How one woman’s Tesla was remotely controlled – and used to harass her – by an abusive ex-partner
“You thought you’d get away with this. I am in your car. I am in your maps,” he shouted at her, according to the police records.
Over the coming days, Stacey found that the parental control profile, to which she had no access, could almost entirely control the car, including its speed, climate control, lock and curfew hours, determining when the car could be driven.
Between 6 and 12 November 2025, Pucci remotely alternated the car’s temperature setting between extremely cold and extremely hot.
“The victim has not been able to drive certain speeds and on most recent occasions throughout this period, [the accused] has turned on ‘Valet Mode’ which immediately reduces the speed to 40km per hour causing significant safety issues for the victim on the road”, the police documents stated.
“The victim has not had any control of her vehicle since she noticed the parental control profile added on the 1st November 2025.
Made a video about this story for my channel this week, but it’s just a good reminder to be extra-cautious with anything that can be operated remotely: Revoke unauthorized profiles, change passwords often, check for hidden profiles, etc. If you don’t know how to do that yourself, go to the dealership and get help.
I’ll just add my sisters story here because its similar and just as crazy. Rob eventually tried to kill a girlfriend and luckily her new boyfriend was a better shot
Totally. Thankfully his girls are normal and don’t seem to have a lot of baggage from it. One of them is a very successful beautician that recently did the hair and makeup for one of the stars of the 50th SNL celebration. She looks like she could be a movie star herself.
Rob was a master manipulator yet somehow I never fell for it and it drove a wedge between us to the point that I wouldn’t be invited to family events. Funny how standing up to a bully will make the bully run away.
One time he made another one of my nieces cry by being cruel with words and calling her ugly (she was 13 and that is not fucking cool to do to a 13 year old) and it made me so upset. I yelled at him and confronted him. Anyway a few moments into the argument he acts like he wants to fight me and I step up to him and he goes and runs and hides behind my sister, knowing that I would not hurt her to get to him. Such a coward. The world is a better place without him.
One time he made another one of my nieces cry by being cruel with words and calling her ugly (she was 13 and that is not fucking cool to do to a 13 year old) and it made me so upset. I yelled at him and confronted him.
Good on you for sticking up for the kid. That is an awful way to treat a young girl, no doubt, and standing up to bullies is important.
I live in a city with a central (free) street car line and have a Segway, so I almost never drive, though I own a 2013 Kia. Stories like this are far more interesting to me than most, I’d imagine, given my general lack of familiarity with how advanced auto tech has become.
I feel you, I’m working on getting a 1984 Honda ct110 to stop being stupid and drive an 01 Tacoma, basically every car I’ve driven has been older than 2010 with a heavy bias towards early 00s and 90s and everything past that point deals psychic damage just looking at it. I don’t need cruise control and I sure as shit don’t need a fucken iPad mounted in the dash.
Super unnecessary and dystopian. If you‘re a minor with a driving license your parent should either be by your side or you know what you‘re doing since you have a drivers license. If those systems fail you need a better system rather than parental control software in a vehicle.
If you‘re a minor with a driving license your parent should either be by your side or you know what you‘re doing since you have a drivers license.
Are you seriously suggesting that teenagers are just going to do what they’re told? The one thing teenagers are famous for NOT doing. Just because their parents might know they’re out driving, that doesn’t actually prevent teenagers from doing stupid shit.
You also do realize that you don’t have to be 18 to get a driver’s license right? The almost universal standard around the world is between 15 and 16 years old, including in the US where Tesla is based, and Australia where this article is from.
The company introduced Speed Limit Mode following the death of 18-year-olds Barrett Riley and Edgar Monserratt Martinez in 2018. The pair crashed doing 116 mph (186 kph) in a 30 mph (40 kph) zone.
The almost universal standard around the world is between 15 and 16 years old
You might want to check that, because if you look at the list of minimum driving ages on Wikipedia you will see that most countries have a minimum of 18 for cars.
Even in the US many states allow kids to start driving as early as 15 under learning permits. It’s funny we don’t want social media companies putting controls in due to freedom of speech, but then tell parents they are responsible to control their kids. Seems like there is a middle ground, and when a person abuses that control, they go to jail.
That's exactly their point. If a licensed adult has to be in the vehicle (even though there is no way for them to control the vehicle from the passengers seat) then that's not much different than a competent adult guardian monitoring their kids online time.
May want to look into those states… In my 16 year olds can easily drive without an adult. They are limited (can’t drive at night) but are allowed to drive. This the case in a ton of states.
If you’re a licensed driver, you know how to drive. If people are being given licenses without properly making sure the licensee is both qualified and mentally capable to drive and know what responsibilities that entails, then we shouldn’t be letting them drive and that’s a failing on society.
At least where I’m from, unlicensed minors aren’t allowed to drive without a licensed adult present.
