wheel nuts on the rear wheels had been removed.
The Model 3 owner subsequently called for help and had the nuts replaced. The story has a happy ending but could have easily gone the other way.
Video of the incident can be seen below:
While it remains unclear if the Model 3 was specifically targeted as a Tesla vehicle, the broader takeaway here is that Sentry Mode does a solid job of capturing emergency incidents.
Again, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Sentry Mode footage capture people trying to sabotage a Tela vehicle. Just about two months ago, footage of two men in Sacramento aggressively keying a Model 3 for no reason surfaced online:
