It’s not really news that, often, crashed cars in America that have been written off get sold to auction houses that then sell them to people who ship them overseas, fix them, and sell them. This has been happening for quite some time. What is more interesting is that this now seems to be happening to wrecked Teslas, and those Teslas are ending up in the theater of war in Ukraine, and the former owners of these Teslas have been still connected to their former cars via software, getting tracking updates and, in one case at least, seeing that their Spotify account is still active in the car. And playing Drake. What’s going on, here, exactly? I’m not sure we have all the answers, but it seems interesting enough to look into.
We first were made aware of this back in late May, when we got an email from Tom Rymes, introduced to us by Autopian contributor John Voelcker, who told us this:
I would add that this car suddenly departed the road for unexplained reasons – we were never able to find out what caused the car to suddenly veer off the road.Then, the tow driver damaged the front suspension even more dragging it back onto the road, and the insurance company eventually totaled it, likely due to a combination of high Tesla auction sale prices and their insistence that an entire new battery would be required because a certain bracket supposedly wasn’t available without the battery – the battery was NOT damaged. My finding that bracket on eBay for $150 didn’t sway their decision. The car’s location far away from them in Florida likely didn’t help.Regardless, it eventually made it through the auction system and I got a notification in the app today that “XOO – Software Update Complete” not recognizing that name, I opened the app, realized which car it was, and that it must have been charged back up and powered on. I checked the location, and…it’s halfway between Lviv and Kyiv.The other part here is that the new owner likely cannot get or will face difficulty in getting app access for this car, and we still have app access to this car, are able to control it, etc. there’s definitely a similar problem with other makers’ cars in this regard too, but one wonders when manufacturers will find a good solution to this, or have they already?
But then today we see this on what I’m still going to call Twitter:
Here's an unusual situation. I had a Tesla, crashed it, it was totaled. And now it's … in Ukraine? And someone there is listening to Drake on my, still logged in, Spotify account. pic.twitter.com/ymW2psyvz6
— Jay Yarow (@jyarow) August 10, 2023
Now it’s getting a bit more interesting, because this isn’t some isolated incident. Here’s another wrecked Tesla showing up in Ukraine, and with the former owner still having access to the car’s location and other accounts. And, that location shows it in an area where active fighting has been happening, to add a whole other element of complexity here. We spoke to Jay Yarow, who works at CNBC, and you can read their story about how this happened.
Part of what is interesting about all of this is simply the realization that we’re entering an era when just handing the keys over after you sell a car or have one towed off to a junkyard isn’t enough to untangle yourself from that vehicle. Cars like Teslas make extensive use of cloud-based user accounts and a lot of interaction with the car can be from applications on your phone, so when you no longer want that car to be yours, there’s procedures that need to happen. And they can be a bit involved, as you an see here:
In the case of a car that gets wrecked and towed away into the black hole of the insurance and then salvaged-car auction dimension, the owner may likely not have a chance to log completely out of the car’s systems, so when it ends up wherever it ends up, it’s still calling home, like those dogs you hear about finding their way back home, just a lot less cute. I don’t think this necessarily puts the original owner in a compromised position, but it does make it very difficult for the new owner to get full access to their car’s features.
For some of those features that we may consider vitally important for American Tesla ownership, like access to Tesla’s Supercharger network of high-speed chargers, that is a lot less important in Ukraine, which has no Superchargers. Well, there may be one in Kyiv, and there are certainly ones near parts of Ukraine, but I’d guess whomever has this Tesla now is just charging via 220V outlets or other chargers.
Then there’s the question of how these wrecked Teslas are being brought back from the dead and made available for sale, after they’ve been written off as not worth it here. Our own Matt Hardigree did some digging and found a good example of a wrecked 2016 Model S that ended up in Ukraine, fixed and ready for sale. This was the car, which sold at auction for $25,000 and sported a very smashed passenger’s side, with airbags deployed and everything. And here it is for sale in Ukraine, all nice and shiny, selling for $32,000. Look at this before/after:
This is a pretty impressive feat; the Model S has an aluminum body and frame, and is pretty non-trivial to repair. All this for a price delta of about $7,000, which would have to factor in all the parts and labor to get this thing looking good again. Oh, and shipping across an ocean! How does this make sense?
