Tesla Sentry Mode captures vandal attacking Model S in Albury car park

A young vandal has let out his frustrations on a stranger’s Tesla. He probably didn’t realise the car was filming the whole thing.

A man has been caught on camera vandalising a $125,000 Tesla Model S with a skateboard in the NSW-Victorian border town of Albury.

At around 4pm on Thursday, the man approached the vehicle in an underground carpark and hit it with the skateboard several times.

What the vandal probably didn’t know is that every second was being recorded.

The car’s owner Jules Boag shared footage of the incident on his Twitter account, where it has since been viewed more than 30,000 times.

In the footage, a young man appears to strike the Tesla’s wing mirror and windscreen with a skateboard before walking away.

A skateboard was the weapon of choice in the attack. Picture: Jules Boag

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While his motivations are unclear (it’s unlikely a strange form of environmental protest given the electric vehicle maker’s green credentials), the man appears to have caused at least a few hundred dollars’ worth of damage to Mr Boag’s car.

“I’ve just put my insurance claim in,” Mr Boag told news.com.au, who’s been using his wife’s car now that his Tesla is undriveable.

The windscreen was significantly cracked in the attack and the side mirror and driver’s side window were also damaged.

Mr Boag initially thought he’d have to ship the car off to Sydney or Melbourne to be fixed at a Tesla dealer, but fortunately he’s been told he can get it done locally.

Unfortunately for the alleged vandal, Tesla cars come equipped with something called Sentry Mode, which the company added around this time last year.

“To further enhance the security of our vehicles and give our customers additional peace of mind, today we’re starting to roll out a new safeguard – Sentry Mode – to protect against break-ins and theft,” Tesla said at the time.

Sentry Mode monitors what goes on around the car when it’s parked.

If it detects a minor threat, like someone leaning on the car, it will go into “alert” mode, displaying a message on the interior touchscreen of the Tesla warning them that cameras are recording.

A greater threat, such as someone breaking a window, will trigger the alarm, as well as play music at maximum volume through the car’s speakers.

The vandal smashed the Tesla’s windscreen and broke the side mirror. Picture: Jules Boag

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While some Tesla owners leave Sentry Mode off to preserve their battery life, others find it has only a minimal impact and leave it on all the time.

Mr Boag had Sentry Mode enabled on his Tesla, so when the alleged vandal attacked his car, it was all caught on camera.

It also sent him a text message that it had activated but in the few minutes it took for him to return to the vehicle the alleged perpetrator had fled.

“I took it around to the cops straight away then put it on Facebook and Twitter … it’s gone a bit haywire since then,” Mr Boag said.

People on social media have been playing detective, trying to identify the man based on his outfit and sharing the footage widely.

Mr Boag said a longer version of the video shows a group loitering near the car before one of them approached and attacked.

“The guys were just sitting around and they decided to leave and one walks over and smashes the window,” Mr Boag said. “I don’t even know if it was related to it being a Tesla, or if someone had a nice Commodore there it would have happened to them. I can’t even work out what the reason is,” he said.

Unfortunately Sentry Mode doesn’t record sound so there’s no further clues to the potential motivation.

The vandal was filmed in the lead-up to the attack as well. Picture: Jules Boag

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Mr Boag said he was “pretty gutted” when he arrived to find the damage.

He’s had the car for less than a year, having initially ordered the lower-spec Model 3 (which starts at $67,900 but has higher-priced models as well).

“I’d wanted a Tesla for a long time and I had an order for a Model 3,” Mr Boag said.

“When the Model 3 came out they needed to get rid of all the Model S cars to make space, so they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse on the car. I basically got it for what I was going to pay for a Model 3.”

He said since receiving the car in May he’s already put 36,000km on it, regularly taking 1000km trips to help on his father’s wagyu farm and taking advantage of the growing and free Tesla supercharger network to take roadtrips to the Gold Coast and Adelaide.

Despite the seemingly random nature of the attack, Mr Boag said it’s unfortunately not the first time it’s happened.

“It’s not uncommon. I’ve had incidents in carparks before where people have damaged a car.”

But he said there is one advantage of the new car.

“At least I know what happened.”

Depending on how well the online sleuths and real-world police go, he may even be able to get some compensation and teach the alleged vandal a lesson about not damaging other people’s property.