If you and your pals got a little too loaded one night and decided to flog some Teslas but then got caught, what would be the first defence that came into your head? For one actual crook, it was something along the line of ‘uhhh… A guy named Tesla gave it to me’. I shit you not.
Last week, four electric cars were stolen straight off the lot of a Tesla dealership in South Salt Lake, Utah. Around 1am last Friday morning, 24-year-old Shane Smith pulled one of them up behind a cop during a traffic stop, telling the officer “I got this car a guy gave it to me, I want to give it back”.
Smelling nothing but pungent bullshit, officer Gary Keller and his colleagues went to the Tesla dealership to find the alarm wailing. While sussing out the scene, they saw another Tesla drive past which only made it three blocks before running out of battery. The 31-year-old driver was caught and arrested shortly after.
Police later arrested 19-year-old Zachary Hallman and 27-year-old Earlene Parker who were also caught red-handed in Teslas. Parker – an obvious genius – “claimed that a guy named Tesla gave her the car,” officer Keller said.
Hmm, unless the famous inventor Nikola Tesla has been resurrected from the grave, I’d wager old mate Parker is telling fibs. Either that or a magical bloke with one name is running around doling out free Teslas. Keller’s absolutely not buying it, though.
“Nobody is actually named Tesla,” he said with a smile.
They’re still trying to figure out how the thieves got a hold of all the keys, as there was no signs of forced entry into the premises. “[They] apparently showed up with a bag full of Tesla keys and fobs and what not, so we believe they got into the building using a key,” Keller said.
As for old mate Smith who tried to give the car back, he told police that he rocked up at the dealership when the alarm was going off and went inside to find it ransacked. He says he took keys and helped himself to a car because – get this – he thought it was allowed as the police had not shown up yet.
Smithy, mate, no.