Matt found other examples of Teslas with VINs that could be shown to be wrecked American cars that got shipped over to Ukraine, it seems through roll-on-roll-off coming into Rotterdam. He also reached out to a seller, and we’ll update when and if we hear back from them as well.
Matt was able to talk to another car importer, not one with experience shipping and repairing wrecked Teslas to Ukraine, to get their opinion on how this sort of business could work. Here’s what they said:
“If we’re actually talking about that thin of a margin ($5k-ish), the only logical/legal thing i can think of, is that they’re packing the shit out of a 40ft container with them. Maybe 6-7 cars at a time (more?) and cheap labor once they’re there?
So total load maybe gets them $20-30,000 in overall profit? Still seems not worthwhile, but nothing else would really make sense from an economical perspective if those facts are true.”
Sure, maybe $20,000 to $30,000 doesn’t seem worthwhile to a mainstream importer, but given the wartime situation in Ukraine right now, perhaps that does make sense? There may also be significant demand, since cars have been getting destroyed or abandoned due to the Russian invasion.
UPDATE: We got to speak to one of the importer, see more at the bottom.
While I’m not going to pretend to fully understand all of the causes and implications of what’s going on here, we can see some interesting things. Maybe the biggest one is that we need to start treating getting rid of a modern car, especially one as internet-connected as a Tesla, like getting rid of a smartphone. Log out of everything, wipe all the memory, do a factory reset. What do you do if it’s wrecked and the user interfaces in the car, like the touchscreen, no longer work to get access to the car’s computers, which may still work? I’m not sure. Perhaps cars in the future should have a hard-wired factory reset button right on the computing hardware itself? But you’d still have to be able to get to it, somehow? What if it has no power, but the memory remains intact, and could be accessed if salvaged for another car? This isn’t a problem with easy answers.
Because these cars are showing up in Ukraine, it’s easy to speculate that they may be involved in war effort activities, but from what I can see and guess at, this doesn’t seem to be the case. For one thing, Teslas are probably too valuable for that when there’s still a supply of Daewoos and Ladas and Dacias to turn into fighting vehicles, and I think there’s just a lot of demand for new cars in a country where cars may be hit by shrapnel or had to be abandoned.
Mostly, though, I’m impressed with how the people doing this are able to repair these Teslas and turn them around and, I assume, make some money. I suspect that we’ll be hearing from more Tesla owners who have old former cars pinging them from across the world. Perhaps they can use this unusual form of connection to make some new friends across the globe, dealing with a very difficult time, easing the pain by playing Drake on Spotify.
UPDATE: Here’s what we learned from an importer, Nicholas, who runs a repair shop and car selling business near the Ukrainian border with Poland. He actually shared his Instagram account, where you can see his company repairing various imported cars. According to Nicholas, the cars come in via shippers on the Baltic, which makes sense given the proximity to Poland.
As an example, he sent us an image of a wrecked Model X his company purchased:
And here’s the after:
As we suspected, the margins are not huge, though it’s apparently model specific. On the low end, after repairs and customs/tariffs, a car might be worth $1,000. On the higher end, for a specific and desirable Tesla like a Model X, the margin can reach up to $10,000.
Another former importer/exporter said he believed you could fit approximately four vehicles, depending on which models, in a 40-foot container.
So if you can’t log out of your Tesla, what can the next guy do with your account? Run up supercharger bills? Buy FSD subscription?
Mess with your Spotify recs, I guess.
If it were me, welp. Hope the previous owner likes ’90s country and horny industrial!
Is anyone using those wrecked EVs as weapons or barricades against the invaders by triggering a row of battery fires?
Whenever I see or hear the country name Moldova, I immediately think of Jerry Seinfeld guessing that his latest lady friend’s name is Mulva.
And yes, I am currently inebriated.
Dolores?
