New Jersey journalist is shocked to see his crashed Tesla turn up in UKRAINE after logging into the navigation system and discovering that the new owner was playing Drake on his Spotify account
- CNBC executive Jay Yarow tracked the car’s location on his Tesla mobile app
- He found that it was about 200 kilometers from the war-torn city of Kherson
- He is one of many Tesla owners who found their scrap car in Ukraine
A journalist’s wrecked Tesla turned up in Ukraine — while its new owner played Drake on his Spotify account.
CNBC executive Jay Yarow was able to track the car’s location on his Tesla mobile app and found it to be about 125 miles from the war-torn city of Kherson.
“Here is an unusual situation. I had a Tesla, crashed it, it was a total loss. And now it is… in Ukraine? And someone out there is listening to Drake on my still logged in Spotify account,” Yarow tweeted Thursday.
His Tesla is one of many that previous owners traced to Ukraine after being declared a total loss in the US. It is thought that many wrecked cars are auctioned off by insurance companies and snapped up by buyers in the country who repair them.
CNBC executive Jay Yarow was able to track his Tesla’s total location on a mobile app and found it was about 125 miles from the war-torn city of Kherson
Yarow’s Tesla is one of many previous owners traced to Ukraine after being declared a total loss in the US
Others have also turned up in Belarus, which borders Ukraine.
Wrecked Teslas can fetch more than $10,000 on auction websites, which mechanics use to find vehicles to repair or salvage for parts for a profit.
The websites are popular in some Eastern European countries, including Ukraine, where brands like Tesla are harder to buy.
Yarow, senior vice president and executive editor for CNBC Digital, did not say when he crashed the car.
The map showed it close to Kryvyi Rih, a city in central Ukraine, about 200 kilometers from Kherson. Kherson was occupied by Russian forces for approximately nine months in 2022.
Wrecked Teslas can fetch more than $10,000 on auction websites, which mechanics use to find vehicles to repair for a profit or salvage parts
In May, a Reddit user said their Tesla also ended up in Ukraine after it was added up in the US.
Another Reddit user posted in June 2022 that he discovered his Tesla Model Y had landed in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, about a year after landing a total of 4,500 miles away in Toronto, Canada.
Auto auction sites like Copart list dozens of Teslas in need of extensive repairs or totally ruined.
The cars’ wealth of technology – including their sensors and batteries – makes them much more difficult to repair than regular gas-powered vehicles, meaning they are more likely to be written off by insurers if damaged in an accident.