And if you don’t trust your unlicensed teenager to not steal your keys and go on a joyride, the I can’t help you because you need a professional family therapist to work through issues.
Licensed driver ≠ able to drive. Lots of jurisdictions will give 18 years or older a license and the only requirement is passing the lenient written test.
Edit: My anecdotal experience on the road has shown me lots of people have licenses that clearly should not.
Edit edit. The people that think that just because you have a license that you actually know how to drive are scary. I’ve personally known multiple people who attained licenses when they never ever should’ve been given them. They were dangers to themselves and others and luckily no one was killed. Getting your license and actually knowing how to be a driver, a safe, skilled, able driver, are separate things.
The almost universal standard around the world is between 15 and 16 years old
No. It is 18. The universe, btw, is outside of your weird little province in that weird country where they still use body parts for measurement units.
And as soon someone is driving on public roads with a legal license, everything that the car does or does not is his own personal responsibility, not the parents. They have to leave their fingers out.
Maybe you’re right, don’t really care because it’s not very relevant to the article. I looked up Australia which is where this article is about, and Tesla is based on the US… and 15-16 is the case in both places, so thats all that really matters for the discussion.
I made the assumption about it being more common based on verifying the place the article is about and my own experience when traveling internationally.
I mean I generally agree but that’s not what’s happening here. They can limit the speed and power but they can’t like force the accelerator or slam on the brakes or something.
I once had a flat on a major freeway, and had to switch out the donut tire, and then maintain 40 mph for 100 miles to get home. (So the donut tire wouldn’t go flat as well.) I had my hazards on, but basically every driver ignored it, including semi-truck drivers, and whipped around me at 80+ mph. It is terrifying, dangerous, and this sick fuck was 100% trying to plausibly murder her by doing this, no doubt.
I think the problem here is more that the car has a network connection. I’m not sure how you could feasibly have an EV that isn’t fly-by-wire (meaning controlled by a computer or microcontroller).
Even something like a BMS is, in and of itself a computer.
The only wireless connectivity a car should have is Bluetooth to connect your phone to the head unit that is disconnected from the rest of the car.
It’s be nice to see some kind of modern EV run fully open source software.
It at least before 2020. The details I vaguely remember was the vehicle hit something at top open throttle and the passenger was killed either on impact or during the subsequent fire.
Find it a bit disconcerting how many suggestive accidents there have been matching that.
Why? These are known useful features of the car. The guy changing the settings remotely is the criminal and she was too ignorant to disable his account. It’s like if you give your house keys to your stalker and find them illegally in your house then trying to sue the lock maker.
that feature is called “Valet mode”. It’s specifically to stop valets going joy-riding on your $150k car that was faster than most Ferraris back when that feature got added.
It offers both. But if you do it remotely from the owner’s phone, it doesn’t require the passcode. Presumably in case you forget the passcode you set in the car.
And once you build the functionality to turn it off remotely, you may as well allow turning it on as well. For example, if you realize you forgot to enable valet mode shortly after handing over the keys, you can still do so.
My significant others just got a bunch of ford app notifications for a vehicle at a job he left 6 months ago. Not everyone takes these things seriously. I had no idea he even still had the app on his phone lol.
With Tesla you can’t really do that, whatever account is registered as the owner (she transferred the ownership from her account to his) is the only one that can add and remove others to access the car via the app. The only other way is to show Tesla you are the actual owner of the car and then they can switch it back to your account. Fuckong nightmare.
Having owned a Tesla for 3 years, I can’t find the words to express how fucking right your statement is. Those things are the definition of the phrase “expensive, underwhelming and frustrating garbage”.
There’s only so much bullshit I’d put up with for that admittedly crazy acceleration (drove a friend’s once and they can go). From the privacy angle alone, I see them as basically ring doorbell cameras on wheels (though wonder if I should instead consider them like flock cameras on wheels). For safety, they can require having the presence of mind (and physical capability, which could be impossible if an accident occurred) to remove a door panel to access the mechanical door latch while the car is on fire. Build quality sucks. They are pretty much a poster child for overpromise underdeliver.
And that’s not even touching who benefits from Tesla doing well.
The car hacking scene is growing in response. More and more, it’s becoming possible to disable/circumvent these remote capabilities. Not that the car makers are making it easy.
I hate Elon, but, this is quite clearly the fault of the abusive partner, NOT Tesla, which is why the partner is in deep shit
It’s not like it was open access for everyone in public to change those settings, and those features clearly weren’t intended for that purpose. A good example is a baseball bat. Yes it could be used for crime, but its not the primary purpose… If they sold them with nails at the end though, the manufacturer would clearly be partially to blame.
If he wasn’t controlling her car, it likely would have been different abuse (gps tracker on the car). Unfortunately, we have more s**theads here in Australia than most other countries. And, most of the time it’s thanks to Murdoch media and facebook making people feel unhappy, play victim, etc.
