Tesla owners cannot lock or unlock their vehicles or find charging stations using the app. The app Tesla owners use to manage their vehicles and their Powerwall systems is down, presenting a 503 error for server maintenance.
For enterprise data center operators, this outage serves as another example of how systems fail. This connects with the greater trend of system failures produced by human error. Verizon's 2022 data breach incident report shows 82% of system breaches are caused by humans.
This current outage may point to a data center issue since it involves server maintenance or a CSP issue as Tesla uses on-prem and cloud for data workload management. Tesla currently hosts workloads on AWS but the CSP reports no system outages.
Users began reporting app access issues around 5:34 a.m. EST and reports of server maintenance errors continue to flood social media sites Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and on Tesla’s own user community.
The outage currently appears to only be affecting users in Europe, according to UK news outlet Daily Mail. According to their reporting, Tesla owners in China use an app hosted on a different platform and we’ve seen no reported issues as yet.
What’s the impact of the Tesla outage?
Tesla owners use a mobile phone app provided by Tesla to “access your Tesla vehicle and energy products from anywhere,” according to Tesla's app download website. Due to app server access issues, Tesla drivers can’t lock or unlock their cars or regulate the temperature inside the auto. They’re also unable to check how far the vehicle can go before it needs a charge, nor can they find charging stations nearby.
What are the workarounds of the Tesla outage?
Users can gain access to their vehicles with their physical key cards and then control climate from the internal system of the auto.
Any word from Tesla as to the status of the outage?
Tesla has no external communications team. Data Center Knowledge reached out to the Investor Relations group for comment on Tuesday, February 14th and have not received a response at press time, 5:40 pm EST.
Ancillary products that provide analytics and systems support have filled in the gaps in Tesla’s communications strategy. For instance, Teslascope, a Tesla analytics monitoring app, shared Tesla’s infrastructure is experiencing unexpected downtime.
And Stekker, an app that measures power uses for Tesla’s Powerwall, reported the Tesla app was back up and running at 1:36 p.m. EST. Immediately users contradicted that statement and shared screenshots of their error messages.
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk purchased and took over operations of Twitter on October 27, 2022.
Updated on Feb. 15, 2023 at 9:33 a.m. to include more context, times, sources, dates, and screenshots of user communications about the app outage.
