Lifestyle
Tesla Model S makes it home after dramatic transatlantic theft and rescue
When Soby of Evoto Rentals handed the key fob of one of the company’s Tesla Model S to a client that booked and paid for the electric car in advance, the businessman did not realize that it would mark the start of a long, arduous pursuit that would take the vehicle from the shipping yards of Montreal, Canada, to the shores of Italy. With its web of intrigue, near-misses, and a dramatic rescue, the story of Evoto Rentals’ stolen Model S could very well be one of the most compelling Tesla tales that has emerged to date.
A Booking Gone Wrong
It all started with a seemingly innocent booking. The client appeared to be a regular customer that merely wished to rent a Model S for a week. Everything seemed fine when the car was being booked. The deposit went through, and the entire rental fee was paid through a credit card. The customer drove off, and the electric car rental company thought that it was business as usual.
Things started to get strange. Monitoring the Model S through GPS, the businessman was a bit surprised to see the customer parking the premium electric car at a container packing company located on the outskirts of Montreal. The car stayed in the same location for 48 hours, and then the triangle representing the vehicle turned gray. With red flags all over the situation, the businessman tried emailing and calling the client, before realizing that the email address provided was a throwaway and the mobile number was from a burner phone.
The Escape
The businessman promptly reported the incident to the police, but the police explained that the circumstances were a civil matter since Evoto had rented the vehicle to the client. The police also commented that car thefts were low on their priority, so it might take a couple of months before a judge could look into the incident. Evoto Rentals would also be required to show proof that it attempted to contact the client after the rental period was over, such as physical letters sent by registered mail to the customer’s address.
The businessman opted to ring up the company’s lawyer and Tesla, both of whom advised against waiting as the vehicle could be shipped overseas. The electric car rental company hired a private investigator to scout the last known location of the vehicle, who was able to get some information about the nature of the cargo packing firm’s activities. Thanks to some help from Evoto’s lawyer, a search warrant from the police was secured, and the packing company’s site was searched.
The packing company claimed innocence, arguing that they believed the Tesla Model S was just another second-hand vehicle that was being shipped overseas. The company even provided camera footage to show the person who drove the electric car to the location. The contact information to the shipping company that was tasked to take the vehicles abroad was given as well. The shipping company was immediately called, but not long into the conversation, the businessman’s heart sank. The container that had Evoto’s Model S had just sailed towards the Middle East, and the vehicle was already in international waters.
The Rescue
With the pursuit of the Model S now extending far beyond Montreal, the EV rental company coordinated with the authorities to get INTERPOL involved. The ship was expected to have a layover in Italy, which presented an opportunity to retrieve the Tesla. This required some more paperwork to get the right authorities involved, as Evoto had to ask local police to make a request to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who in turn created a request to INTERPOL, who, in turn, notified the Italian police to seize the ship when it arrived in the country. In a stroke of luck for Evoto, INTERPOL and the Italian police worked quickly, getting everything ready within a week.
The operation was a success, and the container carrying the stolen Model S was retrieved. As it turned out, the thieves cleverly declared that the container was filled with scrap metal so as not to arouse suspicion. When authorities opened the container, they did find scrap metal inside. But also inside the container was Evoto Rentals’ Tesla Model S, caked in dust, but miraculously undamaged from its harrowing ordeal.
Coming home
After more paperwork from the electric car rental company, the Tesla Model S was finally shipped home to Canada. Not including legal fees, Evoto ended up spending about US$21,000 to get their electric car back from Italy. Fortunately, most of the costs were covered by insurance. The stolen Model S finally made it home recently, where it was welcomed by the Evoto Rentals team.
While the theft of the vehicle was an emotionally draining ordeal, the businessman was nonetheless grateful for the help that Evoto received which made it possible to retrieve the stolen electric car. The EV rental company also gave particular thanks to Tesla for the electric car maker’s help, as well as the Model S’ technologies that made it easy to trace the vehicle’s location even after it left Montreal. The businessman learned a lesson too, as Evoto Rentals now conducts background checks for its clients before handing over a vehicle. A second GPS tracking system has also been installed on the company’s fleet of Model S, Model X, and Model 3.
Teslas are among the most challenging vehicles to steal. Fank Scafidi, director of public affairs at the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which crunched data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime Information Center, noted that 112 out of 115 stolen Teslas have been recovered from 2011 to May of 2018. “That’s about as good as it gets. I’m wondering if the thieves’ intellect might have been overwhelmed just sitting in a Tesla, much less figuring out how to operate it for any length of time,” he said. Apart from their tech, Teslas also have a suite of security features, including those that are introduced through a software update, such as Sentry Mode.
Lifestyle
Tesla hit by Iranian missile debris in Israel
A Tesla in Israel absorbed a direct hit from missile debris, and the glassroof held.
On March 30, 2026, Lara Shusterman was in Netanya, Israel when Iranian ballistic missiles triggered air raid sirens across the city. While she remained in safety, her 2024 Tesla Model Y did not escape untouched. A heavy piece of missile debris struck the car’s massive glass roof, leaving a deep crater but without shattering. In a Facebook post to the Tesla Israel community the following morning, Shusterman described what happened: “The glass did not shatter into dangerous shards. She stopped the damage and pushed the metal part to the ground.” She closed by thanking Elon Musk and the Tesla team for building what she called “security and a sense of trust even in extreme situations.”
