Photo : Tesla

It’s a terrible feeling when you realize you’re either locked out of your car or it won’t start at all. Recently, several Tesla owners found themselves stranded when the company’s app went down for a few hours over the holiday weekend.


Tesla’s app, which you can download onto your smart phone and use to activate the phone key feature, went down for a few hours yesterday evening, reports NBC Bay Area. The outlet checked Downdetector.com and found that the outage lasted for about four hours.


A few Tesla owners took to Twitter, claiming they were stuck or almost stuck in various places after their phone key no longer worked.


One woman in Pleasanton, California, told the outlet she had to Uber home due to the outage.

Tesla does provide users with a physical key card to unlock and start their cars in the event of an emergency, but it seems like owners who have come to rely on the phone app don’t always carry the key card with them.


When asked about the outage, a Tesla spokesperson instead pointed us to a Model 3 support page and specifically noted,

“A paired Phone Key uses Bluetooth frequencies instead of a network connection to communicate with your Model 3. This means that if you’re parked in an underground parking garage with no cell signal on either your phone or your car, you can still lock, unlock, and start your vehicle without issue.”


The person also linked us to an online Model S owner’s manual “for information about carrying a physical key.”