First Trip Downtown
Along with a couple of friends, yesterday we took our first trip into Boston with our Model X, Pensive, to see Gloria Estefan's musical. With cold New England weather still hanging around, it seemed like a great opportunity to effectively take advantage of the remote access to start the climate control as the show ended. We were fortunate to find a parking spot very close to the entrance of the parking garage (and a black Model S was kind enough to let us into the traffic when it was time to leave), but unfortunately, we would find that as we were coming out of the dark into the lights of the garage, we wouldn't have a pre-warmed car, as Tesla's cloud service had been down all day.
This got me thinking about how Tesla's phone-to-car communication works. Even if you're standing in front of your car, to use summon or to unlock it via the app, communication goes from your phone over the Internet to Tesla's servers which then talk to your car. This means that if you're having dinner or in a theatre, you can still talk to your car via the Internet to set the internal temperature and climate settings; it also means if you're lost in a parking lot you can trigger the horn and walk towards the sound, even if you aren't close enough to talk to the car via direct communication (like Bluetooth).
The way that Tesla constructed its communication model cuts both ways though. Its primary benefit is that Tesla engineers only have to support one data flow, rather than supporting one access method locally and one remotely. It means that you do have remote access opportunities. It also means that both you and your car need Internet access, and that you are relying on Tesla to maintain their services.
So here we are, with the network down. To the Tesla shorts, I see your smile: several made jokes along the lines of a "stealth bankwuptcy [sic]". Several Model S and X owners were complaining about the inconvenience, and more than one bad boy or girl was now locked-out having relied on the phone app rather than a key fob for access. Words get in the way of describing that frustration, but Tesla is pretty clear that one should always carry the key fob. Except turn the beat around for the new Model 3; for that vehicle Tesla advertises using the app as the primary means of access, with an awkard card as a back-up, but ostensibly for valets and guests.
For those familiar with the Model 3, I betcha say that the car's unlock method is different. The Model 3 does have a local communication mode in addition to the Internet based mode, so not all Model 3 users were stuck. However, in order to engage the local Bluetooth unlocking, a Model 3 owner must be presently signed into the application. Several users in forums reported having signed-out or removing the app given the errors they were seeing, which means they were unable to sign back-in during the failure. It's not a reach to say that a Model 3 would become significantly less convenient if Tesla ever did shutdown or abandon it.
What did our friends think of the whole thing? They're not used to talking with their car over the Internet, and we still had the key fob, so they noticed the lack of engine noise, the (at times) abrupt behaviour of autopilot, and the burst of accleration as we passed other cars. They only politely acknowledged my musing over what might happen were Tesla's network to have an issue while someone were in the middle of using summon. As for me? As annoying as today was, there is always tomorrow. It's too late, I think I'm falling in love (uh-oh).