The TeslaCam, which is the dashcam integrated with Tesla vehicles, captured an incident of road-rage in Nashville last week. A man driving an SUV passed the Model 3 in question and evidently fired a gun at the electric vehicle. There are no reports of an arrest yet.
Road-Raging Guy Fires a Gun at Tesla; Video Caught on TeslaCam
The Incident
The incident occurred in Nashville last week. The Tesla Model 3 passed an SUV while driving on the highway. In a few seconds, the SUV caught up to the Tesla, and then it happened.
The driver of the SUV pulled out a gun and shot a few times at the Tesla. Fortunately, no one was injured. A total of 4 shots were fired, two of which hit the driver’s door, obstructed by the lock mechanism. The third hit the rear door and the window motor stopped it. The fourth is currently lodged in the vehicle’s backseat. The driver of the SUV fled the scene before the Tesla owner could take any action.
Thankfully, the TeslaCam captured the entire incident. The owner posted the video on r/TeslaCam, a Reddit community specifically for posting videos recorded on the Tesla Cam. Through the help of some other members of this community, the owner was able to get the license plates on the SUV – HDX-3601. The vehicle was a 2007 GMC Envoy, as some of the members specified after some analysis of the video.
TeslaCam capturing some dramatic moments..shots fired! from TeslaCam
You can spot the SUV driver shooting at the Tesla towards the end of the video. He immediately took the next exit and managed to flee. The Reddit community members, however, found the VIN number of the SUV – 1GKDS13S772251616. The plate numbers suggest that it was a vehicle from North Carolina.
The owner has passed on all this information to the Nashville Police Department, along with the footage. According to him, this information should be sufficient for the police to catch the culprit.
TeslaCam: The Eyes of all Tesla’s
TeslaCam is an integrated dashcam system used in all Tesla vehicles. Along with the Sentry Mode, it uses Autopilot cameras to record potential accidents, acts of vandalism and other incidents.
All the owner has to do is plug in a USB device to the centre console. On activating the Sentry Mode, the vehicle stores all the video data recorded by the camera on the USB device. You can access this data through the USB device later.
This feature has proven useful over the short period of time since its launch. Owners are able to record the footage and use it for insurance claims in the cases of accidents and vandalism acts. It helps them prove that they were not at fault during the incident.
Tesla even offers a storage device for the Sentry Mode recordings in new vehicles. For older vehicles, one can use a Jeda USB hub and a Samsung portable SSD to use the TeslaCam feature.
Our Opinion
This is the first reported instance of the TeslaCam being used to record footage of road rage. According to the owner, there was no apparent reason for the SUV driver to do what he did. He was calmly driving in the right lane and had passed the SUV almost 4 miles back. There was also no case of cutting across the SUV, which have provoked him. As of now, there is no news of any arrest.
It is important to note that the TeslaCam can come in handy in this kind of a scenario. Good to see a feature being used not in the way it was intended to, but still ending up being useful.
