Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

How does the alarm function? Weird Story!

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
You will see by my profile that I am a Model X owner, but I am posting in the S forum since my question is about something that happened to a friend who owns a Model S. He recently parked his car in a small regional airport parking lot. Upon his return landing, he enabled the AC and proceeded to the spot where he parked his car. Much to his surprise, the car was not there. Then he noticed that the airport had resurfaced the lot where his was parked. He opened up his Tesla app and the locator was showing that the car was still where he parked it. He then used the app to honk the horn in order to locate the car. Thankfully, he was able to find the car. Obviously, the airport had towed his car, but I was surprised that the process of towing the car didn't trip his alarm, nor did it notify him via the app that the alarm had been tripped. It was also odd that the app locator showed the previous location of the car, not the present one. At first, I thought maybe he had the energy saver turned on and the keep alive beacon wasn't active, but he told me when he finally located the car, the AC was running!

Has anyone seen anything like this before? Has anyone tripped their alarm and seen what happens? This all seemed very strange to me.
 
I don't know how the alarm works, but GPS only seems to update when the car is in drive and moving forward. When I back into a space, the app generally shows my car still sitting wherever I last put it into reverse instead of wherever I parked. Others have reported similar behavior.
 
I was with my brother in his car, with my MS parked at his house, when I got a notice on the Tesla app that the alarm was set off. I reset it and got a call immediately afterwards from my wife that his kids wanted to see the inside of the car and opened the door, setting off the alarm. I believe the windows were open and they reached through since the handles were retracted.
I've also had the car parked and walked away, with my wife still inside, and she's set off the alarm when she opened the door.
But in both of those instances, the alarm was tripped and the app notified, because the doors were opened.

No experience on what happens in unauthorized towing situations.
 
I think you can easily move a car without tripping the alarm by using 1 of these at each wheel.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000H3TSIU
When we were at the Denver Service Center in June, someone had parked their car in front of one of the garage bays but had forgotten to leave their key fob. The techs used those to move the car out of the way and said they have to do that from time to time.
 
When we were at the Denver Service Center in June, someone had parked their car in front of one of the garage bays but had forgotten to leave their key fob. The techs used those to move the car out of the way and said they do have to do that from time to time.
I'm somewhat surprised that a service centre can't just activate the app remotely to unlock and enable keyless driving...