Tesla Sentry Mode Caught Politician Culprit In Hit-And-Run Incident

Tesla’s security system proved its worth as it caught Philadelphia City Council Judge Willie Singletary redhanded in a hit-and-run incident with a car. While this only involved property damage, this case still shows that Tesla’s sentry mode does work as intended. Here’s what we know of this news.

According to Teslarati, Tesla Sentry mode cameras caught Singletary redhanded as he examined and tried to buff out the damage his Cadillac Escalde made to a Tesla Model 3. Normally, such cases should be reported immediately to avoid letting the legal issue grow larger. However, Singletary chose to leave the scene and not report it to the police.

Due to the footage, Singletary did not get away easily despite initially lying to the authorities about the case. In the end, Singletary was willing to settle the damages.

Previously, the judge was also sentenced to 20 months in prison for lying to the FBI about a ticket-fixing scheme while working as a judge. Singletary was also the state’s Traffic Court judge.

Tesla’s Sentry Mode does prove its mettle as a security system for electric vehicles. The sentry mode is known for using the Tesla car’s camera and activating the car’s security measures when an issue is detected, allowing owners to confidently leave the car alone anywhere. If the car detects some suspicious activity near it or that it is being tampered with, the user will be immediately notified through the app.

While Tesla’s security seems to be working on this side, it’s been proven that its internal data security is still vulnerable to hacking if the case was more severe. Security specialists were able to get more than the accident footage when they got their hands on the car’s data storage. Personal data such as contacts, addresses and previous destinations can also be taken from the car.

In other news, the Tesla is planning to release its Model Y crossover SUV later this year. The longer range variants would be released first, while its cheaper standard battery variant will come early next year.

We’ll have to wait and see if there’s going to be any improvement to the sentry mode once the new Tesla cars get released.