Trailers containing millions of dollars worth of Tesla car and home batteries have allegedly been stolen straight from loading docks at the company’s Nevada facilities at least 11 times since last December, according to sheriff’s records obtained by WIRED.
“It’s an epidemic right now,” says Storey County Sheriff’s Detective Sam Hatley, who has been investigating the Tesla cases.
Three men suspected of carrying out one of the heists were arrested in January and charged with felony possession of stolen property. But the broader spate of cargo thefts plaguing Elon Musk’s car company are still under investigation and have not been previously reported.
Hatley tells WIRED the incidents documented in the sheriff’s records reflect only a portion of the problem. Investigators are tracking a total of 17 alleged cargo thefts this year involving Tesla and other businesses in Storey County, though Hatley declined to say how many involved the car maker specifically. One alleged operation that targeted Tesla also struck battery recycler Redwood Materials. These figures may still be an undercount, Hatley adds, because companies are sometimes reluctant to disclose that their products have been stolen.
Transportation industry researchers estimated last year that shipping thefts in the US roughly doubled from 2022 to 2024 and are now collectively costing companies nearly $18 million a day, which could arguably translate to higher prices for shoppers. Electronic components have been a frequent target, according to the theft prevention consultancy Verisk CargoNet.
What particularly worries law enforcement and the cargo industry is the rise of so-called strategic thefts, like what Tesla allegedly has experienced. These operations don’t involve thieves snatching goods from an unattended trailer at a public rest stop. Organized groups have instead found ways to exploit gaps in security protocols at the world’s most valuable automaker, including using fake IDs and loose relationships the company has with the truckers who transport its products.
WIRED learned of the incidents by requesting emergency dispatch records from Storey County, where a Tesla battery factory employs an estimated 12,000 people, making it by far the area’s largest employer. Roughly 2 percent of the county’s emergency incidents last year originated from the 5.4 million square feet so-called gigafactory, which Tesla operates in partnership with Panasonic. (A substantial number of the calls, though, appear to be butt dials to 911.)
A Tesla associate manager told investigators that some of the initial thefts stemmed from failing to adhere to basic security protocols, according to sheriff’s reports. The car maker has since tightened its procedures, including beginning to verify the identity of drivers at the factory gate, according to sheriff’s records. “It’s definitely helping,” Hatley says. Thefts are “happening, but not as prolifically.”
Tesla, the associate manager named in the reports, and Redwood Materials did not respond to requests for comment.
Pilfering Powerwalls
The first of the recent cases took place in December and involved two trailers each filled with over $475,000 worth of Powerwall 3 residential battery systems, which were taken from a Tesla property by a dodgy logistics carrier, according to sheriff’s reports. Authorities recovered the trailers empty about 500 miles away in Southern California.
Tesla’s security team later found some of the Powerwalls for sale online and notified authorities. The products can’t be activated when marked as stolen, according to investigators, so there’s not much to gain from buying them. In another case, an auto parts dealer in Northern California told Tesla and law enforcement that someone had offered to sell them at a discount what they suspected to be stolen car batteries, which investigators later confirmed had been.
Tesla reported one additional alleged theft in December and nine more in January. That included a January 19 incident involving another trailer containing 123 Powerwalls. It was destined for a Tesla facility in Hayward, California but never made it there. Sheriff’s reports state that the semi-truck and the company whose driver came to pick up the trailer were not licensed for interstate operations. A freight broker had awarded the contract to transport the trailer to an illegitimate carrier, according to sheriff’s reports.
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