I’m just wondering if Art Vandelay is involved in the exporting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnIKiNAupRs
Should be pretty easy to track down the new owners address by just figuring out where the car spends most of its time and with Google maps.
Then you write them a letter or send them a postcard with your phone number enclosed explaining how you can help them gain full access to their new cars features if they help you delete your crap.
Yup, I’m suggesting an old fashioned foreign pen pal solution to a modern car problem. That’s what I’d do.
It’s a very Autopian approach.
Next thing you know you’ve got someone a world away texting you on a Saturday afternoon to talk to you about your old car that they are now enjoying.
Why not? Could be cool.
The apps can remotely control various functions. So, maybe honk the horn in a morse code sequence.
I’m pretty sure the Venn diagram of Tesla owners and people fluent in Morse Code is a rare eclipse.
Worth a shot though.
Same things with Tesla owners and people who know how to lick a stamp, I should think. (I just re-read that and it really sounds like a euphemism; wasn’t my intention)
New euphemism just dropped! “We just spent all night licking stamps, if you know what I mean.”
Heh, heh, heh
“Are you two into, ah, postage? Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more?”
I figure Ukranians are now familiar with most wartime code communication, old and new.
Might not be the best idea to give away your location with a series of honks, though.
If you think about it, something like a Model X makes a ton of sense as, say a guerilla personnel carrier. Refuel from an outlet, decent amount of interior space, and most importantly, silent as hell. The number of times, while biking, I haven’t heard a Tesla behind me…
The silly rear doors are a tad conspicuous, though…but I’m sure that also makes them an excellent perch for a big ol’ gun.
I shipped four Ponton Mercedes to Poland that are being converted to coupes
A couple of rather intriguing things about this.
First. In theory, you only get SIM connectivity inside the US, and the fix is not as easy as just replacing with a local SIM. Outside the US, the car would only connect to the network via WIFI.
Second. The charging connector is different for Euro spec cars. Even if you made your way to a Tesla charger, the plug would not work. Plus Tesla usually disables supercharging for salvaged vehicles unless they can inspect and certify them as safe.
For the price, the buyer is getting a seriously handicapped vehicle…
People already have been replacing the LTE board.. one cool thing about the Teslas is the boards are more or less x86 PC standard.. so things are not as hard to reverse engineer vs the ARM SoC.
eg https://hackaday.com/2022/01/03/lte-modem-transplant-for-a-tesla-imported-into-europe/
Who me? I just love that you included Bialystok in the top map, because The Producers (1968) is one of my absolute favourite movies! Right up there with Robocop 😎
What’s surprising is that Torchyn isn’t on that map. It should be more-or-less due north of Lviv.
I think our great leader sees that as a tiny-ass place 😉
How long until we see one formerly owned by a plumber with artillery mounted on the roof?
First thing I thought of
r/ShittyTechnicals (if anyone’s stuck around after the redditpocalypse) is ON IT, I’m sure
Well our USA THROW IT AWAY society provides no repairmen. It is remove and replace only. So a capable body and fender guy can fix the old so cheaper. I am surprised with the war you can ship anything in even out might be expensive because grain for money to fight.
As for myself the smart Ukraine army has taught how to fund targets on the open internet. I dont think i want to drive a car constantly calling for its mommy 24/7 on the internet.
In a lot of cases somebody CAN repair some damage but to re-register you need to repair as per the manufacturer so a bent quarter can be heated up pulled and hammer but because it is high strength steel the manufacturer insists that it be replaced. This adds to the costs and makes it uneconomical to repair, I am on the fence as there are some bad ways to repair but also to write off a car for hail damage because it needs a new roof skin seems silly
Agreed
given these things’ combustable (and in-extinguishable) natures, maybe the Ukraine teslas are being set up as FSD drones to drive into russian positions/assets.
Came looking to see if someone already suggested this.
There is a company in Ukraine called Elmob (Electronic Mobility – Get it?). That resells EVs from the US. I personally sold them two Chevy Volts and two Nissan Leafs back in 2019 before The Unpleasantness Arrived.
