Warning: Camp Mode can Lock you Out! On my second night of Tesla Camping I was locked out in the woods. As you may know, Camp Mode allows you to lock the vehicle. On night two, the mosquitos were pretty bad so I decided to sit and read in the driver seat in camp mode with Lock engaged. At about 9pm I decided to get something out of the cooler in the back seat. Opened the driver door, no warning lights or message, so I wrongly assumed the lock was disengaged when the door was opened from the INSIDE. Closed the driver door to keep the mosquitos out and there I was standing in the dark with my keys and phone locked inside the car in the woods in a deserted campground.
Fortunately, a group of guys had set up camp earlier in the day. I went up to them and asked if they had cell service. They did. I thought, Great... I will log in to my tesla account and unlock the car. I could not connect to the car... it was spooling and noting that the car was last seen 4 hours earlier when I had gone in to town. Problem solving attempt 2 was adding one of the guys as a driver to my account to see if they could access the car... nope didn't work. Problem solving attempt 3 - call Tesla to ask them to unlock the car... nope the car is offline (because I am in the woods!). I get escalated to a Supervisor. They decide to send out a tow truck driver to tow me to where the car will be online again.
3 hours later the tow truck arrives. It takes 30 seconds for the tow truck guy to put a device between window glass and rubber insulation and insert a wire to pull the handle. I am back in my car at midnight. This situation could have been very serious if I had been in a remote location by myself.
It seems to me this is a programming error. When the door is opened from the INSIDE the Lock should disengage. I reported this to Tesla when they sent me a survey about Roadside Service, but want others to know about this issue. Hopefully, it gets fixed. At a minimum, a message should appear like when your door is open and you put your car in drive or other warnings that appear on the screens.
Other than getting locked out, the Tesla camping experience was fantastic. I will just keep a key on my at ALL times now!
Fortunately, a group of guys had set up camp earlier in the day. I went up to them and asked if they had cell service. They did. I thought, Great... I will log in to my tesla account and unlock the car. I could not connect to the car... it was spooling and noting that the car was last seen 4 hours earlier when I had gone in to town. Problem solving attempt 2 was adding one of the guys as a driver to my account to see if they could access the car... nope didn't work. Problem solving attempt 3 - call Tesla to ask them to unlock the car... nope the car is offline (because I am in the woods!). I get escalated to a Supervisor. They decide to send out a tow truck driver to tow me to where the car will be online again.
3 hours later the tow truck arrives. It takes 30 seconds for the tow truck guy to put a device between window glass and rubber insulation and insert a wire to pull the handle. I am back in my car at midnight. This situation could have been very serious if I had been in a remote location by myself.
It seems to me this is a programming error. When the door is opened from the INSIDE the Lock should disengage. I reported this to Tesla when they sent me a survey about Roadside Service, but want others to know about this issue. Hopefully, it gets fixed. At a minimum, a message should appear like when your door is open and you put your car in drive or other warnings that appear on the screens.
Other than getting locked out, the Tesla camping experience was fantastic. I will just keep a key on my at ALL times now!