Hopefully, the new laws against facebook get introduced, and it stops a lot of the ragebait that have made people like this worse.
And yes, I dated someone whose ex-partner basically stalked her, until we realised. We can’t blame apple because he used “find my phone”
Imma be real chief, if my car can be controlled by anyone but the driver, it’s an unnaceptable product. I even disagree with parental controls - if someone isn’t mature enough to drive without their parents, they don’t get their license.
I could maybe see it being useful for maybe a combat vehicle, but even then it should be a wired connection IE the Goliath tracked mine. Mostly cause I can imagine a scenario wherein you may want to have a recovery vehicle to go get something or someone but may not want to risk losing additional people to do it.
But yeah broadly outside of some niche uses a remote controlled vehicle is just asking for problems.
It’s over engineering and overpricing disguised as luxury. But I will admit I’d be perfectly happy with a Yugo or 1991 Fiat Polski, so I’m a tad bit biased against modern cars on that front. For example I’m currently fighting the carb on a 1984 Honda ct110, it’s being a bitch and stalling.
Sounds like you’re blaming Elon, not the person doing the abuse. Technically, the driver ONLY had access. The problem was, she was conned by the abuser into giving him access too.
You’re trying to phrase it in a way that is bullshit honestly… Like handing over your computer credentials and then whining “only the user should be able to access the system”. Yeah, the user did… Until you gave them access.
The level of the control they had remotely was limited. They weren’t turning the wheel. And even the claim that slowing the car down to lower speeds is causing safety issues honestly, is a fairly sketchy one…
Yes, I hate Elon too… But, sounds like you’re more upset at Elon, than the abusive asshole… This is ENTIRELY the abusive assholes fault.
You don’t need to buy a car with connectivity, but that won’t stop abusive shitheads from messing with your car (i’ve been threatened 3-4x seriously in my life). Trust me
You would call me “chief” on your first interaction in real life, and it makes it sound like, you’re one of those people who are likely abusive in real life (but try to justify it). Which is why you don’t seem to care at all that this is a case of abuse
My argument is that when it involves a car, it should be impossible for someone not in the car to control the car.
Yes it’s bad if the abuser forces himself into her car and is physically restraining her from controlling the speed, ie gas pedal/brakes. If done remotely, they may as well have physically hijacked the car.
I’m saying it’s an unacceptable product bc its even more dangerous than a car that can only be hijacked physically. I’m arguing risk and liability, not however about abuse and morality.
OH no, he can control the heater remotely. She might freeze to death!!!
He can’t control her speed. Just limit it, brakes still work fully. Acceleration is just limited. You keep wording things in a way that suggest you didn’t even read the article.
My aftermarket alarm on my jeep can do a lot of this stuff including STOP the engine. My computer lets me control it remotely too
Still completely overlooking the abuser… Just apparently using this as an excuse to attack people (in this case, Elon, and now me)…
Again, even if the car couldn’t be controlled by mobile, similar things would have happened still… Again, I’ve been threatened at least 3x in real life (one was a serious threat. The guy ended up getting decapitated actually, which indicates the kind of person they were). The most they could do was limit speed, and its clear that Valet mode wasn’t designed for that purpose. They can’t press the accelerator, move the wheel, etc (as you keep implying)
And yes, those same people always needed to assert authority in every statement too…
And even the claim that slowing the car down to lower speeds is causing safety issues honestly, is a fairly sketchy one…
They had knowledge of the car’s position, and could turn on valet mode which limits speed to 40kmhr.
So you’re on a busy Australian motorway doing 110km/hr in the middle lane. Your ex sees that and turns on valet mode. That’s a quick way to get rear ended by an inattentive driver of a car or truck behind you. At the very least, you’ll cause significant chaos as you try and get over to the side of the road.
I don’t have a tesla, but It’s not likely going to slam the brakes, and valet mode will likely be shown to the driver so they know its enabled (Tesla likely thought of that). Furthermore, it IS a protected function. It’s not like its exposed, and not a normal situation where someone abuses it. But, it is a good point
Again though, I have experience with highly abusive people.
Someone who ended up LITERALLY decapitated threatened me, and told me ex “he knows where I live”. I had someone swerve at me when driving, and it turned out to be an ex of the girl I was dating. And, I’ve been given the “don’t XXX or else…” talk too by 2 people (one in my own home, and he seemed proud of himself until I managed to get the parties kicked out). When I was swerved at, I thought it was someone on their phone, I just happened to show the woman. I still wonder if one day I found a fence post nailed to the tree outside was one of them
These abusers DO NOT GIVE A SHIT IF YOU’RE DRIVING A TESLA, THEY WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY TO ABUSE PEOPLE, to terrorise them, and try to make their lives miserable!!! The full extent of this abusers efforts may not actually be known (they were likely only busted for 1 or 2 things).
