Tesla app suffers outage and should remind owners to keep key card on them

It appears modern technology got the best of some owners as a Tesla app outage left them stranded. Yet, the smartphone app is not the sole way to unlock one of the carmaker's electric vehicles.

The report first came from NBC Bay Area on Monday after it checked Downdetector.com to verify reports of outages on the app. Per the website, the app was down for about four hours on Monday evening. Various Tesla owners took to Twitter to ask Tesla for assistance as the app was their sole way of unlocking and starting the car.

Tesla, however, issues a backup key card for all owners to use in case of an emergency. The card sits tidy in a wallet, but it appears not many owners keep the card on them, per some of the tweets. The electric-car maker reiterated to NBC Bay Area that each owner receives the backup key card and Model 3 owners can also use a Bluetooth connection to unlock their cars from their phone. Even with networks down, the Bluetooth connection will still be able to unlock and start a Model 3.

At the end of the day, the Tesla app is not the end-all-be-all way to unlock and fire up any Tesla vehicle. The automaker added there should have been no issues for any Model 3 owner using their phone as a key with Bluetooth, as long as they remained logged in to their accounts.

So, Tesla owners, take the outage as a reminder to keep the physical key card on you.

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