Tesla's onboard cameras catch vandals in the act

Here at Digital Camera World we love a good dash cam. The best front and rear dash cams can help protect your vehicle against bad and negligent road users, or even criminals trying to commit malicious insurance scams. But such aftermarket cameras are limited to recording directly in front and behind your vehicle, leaving the sides unmonitored. That is unless you have Tesla.

A Tesla Model 3, for example, has 8 external cameras - one in each door pillar, one in each front fender/wing, three forward-facing cams cited above the rear-view mirror (including a primary, wide-angle and telephoto camera), plus there's a rear-facing camera mounted above the back license plate. If you enable Tesla's Sentry mode, these cameras and the car's sensors remain active even when you leave the vehicle, ready to detect and record suspicious activity. If required, the system can also pulse the car's headlights or sound its alarm, as well as alerting the owner via the Tesla app.

It's thanks to these smart cameras that Australian Tesla owners have been detecting individuals vandalising their parked vehicles. One owner posted Sentry footage to the Tesla Owners Australia Facebook page of their car being keyed by a passing pedestrian after they noticed "a deep scratch from the rear passenger door all the way through to the left guard”. Upon reviewing the car's camera footage, it was discovered that the culprit was not an intellectually-challenged teenager, but rather an elderly lady. Other commenters on the Facebook page have stated that such videos seem to be posted on a weekly basis, with it being claimed that the vandals seem to frequently be from older age groups: “WTF is wrong with all these old people keying cars for no reason?” and “is it always Boomers?”.

In another instance captured on Tesla cameras, a man can be seen keying one side of the car, stopping to inspect his 'handywork' for a moment, and then walking casually away.

It's not clear whether these acts of vandalism are being directed specifically at Teslas, or at luxury cars in general. But with Tesla's Sentry mode providing an abundance of video footage, it's easy to assume this premium electric car brand is being disproportionately targeted.

While the act of scratching a car's paint may seem trivial, the damage is not easy to repair, usually requiring the entirety of the damaged body panels to be fully repainted. The associated cost can easily run into four figures.

With the video footage provided by these onboard security cameras, as well as the ease at which it can be shared on social media, it's surely only a matter of time before some of these vandals are identified and prosecuted.

Story credit: News.com.au