FREMONT — A Napa man was arrested last week after authorities claim he tried ramming two vehicles in and around a Tesla parking lot, using a Range Rover loaded with a metal pressure cooker, shell casings, laptops and a gas mask.
The 45-year-old man was charged Monday with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, as well as a single count of felony evading an officer, court filings show. He remained held at the Santa Rita Jail Monday afternoon.
Authorities say he went on a short-lived rampage a couple hours before sunrise Thursday that began nearly a mile away from Tesla’s Fremont plant.
At about 3:15 a.m. that morning, a Tesla security guard said a man driving a Range Rover made an “unusual hand gesture” before trying to rear-end him and his Tesla Model X, according to court documents. The security guard had been on his lunch break at the time, and he was driving on Fremont Boulevard near Dixon Landing, on the opposite side of Interstate 880 from the Tesla plant.
The man in the Range Rover continued trying to ram the security guard’s car after they pulled into the nearby Tesla plant’s parking lot, court records show. The Range Rover driver then left and pulled onto nearby Page Avenue, where authorities say the SUV repeatedly rammed a parked Kia Forte before speeding off, according to court records.
A California Highway Patrol officer also suspected the man drove the wrong way on I-880 around that same time, while trying to ram other motorists on the freeway, the records show.
The man was arrested several hours later in downtown Napa, about 10 miles from his home, court records show. Investigators also found a drone and multiple cell phones, gas cans and alcohol inside the Range Rover, police said.
A motive for the ordeal remained unclear Monday. When questioned by investigators, the man said a Tesla cut him off, and when he followed it into a parking lot, another vehicle appeared to block him in — leading to a collision. He said he couldn’t remember much else about the encounter, due to stress, according to court records.