Netanya is a coastal city in central Israel, roughly 18 miles north of Tel Aviv and has been among the areas most frequently struck during Iran’s ongoing missile campaign, following coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian military infrastructure. Falling shrapnel from intercepted missiles is a common occurrence.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
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- A piece of Iranian missile debris that struck Lara Shusterman’s Tesla Model Y in Netanya, Israel on March 30, 2026, after being intercepted by Israeli air defenses.
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- Tesla Model Y glass roof shattered from a piece of falling Iranian missile debris
Source: Tesla Israel Facebook Group
The incident is a testament to Tesla’s structural engineering. Tesla’s glass roof is designed to support over four times the vehicle’s own weight. That strength has shown up in real-world accidents too. In 2021, a Model Y in California was struck by a falling tree during a storm, with the glass roof holding firm and the cabin remaining intact. In another widely reported incident, a Tesla Model Y plunged 250 feet off the cliff at Devil’s Slide in California in January 2023, with all four occupants, including two young children, surviving.
Disturbing details about Tesla’s 250-foot cliff drop emerge amid initial investigation
Tesla officially launched sales in Israel in early 2021 and captured over 60 percent of Israel’s EV market in the first year. The brand’s foothold in Israel remains significant. Tens of thousands of Teslas are now on Israeli roads, making incidents like Shusterman’s easy to corroborate. On the same week her Model Y took the hit, the U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX a $178.5 million contract to launch missile tracking satellites, a separate but fitting reminder of how intertwined the Musk ecosystem has become with the realities of modern conflict.
Elon Musk
NASA sends humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972 – Here’s what’s next
NASA’s Artemis II launched four astronauts toward the Moon on the first crewed lunar mission since 1972.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket launches carrying the Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist on NASA’s Artemis II mission, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, from Operations and Support Building II at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis II mission will take Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back aboard SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft launched at 6:35pm EDT from Launch Complex 39B. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
NASA launched four astronauts toward the Moon on April 1, 2026, marking the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The Artemis II mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center aboard the Space Launch System rocket at 6:35 p.m. EDT, sending commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day journey around the far side of the Moon and back.
The mission does not include a lunar landing. It is a test flight designed to validate the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems, navigation, and communications in deep space with a crew aboard for the first time. If the crew reaches the planned distance of 252,000 miles from Earth, they will set a new record for the farthest any human has ever traveled, surpassing even the Apollo 13 distance record.
As Teslarati reported, SpaceX holds a central role in what comes next. The Starship Human Landing System is under contract to carry astronauts to the lunar surface for Artemis IV, now targeting 2028, after NASA restructured its mission sequence due to delays in Starship’s orbital refueling demonstration. Before any Moon landing happens, SpaceX must prove it can transfer propellant between two Starships in orbit, something no rocket program has done at this scale.
The last time humans left Earth’s orbit was 53 years ago. Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17 were the final people to walk on the Moon, a record that stands to this day. Elon Musk has long argued that returning is not optional. “It’s been now almost half a century since humans were last on the Moon,” Musk said. “That’s too long, we need to get back there and have a permanent base on the Moon.”
The Artemis program involves 60 countries signed onto the Artemis Accords, and this mission sets several firsts beyond distance. Glover becomes the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American astronaut to reach the Moon’s vicinity. According to NASA’s live mission updates, the spacecraft’s solar arrays deployed successfully after liftoff and the crew completed a proximity operations demonstration within the first hours of flight.
Artemis II is step one. The Moon landing and the permanent lunar base come later. But after more than five decades, humans are heading back.
Elon Musk
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions
Tesla’s Optimus robot left the Hollywood Diner within months of opening. Now Musk is planning its return with a bigger role and a major Gen 3 upgrade underway.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus robot was one of the most talked-about features when the Tesla Diner opened on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood on July 21, 2025. Dubbed “Poptimus” by Tesla fans, the Gen 2 robot stood upstairs at the retro-futuristic, drive-in theater and Tesla Supercharging station, scooping popcorn into bags and handing them to guests with a wave.
The diner itself had been years in the making. Elon Musk first floated the idea in 2018 with a tweet about building an “old-school drive-in, roller skates & rock restaurant” at a Hollywood Supercharger. What eventually opened was a unique two-story neon-lit space, with 80 EV charging stalls, and Optimus serving as a live demonstration of where Tesla’s ambitions were headed.
If our retro-futuristic diner turns out well, which I think it will, @Tesla will establish these in major cities around the world, as well as at Supercharger sites on long distance routes.
An island of good food, good vibes & entertainment, all while Supercharging! https://t.co/zmbv6GfqKf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2025
But Optimus did not stay long, and was gone by December 2025.
Now, the robot is set to return with a more demanding job. Musk has ambitions for Optimus to take on a food runner role in 2026, delivering meals directly to cars at the Supercharger stalls. While the latest Gen 3 Optimus is likely to initially take on its previous popcorn-serving role, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Optimus to see a quick promotion. With improved hand dexterity that features 50 total actuators and 22 degrees of freedom per hand, and significantly more powerful processing through Tesla’s latest AI5 chip that includes Grok-powered voice interaction, Musk described Optimus at the Abundance Summit on March 12, 2026, as “by far the most advanced robot in the world, Nothing’s even close.”
Back to work
See you at Tesla Diner tomorrow pic.twitter.com/H3tTajrUbu
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) March 30, 2026
That confidence is backed by a major manufacturing shift. At the Q4 2025 earnings call in January, Musk announced Tesla would discontinue the Model S and Model X and convert those Fremont production lines to build Optimus. “It’s time to basically bring the Model S and X programs to an end,” he said, calling for a pivot that reflects where the Tesla’s future lies.
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