In the months before this report, Tesla had been targeted by vandalism affecting customers’ cars, showrooms, service centres and Supercharger stations. The company responded by announcing changes to Sentry Mode, its vehicles’ built-in surveillance system.

Sentry Mode at service centres and showrooms

To protect cars awaiting repairs or delivery, Tesla planned to enable Sentry Mode on vehicles parked at service centres and in delivery storage areas. Musk announced the measure on X, presenting it as another way to improve protection and deter vandalism.

Sentry Mode cannot physically prevent damage. However, recorded footage can help identify those responsible and support action by Tesla or owners. Knowing that vehicles may be recording could also discourage some incidents.

An operational task for employees

Keeping Sentry Mode active on parked service-centre vehicles also requires staff attention. It uses additional energy, so cars need periodic charging. The report estimated that a vehicle might need plugging in roughly once a week; actual needs depend on conditions and usage.

Tesla said it was working on an update to reduce Sentry Mode’s energy use, improving efficiency while retaining its functions.

How Tesla was optimising Sentry Mode

Alongside those security measures, Tesla was changing how Sentry Mode operated to lower power consumption. The report described an existing arrangement in which both the Media Control Unit (MCU) and Full Self-Driving (FSD) computer remained on to record and store footage, using around 250 watts while active. The revised approach was described as follows:

  • More efficient task allocation: the FSD computer would analyse movement and identify potential threats, reducing the need to keep the MCU awake
  • Selective wake-up: rather than keeping both systems on, the MCU would wake when footage needed to be written to USB storage
  • Energy optimisation: software changes reduced processor workloads to limit energy consumption and heat

The improvements were initially introduced on Cybertruck. Tesla said it intended to extend them to other models, though that did not mean they were already available on every vehicle.

Better protection with less energy

Enabling Sentry Mode at Tesla sites was intended to strengthen vehicle protection in response to vandalism. At the same time, the efficiency changes aimed to reduce the battery energy used by the feature, making it more practical for owners.

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Giorgio Rebecchi

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Giorgio Rebecchi
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