There already is a lot of protection on these functions. Removing one, will just cause them to use another.
Trust me… When we removed Find my phone access from these people, we BELIEVE he possibly put a GPS tracker on her car instead, as he messaged still at weird times when she was clearly with me. These guys will always find ways to abuse others, through every possibility.
I’m sure there’s some online fora and FB groups for absolute psychofuck narcissists who will go to great lengths to terrorize their supposed partners and children, and exchange awful ideas on how to keep them on a leash, and this includes the above takeover of a fucking Tesla.
This is why I like my old Jeep. It’s manual. It’s got great “security”. I always say it’s got an alarm system; because any small time thief would yell out of frustration. When I travel, I pull out the clutch pedal and take fuel relay out and unplug the battery and leave it in 4lo lol. Oh yeah and you have to unplug the clutch pedal fuse for it to start. If the battery has been unplugged, then you got remap the ECU which takes like a half hour of my shovel wedged against the gas pedal unless you want the engine stalling out every time you take your foot of the pedal. It’s also one of the rare colors, as in only 2000 made with dicks, I’m very childish, carved in hard to see spots to make it a nightmare for part thieves. So if you steal it, pretty much with a tow truck, it’s like putting a bullseye on yourself.
The point was, there’s no controlling that. I don’t like all the new tech put into cars.
What the hell? Why hasn’t she changed her password yet?
Aha, the article explains:
After having trouble navigating the technology, Stacey was offered help from Pucci, who said he would need the car to be registered in his name so “he could take control of the Tesla app to ‘assist her’”.
You’re right, it’s better to pretend abusers don’t exists and don’t take any precautions. Leave our door open, use single password for everything and carry wallets in our back pockets. When something bad happens we’ll just blame the criminal and everything will be fixed.
I’ve seen dozens of cautionary tales written by abused women, telling others how abusers operate, what to look out for and what to do to stay safe. I guess all those women hate victims too.
You always do the same thing and it’s getting boring. You come in with your cookie cutter narrative and try to silence everyone who dares to say something different. Not opposite, not contrary - just different. You see every deviation for you simplistic narrative as being being equally bad. You think I didn’t know this is exactly how you will react to my comment? I was sure you will show up and try to silence me as I was typing it. To be clear, if you get robbed and I say “you should get an alarm” I’m not blaming you and defending the robber. I know it’s incomprehensible to you but two things can be true at the same time: the abuser can be 100% at fault and people can do things to limit the possibility of being abused. Lemmy is full of technologically capable people. Pointing out here that you should control your devices is not an extreme view here. It’s factual statement. That being said, I’m bored and I will just ignore you from now on.
was sure you will show up and try to silence me as I was typing it.
I am happy that I am having enough influence on Lemmy to make people like you second guess when they leave comments like this blaming only the victim and saying nothing about the abuser.
I see so if your parents get scammed for every last penny leaving you no inheritance because they were too embarrassed and felt a bottomless pit of shame and humiliation to come forward about scam artists because no one can be vulnerable around you because you blame them for any misfortune. They can’t turn to you just for some strength or advice to do next steps for disaster management because disasters, challenges and growth aren’t permitted in your world.
And let me guess: everyone in the world ‘annoys’ you.
Wonderful relationship and empathy material of a typical npd.
Remember, Tesla added this feature after widespread demand for parental controls on use following an incident in which a teenager killed themselves by driving too fast. People asked why they couldn’t override the car with parental controls if that feature was a technical possibility and there was even talk of using legal force to make them do it if they didn’t voluntarily comply.
Tesla requiring proof that the limited account belonged to a minor was not going to be permitted. Parents did this to us.
We need a “right to be treated as an adult” affirmed by Congress that prohibits use of parental controls against users who can demonstrate adulthood by presentation of ID
An app should be allowed to manage the legal exposure of permitting you to use it to do something illegal, if we’re going to permit apps to be sued because they didn’t stop someone from doing something illegal.
Then pass a law that prevents them from doing so. You can’t have it both ways - you can’t hold them legally liable for illegal uses of their platform or technology and bar them from trying to stop illegal uses of their technology.
I’m not saying you should be required to show it; just that if you can, and do, they should be barred from applying juvenile controls to the account held by you, an adult.
Consider, an abuser will use any means or method within their power to inflict fear on their victims. It’s one of two languages they tend to speak; Intimidation or Flattery.
This woman was refusing to play his game, so he used the most effective means within his ability to hurt her; hacking her car. The obvious solution is to not associate with abusive people, but in the event that it’s already happened or otherwise unavoidable, the second solution is to remove their tools and create distance.
This represents an abuser being given tools to harass or even try to kill a victim by a company that prioritizes marketability and convenience over safety. If Tesla had been more thorough, this man wouldn’t have total control over this woman’s car.
