Some Tesla owners worldwide are unable to unlock or communicate with their cars using the app due to an outage of the company's servers.
Starting around 4 PM EST, Tesla owners have taken to social media reporting that the Tesla app is returning a "500 server error" when attempting to communicate with the car.
Source: Twitter
This outage prevents owners from using the app to get into the car and it reports an incorrect location of the car.
Owners have reported the issue to Elon Musk on Twitter, who has stated that he is looking into the matter.
Checking …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2021
Owners on the Teslamotorsclub forum are also experiencing issues, stating that they cannot access their car or unlock it through the app.
"Same here in TN. 500 Server Error. Car still shows at work, but I’m home," posted a Teslamotorsclub member.
This outage appears to be worldwide, with users in the USA, South Korea, Australia, and Europe reporting similar issues.
While some Tesla models can be unlocked using the phone over Bluetooth, via key card, or via key fobs, other models do not have the "Phone Key" feature and can only be opened via the app.
"Not for model s or x - they don’t have the phone key feature .. should have saved 60k and bought the model s," stated another owner on the Teslamotorsclub forum.
There are also reports of owners who have damaged fobs and couldn't get another working one, thus having to resort to using the app as the only option for unlocking their car.
"My fob key was damaged. I tried to order another one on Tesla website but they don’t have any. I don’t have an option but to use my phone. And I have a 2020 performance Tesla model s .. 120k car and the 60k model 3 has the feature for key fob," reads another post on the Teslamotorsclub forum.
"I have a key fob, but it stopped working this morning forcing me to rely on the app to get through the day. Perfect storm," another post explained.
At 9:11 PM EST, Musk tweeted that an accidental "increased verbosity of network traffic" caused the outage, and that the servers are coming back online.
Should be coming back online now. Looks like we may have accidentally increased verbosity of network traffic.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2021
Apologies, we will take measures to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
It is still unclear as to what exactly happened to cause the servers to go offline.
BleepingComputer has contacted Tesla about the outage but has not heard back.
This is a developing story.
Update 12:15 AM EST: Added tweet update from Elon Musk.
Comments
GT500 - 2 years ago
Thank God I have a car with old-fashioned keys...
ZeroYourHero - 2 years ago
Non-story. The fobs still work for 99%.
davidil28 - 2 years ago
What's the problem with keys? Any day, the company can be target of ransomware and people won't be able to unlock their cars. It's ridiculous.
h_b_s - 2 years ago
"What's the problem with keys? Any day, the company can be target of ransomware and people won't be able to unlock their cars. It's ridiculous. "
Control. This is a gimmick that lets vehicle makers maintain control over vehicles and the buyers don't even realize it. This battle was lost years ago anyone when vehicles started integrating cell modems into vehicle PCM interfaces. Nearly all manufacturers can remotely shut down cars a decade old or so remotely unless an owner can figure out how to sever the hardwired modem.
That said, if it's a 3G modem like most OnStar equipped Chevies over a certain age, you're mostly immune from the remote shutdown since the 3G networks are being taken off line - at least in the US.
It's still better to just sever that connection.
mynameisgod - 2 years ago
Anyone who would willingly hand over all of their privacy and control of their lives to "the cloud" get what they deserve.