We were hoping to expand this distribution artery but they were TOUGH on pricing. Although the cars they purchased from me were not wrecked, I knew that wrecked vehicle acquisition was a major part of their bread and butter. Main reason, as the article states, is that the purchase price is significantly less with a totaled car and labor is super cheap.
That isn’t much different than a domestic stealership with ICE vehicles, especially if they have a body shop. Buy a wrecked/damaged, but not totaled car, do the mechanical and cosmetic repairs in house, create three separate revenue streams through Service, Body Shop and Sales (if it sells).
Lots of wrecked Teslas and other branded title US cars end up in Lithuania through the ports there.
Most of them are revived by specialized shops there and then sold off in other Eastern European countries.
This is common practice as there is a surprisingly large market for US-spec vehicles in a couple of forme Eastern Bloc countries, Ukraine and Russia too for example.
We are getting some US musclecars repaired in Lithuania here in Sweden also, mostly from semidodgy dealers.
If you can’t go full Dodge, a semiDodge musclecar is the way to go.
Never go full Dodge.
Yeah—a lot of older luxury cars from western Europe frequently head east, too. I’m not surprised to see American Teslas do the same.
there’s a good planet money on this https://www.npr.org/2022/09/07/1121625347/the-salvage-car-silk-road
“Perhaps they can use this unwsual form of connection”
I realize this is an innocent typo. But I got a kick out of mispronouncing that word in my head.
Un-Woo-sual.
Thanks for (inadvertently) brightening my day!
I’m hearing it like Barry Kripke from The Big Bang Theory said it.
I’m hearing Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles. It’s twoo.
“Mawwidge is the weeson we are gathered here today…”
I may have another data point for this story in the near future.
My first Model 3 was totaled in May. We missed our opportunity to wipe our data from the car. After the pyro fuse disconnects the HV battery, you may get two hours before the 12V system shuts down. Plus, we were initially told it was repairable. It wasn’t after the body shop looked at it. I think the body shop padded the hell out of the quote because they had tons of work and didn’t want to deal with a poverty spec Model 3 RWD.
Short of the paint work, I could have had it back on the road again for under $10k. But we have a baby at home and I barely have enough time to mow the lawn now.
After a long insurance saga later, It sold at auction for $14,100 on July 13th. Transit time to Ukraine is typically 45-60 days per the interwebs. My wife and I have been watching the app to see if the old car comes back online again.
A zero carbon Tesla technical battalion would be pretty sweet though. Finally environmental conscious armed conflict! No more sleeping next to the diesel burning pit.
Yeah who cares about that huge target shining brightly on the internet?
God, now we’re going to have to put up with X posts from the Musk Melon telling us how he won the war.
He wants Ukraine to just give Russia all the land they invaded, so he wouldn’t consider a Ukraine victory a win. He’s a terrible POS, is what I’m getting at.
He’ll claim victory which ever way it goes.
Yeah that is why he is providing free wifi and sent up dozens of satellites to help Ukraine. Free service for months because he wants them to lose. You think Ukraines technical success is from some 35 year old ukrainian bro playing minecraft in his parents bombed out basement? THINK you dont have to be right all the time but dont just say something without thinking.
I would think due to the war there is a shortage of fuel for civilians so it would make sense electric vehicles would be in demand.
Yes because electricity is free and plentiful in a city that has everything bombed.
I would imagine access to electricity is more readily available than fossil fuels. Not trying to discount the damage to Ukraine’s cities but I would imagine gas/diesel takes priority towards the war effort.
Do Teslas have that mode where they drive automatically to your front door or was that only a future feature? If so, what happens if they are activated on these cars?
I think at least some had the Summon feature. I presume Summon wouldn’t work across continents, but the idea of hundreds of unoccupied Teslas driving off cliffs into the ocean attempting to return to their former owners is hilarious. Lemming Mode would have been awesome.
There’s a process to relinquish your access to a vehicle in Tesla’s portal (such as when passing on to a new owner) – it’d be sensible if that did a full reset on all settings/logins/data on the car, but sensible might be too much to ask here.
