Stop Car When Stolen

There have been several good suggestions here. If you as the owner determine that the car has been stolen or is being operated by an unauthorized person, you could use the app to state that the car has been stolen. At the very least, repeatedly flashing the lights, honking the horn turning on the internal lights, and limiting the speed. Simply shutting down the car the next time the car is stopped would be wayyy less of a safety issue. If you notify that the car is stolen, it would ensure the data stream remains enabled, the car cannot be powered down, thus you would know where it is.
All simple software revision,s it seems to me.

Go to speed limit in your app, change it to 50 and then apply wish a password. If the stolen car is in a highway, it might be stop by a highway patrol, but I would call 911 and inform about the vehicle and position.

Regardless of Pun to Drive, this could be a good feature.

I agree it should be done by Tesla support, only after getting a police report/incident.

Perhaps when the car next comes to a complete stop, it simply won’t move again?  Or the gradual slowdown, again on command, so it can be done once the cops are actually in close range.

Love the teen driver idea.  Limit acceleration and max speed.  Even disallow driving after a certain time of night.  Lots of possibilities here.  Might have helped those two 18 year old boys that died in the Model S recently.

Perhaps if "disable" were understood as "hobble" then this feature would make sense.  For example, hobbling might consist of limiting maximum speed and acceleration or having the emergency lights flash.  The car could have a "safety profile" that the car operates under which broadcasts its location, direction and speed as well as invoking the above hobbling actions.  An additional use of differing safety modes could be "car theft", "teen driver", "valet mode", "older driver", "emergency driver", etc.  Consider the security implications of this mode too.  Probably there should be a way to distinguish the driver from the owner with the owner allowed to set the various hobbling modes to limit driver behavior.

Perhaps useful if car is stolen, this feature could prevent the car from starting. You really wouldn't want to stall it in traffic.

@JanosB I agree letting Tesla handle this on request of the police is probably the best way to go about it.

I agree: Limit the car's power, honk the horn (alarm mode), and start flashing the lights.  None of these are safety-impacting, and draw attention and make the car unattractive to thieves.

How about locking the car too ... like those "honeypot" cars that trap thieves for reality TV shows..?

My suggestions is this functionality is probably best handled by a service from Tesla customer service, on a request from the police for a stolen vehicle report.  Properly coordinated this could be done quickly and safely.  Taking the law into a citizen's hands is rarely the best approach, if it can be handled by a trained professional who is familiar with the issues.

And, the kicker: the truth is you probably only ever have to activate the solution a couple of times somewhere in the World, for the word to get out not to try to steal a Tesla.  It would make huge headlines the first time a thief was caught or even just stopped in mid-theft.  It's more a prevention than a cure, but as a preventive measure it's awesome.

Sounds like that would be a good addition to my preposition.. @michelcolman

Would be the only car you wouldn't wanna steal because you never know if you will be locked in and pulled over by the car itself:P

When the remote shutdown is ordered, the car should present a password prompt to the driver. If you are the owner and someone is messing with you, you just enter the password and continue to drive. After one minute, the car will start very gradually slowing down (1 km/h every few seconds) and activate the alarm or honk the horn. And hazard lights of course. This would give anyone more than enough time to pull over. Definitely no more dangerous than the low power mode that already exists.