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Tesla dashcam catches teens egging Model 3 at Supercharger
A Tesla owner is thanking his Model 3’s built-in dashcam features for capturing footage of a group of teenagers vandalizing his electric car. When he reported the incident to local authorities, the Model 3 owner was surprised to learn that his vehicle might not be the first Tesla to be vandalized in the location.
Darin Lee, the Model 3 owner, was Supercharging his electric sedan at a Supercharger in a Meijer outlet in Ann Arbor, MI, when a group of teenagers in a Cadillac SUV pulled up to his vehicle. Laughing amongst themselves, the vandals proceeded to pelt the Model 3 with several eggs.
Lee was inside the vehicle then, and when the teens realized that there was someone inside the Model 3, they promptly drove off. “I think they were going to cover my car with all five-dozen eggs. They saw me and took off real quick,” Lee said, speaking to local news.
What the teens didn’t know was that the Tesla was actively recording its surroundings while it was Supercharging. Thus, everything, from the moment they pulled up to the vehicle to the point where they realized the owner was inside the electric car, everything was captured in all their embarrassing glory.
While the incident seemed to be a simple prank, Lee notes that it might end up costing him a significant amount. Speaking to local news, the Model 3 owner noted that his electric car’s paint actually got scratches from the incident, which might cost him as much as $800 to repair.
Lee later reported the incident and turned over his Model 3’s dashcam footage to the police. Surprisingly, the police notified Lee that his Model 3 might not be the first Tesla to be vandalized in the same Supercharger. “It’s terrible, what’s happened. Just for you know, driving a specific car. If that is what it is,” Lee said.
The Model 3 owner noted that he bought his electric car primarily to help his disabled roommate get around. For now, Lee hopes that the teens behind the incident could be identified, especially since the vandalism, even if it’s just a prank, could be a costly one.
Fortunately, the teens behind the vandalism of the Model 3 have not been very smart about their prank. The teens, for example, seemed to have bought the eggs at the Meijer outlet nearby, where surveillance cameras recorded them. The store hopes to turn their surveillance footage over to the police as well.
Tesla has made a reputation for being one of the few carmakers that improve its vehicles over time through free over-the-air updates. The Model 3’s built-in dashcam feature, as well as the more robust Sentry Mode anti-theft system, are among these improvements. Hopefully, the dashcam footage from Darin Lee’s Model 3 could indeed be used to crack open the case and serve justice… sunny side down.
Tesla’s electric cars are well-loved vehicles, but they remain polarizing for a select group of people, particularly those who are not open to the idea of electric propulsion replacing the internal combustion engine. This has resulted in incidents such as ICE-ing, which involves preventing an electric car from charging, and even attacks on Superchargers.
Watch a segment on the vandalism of a Tesla Model 3 in the video below.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
Tesla is expanding its Robotaxi service hours by pushing the time back by one hour, keeping the ride-hailing service operational until 11 p.m., one hour later than previously.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed the change and offered a specific reason the expansion has been gradual: the system still needs to reliably avoid small pets that are difficult to see after dark, as they commonly blend into the color of the road, especially when they’re grey.
The latest adjustment restores only a fraction of the operating window the service once held. When paid Robotaxi rides began in Austin on June 22, 2025, vehicles ran from 6 a.m. to midnight.
In September 2025, Tesla lengthened the day to a 2 a.m. close, producing a 20-hour window that stayed in place for most of the following year. By early August of this year, the cutoff had already been pulled back; an August 26 update formalized hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. across Austin and several other markets.
The October move to 11 p.m. therefore leaves the Austin day one hour shorter than the original launch schedule and three hours shorter than the 2025 peak.
Musk addressed the constraint directly after the announcement. “The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night,” he wrote. “Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”
Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm.
The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The example points to a low-contrast perception problem in which a small animal can blend into the road surface under limited lighting.
Tesla’s vehicles rely on cameras and neural-network processing rather than lidar; Musk has previously argued that advanced vision software can extract useful information even in low light by analyzing photon counts, but the pet-detection case remains the stated limiter in later hours.
The modest schedule change arrives alongside faster growth in the purpose-built Cybercab fleet. Texas registration data tracked by observers showed the Austin Cybercab count rising sharply in recent weeks, reaching 169 vehicles after more than 100 were added in a short span.
Tesla has indicated that a broader shift toward 24-hour operation is tied to the upcoming FSD v15 software release expected this month on Robotaxi vehicles. Until that capability is validated for the edge cases Musk described, the company continues to add service time incrementally rather than jumping straight to overnight coverage.
The one-hour extension gives Austin riders a later option for evening trips while the underlying detection work continues.
Tesla has snagged a deal with IMC Logistics to supply the company with 50 Semi units for its logistics operations.
IMC handles drayage and landside logistics and has over 2,700 asset trucks in its fleet. In its over forty years of service, it has established more than 50 locations across the United States and spans operations from coast to coast.
Jim Gillis of IMC said that the addition of the Tesla Semi will help IMC move toward a “zero-emission service for long-haul lanes.”
The move is one that has become more common over the past few years, as more and more companies doing large-scale logistics have moved to sustainable powertrains, using either Tesla or others.
🚨 IMC Logistics announced that it will add 50 Tesla Semis to its fleet https://t.co/ymh1Ca2IuX
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 5, 2026
Tesla’s Semi program just entered its first truly public phase, as the company handed over its first production units to companies in September, although a pilot program with companies like PepsiCo. and Frito-Lay has been ongoing for years.
IMC announced its intention to purchase 50 Semi units from Tesla in September, and according to VP of Marketing and Public Relations on September 29 to Trucking Drive, the company will take delivery either this week or took delivery late last week.
With surging prices of diesel and high logistics costs, Tesla and the Semi could truly revolutionize how companies manage their fleets. With the advent of Full Self-Driving, the Semi will potentially cut down on driver fatigue and increase productivity, while decreasing the cost of operation per mile by being cheaper to refuel.
Tesla had a dedicated Semi handover event at the Semi factory in Sparks, Nevada, a few weeks back, as it officially introduced its truck to many company fleets that have been waiting to add these sustainable powertrains.
Tesla reveals early Robotaxi charging strategy, showing scrappy DNA
Tesla Robotaxi expands hours, Musk explains why it’s been a challenge
