Tycoon Elon Musk announced this Tuesday on his official Twitter that a “Sentry Mode” has been developed to watch Tesla cars park.
@tesla @elonmusk clarification please, must have purchased EAP, or just have or must have AP2+ hardware?
— Tesla Model 3 Fan (@teslamodel3fan) January 22, 2019
According to Elon Musk’s Tweet, the idea of Sentry Mode is to monitor and record Tesla cars to protect them from scratches or other contingencies when standing unattended or in a public parking lot.
Musk gave the message in a tweet where he responded to a user who complained that his Tesla was dawning with a scratch. Although the tycoon initially assured that this modality would apply to cars with autopilot, in a subsequent tweet he made it clear that it would also be added to cars with hardware AP2 (sold since 2016).
Tesla integrated a dashboard camera function into Tesla vehicles manufactured after August 2017. This feature allows the owner to record the images taken by the camera and directed forward from the mobile phone and store them on a USB stick. However, this is not possible for vehicles launched in 2016.
However, access to the watch mode only requires an OTA update of the Tesla, so you can easily select this mode when stationing your vehicle.
Tesla Sentry Mode coming soon for all cars with Enhanced Autopilot https://t.co/x2buQWiABX
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2019
At the moment there are no further details known about this type of monitoring, but it is certainly a great tool for those who, like the above user, have an uncomfortable experience with the rubbed car and even more worse, without having any evidence to blame anyone for what happened.
One of the advantages of Tesla models is the presence of eight cameras inside that allow a 360-degree view of autopilot vehicles, now, with Sentry mode, the company and customers can better utilize these components and keep their vehicle safe at no additional cost.