--- title: "Man Puzzled When His Totaled Tesla Comes Back Online in Ukraine" description: "While it's customary to hear about Teslas crashing and burning, one that came back from the dead in Ukraine is another thing entirely." date: "2023-08-11" modified: "2023-08-12" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/totaled-tesla-ukraine" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Tesla" tags: - "drake" - "tesla" - "the digest" - "ukraine" --- # Man Puzzled When His Totaled Tesla Comes Back Online in Ukraine ![While it's customary to hear about Teslas crashing and burning, one that came back from the dead in Ukraine is another thing entirely.]() *\Image: Jay Yarow via X / Futurism\* ## Crash Course While it's customary to hear about [Teslas crashing](), [burning](), or [exploding](), hearing about one that seems to have come back from the dead is another thing entirely. In a [now-viral Twitter post](), *CNBC* executive editor Jay Yarow wrote of his puzzlement after his Model X, which he'd crashed and totaled in the US, blinked online again in Ukraine — yes, the same country currently in the throes of a brutal land war. What's weirder: whoever was driving it was using the journalist's Spotify account to listen to [Drake](). As [*CNBC* notes]() in its reporting on the strange incident, Yarow totaled the car at the end of 2022 and, like many people whose cars have crashed, sold it for parts. He only discovered that it was cruising around war-torn Ukraine after he began getting notifications to the Tesla app, which he still had downloaded on his phone. In interviews, security experts and parts salespeople told the business news outlet that internet-connected cars — by no means exclusive to Tesla — can indeed pose security risks for their former owners, even if the car in question is totaled like Yarow's. *CNBC* found that its executive editor had sold the totaled Model X to a junkyard in New Jersey that works with the online auction site Copart, which specializes in selling "salvage titles" issues when wrecked cars are determined by insurance to be a total loss. It's not uncommon, it turns out, for those vehicles to ultimately end up getting fixed up and shipped to other countries — as [Carfax Europe noted in a 2021 report]() on salve title imports, more than 90 percent of the cars imported into Ukraine have salvage titles. ## Stay Connected Although neither the site nor the junkyard confirmed that it was sold to someone in Europe or Ukraine, experts who spoke to *CNBC* said it would have been pretty simple for the car to end up there. "Cars go to the repair shop or junkyard," Mike Dunne, a former General Motors executive who now runs the car consulting firm ZoZoGo, told the outlet. He added that such cars "then find their way to a second market and then are suddenly being shipped overseas." Yarow told his employer that after he totaled his car, Tesla instructed him via email to disconnect his account from his car. It's unclear from this report whether he actually followed the instructions, though it seems clear, at least, that he didn't disconnect his Spotify. Data gleaned from a Spotify account probably isn't that huge a deal, but nevertheless, having cars connected to the internet is going to cause some weird problems — even if it's just getting the jumpscare that your former car is [driving through Ukraine with their woes](). *Updated to clarify details around salvage titles.* **More on Tesla:** *[Poll Finds That Tesla Drivers Increasingly Can't Stand Elon Musk]()* ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()