I recently sold my Model S to Carmax. They would not let me complete the deal until I had both reset the car and removed it from my Tesla account on the website/app.
Apparently both steps are needed. I assume Carmax know what they are doing.
The hardest part for me was to remember the apps word I used over 10 years ago to setup the car in the first place!
Now Elon is gonna shut these cars off along with Starlink.
Maybe related:
When I rent a car, I do not bother pairing my phone to the rental car. I don’t want to forget to un-pair it.
Haven’t rented a car in a long time, but that’s good thinking!
Las time I rented a car, there were so many (absent) phones paired with it that I don’t think there were any slots left. Deleted them all and let my wife pair hers for Bluetooth audio on a long trip. I did remember to delete the phone’s entry when I turned it in, though.
I’ve had that problem as well. I usually delete all of them before I add mine. Sometimes I even remember to delete mine!
I wipe out all the old connections when I rent a car. The last car I rented had so many connections on it too; I took a picture of one page with memorable names like “Daddy Fat Sack,” “Blue Bayou,” and the ever-popular “iPhone (256).”
Heh, I like looking at the previous connections in press cars, too. I’m sure there’s a few folks who’ve accidentally found iPuffalump Turbo S when I’ve blanked on clearing it, but eh, I trust the press corps probably a little too much.
I usually don’t bother with a rental, but I kinda have to test out the different functions on a test loaner. I’m disappointed no one in the Texas pool has a properly weird cell phone name.
I don’t bother pairing my phone to a rental car because I am lazy, but what is the worst-case scenario of a still-paired phone? Maybe a minor inconvenience to the next person who wants to pair their phone if all the “slots” are full? But it’d be easy for that person to just delete one to make room. I’m struggling to come up with a security issue around it, and even if there were a hypothetical one, prerequisites for it being exploited would require a future renter to a) be a criminal and 2) know about the exploit. It seems like there are many things ahead of it in my long “stuff to worry about” list.
Worst-case scenario is that all of your contacts are still on the rental, with names, phone numbers and addresses. And once they’re in there, you wouldn’t need to be a criminal mastermind to call up any of the entries, especially if the user is tied to the key.
And? If you were presented with a list of names and phone numbers, would you start calling them up and attempting to scam them? I didn’t say the user had to be a mastermind for something bad to happen — just a criminal — and contrary to what you may think from your cable news channel of choice, most people are not criminals. The next user of the rental car isn’t going to do a darn thing with “Jack Package – 555-555-6969” saved in the memory. Normal people don’t need to pretend that they are secret agents. It’s not worth worrying about.
As long as everyone puts their thumb up to cover the license plate in the car photo, all will be well.
This is probably a dumb question but I am a bit of a luddite and know nothing about tech. What harm can happen by leaving your phone paired to a rental car?
In my case the danger is that although my phone’s cord is long enough to reach most of my kitchen and part of my living room, it won’t stretch much farther before something has to give.
Luddite par exemplar.
You running 95 or XP? Maybe 14.2?
I have, under protest, advanced as far as 10.14.6.
Fight the good fight.
As much as I’d like it to be otherwise I have learned to deal with W10 and 18.4.
Windows XP service pack 3 was the pinnacle of functionality.
See above
The better question is why would one pair their phone to a rental car in the first place?
Any credentials like user names or passwords could be downloaded by nefarious actors and compromise your accounts.
Am I the only one thinking, “If we’re truly trying to help Ukraine in the war, shouldn’t we be sending refurbished Teslas to Russia?”
So can the old owner simply shut the car off from the other side of the world? Instant brick?
No, but we can do annoying things like;
One of those things is not like the others
If a car’s gonna have a “butthole,” it’s gonna fart, too.
(The last one is the most concerning to me, FWIW.)
Don’t forget if the original owner still run Teslamate or simliar software, they would know pretty much the new owners’ daily routine. Where and when they travel, how fast they drove, tyre pressure etc etc. It is all polled from the Tesla API. No you won’t be able to back retrieve the information if you don’t have Teslamate or simliar running, but still it is a lot of info.