This question comes up fairy often, so I thought I would provide a write up for why you would want to do this, and how.
PROBLEM STATEMENT / GOAL
I would like to have other users to have access to my Tesla, via the Tesla app, on their own smartphone. How do I do this and is there anything I need to know?
Why yes, there are a few things you would want to know, and you also want to clearly define what it is you are trying to accomplish.
If the goal is to have someone else simply drive your car a couple of times, its easier to simply loan them the keycard. They can drive the car just fine with the keycard, but do not have access to the tesla app for remote access / features. This might be, for example, what you want to do for young drivers in your home, or, a friend / neighbor etc, that you want to loan the car to briefly.
With that out of the way, now that you have determined that what you want is, to give another person access to your car via the tesla app loaded on their own smartphone, there are a couple of different ways you can go about this, along with some information you should know.
EASY WAY
Simply have them download the Tesla app on their phone, then log into it with YOUR user name and password for the Tesla app.
PROs
1. Very easy, can be done quickly
2. The person using your Tesla account has access to everything in the Tesla app, including scheduling service on the vehicle, roadside assistance, AND purchasing any upgrades available for the vehicle.
CONs
1. Less secure, you are sharing your Tesla account credentials with another person. Even if you trust them, sharing account credentials is, in general, not something to make a habit of.
2. Sometimes the app logs out automatically for various reasons, so if you log in FOR them on their phone (thus not sharing your credentials, it is highly likely that, at some point, the app will log them out. Murphy's law means that this will normally happen when it is most inconvenient for both them and you.
3. The person using your tesla account has access to everything in the tesla app, including scheduling service on the vehicle, roadside assistance, AND purchasing any upgrades available for the vehicle.
4. If you have enabled 2 factor authentication for your tesla account, this may be more difficult if (for example) you are reaching out to have a family member / friend load the tesla app to open / start your vehicle and you don't have the device with you that has the authenticator app you used with you.
OK, Reading the above, I don't want to share my tesla account credentials on another device, how can I give them access to the app without doing that?
Now that you have determined that you don't want to log into the tesla app on someone else's phone with your own tesla credentials, see below for the process for enabling them to log into the tesla app and have access to your car with their own tesla account credentials. Pro's and Con's for this approach:
PRO's
1. Not sharing your tesla account credentials with another person.
2. You still control access to whether this person has access to the vehicle or not (can revoke their access at any time if desired).
3. If app logs out, they can simply log back into it, or, even change their password without impacting you / anyone else with vehicle access
CON's
1. More steps to set up, should be done in advance
2. Secondary person needs to create a Tesla account (they may not want "yet another" log in account they have to manage)
3. Secondary accounts do not have access to the exact same things you do in the Tesla account. Specifically: SECONDARY DRIVERS DO NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO REQUEST ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE, OR PURCHASE UPGRADES THROUGH THE TESLA APP (caps and bold to call attention to this important distinction).
For point 3 above, the options to request roadside assistance, or purchase upgrades simply will not appear when they are logged into the Tesla app and accessing your vehicle.
For roadside assistance, even though they can not request it in the app, they can always CALL roadside assistance (make sure they enter the number in their phone as a contact. For the US this number is 877-798-3752, no idea what it might be in other countries, but find out and give it to them if this applies to you. For scheduling service, they should likely leave that to the primary driver (likely you). For purchasing upgrades, its doubtful you want someone else to be able to do that, so I dont consider that much of an issue.
With that out of the way, how do you do it? Here is what you need to do:
PRE-REQUISITES
1. Have person who you want to give access to, create their own tesla account before starting this. A tesla account can be created easily, without having any tesla products to put in the account. Do this BEFORE attempting to grant access. Once the person you want to give access to creates their own tesla account, have them give you the email address they used when creating that account.
2. Recommendation: Follow the steps below on a computer, instead of a phone. These instructions (below) assume accessing the tesla account from a computer / getting the computer version of the tesla website, not the version that may present on mobile devices.
WORKFLOW
1. Navigate to tesla.com website. Click TESLA ACCOUNT in upper right hand corner. Sign in to your Tesla account
2.Click the MANAGE button under the picture of your car
3. Next to the words CAR ACCESS click the little arrow that signifies there is a drop down menu
4. Click the small link that says ADD DRIVER (its in a somewhat small font)
5. Enter first name, last name and email address of the person you want to grant access to. NOTE: This should match the information used by the person previously to create their tesla account above, in PRE - REQUISITES.
6. Click SAVE
7. Now, have person you just added on the website log out of the tesla app on their phone, wait about 30 seconds to 1 minute, then log back in
They should now see your vehicle in their account. if not, it may take a bit longer for sync time to happen, so have them try logging out and back in again in a few minutes.
To revoke access, remove them as an additional driver by walking through the same workflow but removing them.
OK Thanks, but I really want them to have their own account but have everything in the app like I do, is this possible?
Like many things tesla, there does not seem to be a simple answer to this. I have contacted Tesla myself several times as I wanted my wife to have her own Tesla account, but have access to roadside assistance in the app. Each time, I have been told that they are unable to add her account as an "additional primary account".
Saying that, I believe others have had more luck than I have, in possibly getting this done. You can try contacting Tesla if this is your goal, and if successful in getting a person added as an additional primary driver, to access your vehicle, with their own tesla account, and having the missing service and roadside assistance selections in their app, please post a reply and what you did to accomplish this.
EDIT: As pointed out by @yeahthatguy below, Scheduling service now appears in the secondary users tesla account. Roadside assistance and purchasing upgrades still do not, at least as of 03/29/2021. Post edited to reflect current state.
EDIT 2: Due to tesla website redesign, the click by click instructions in this post may no longer be correct. The general idea is still correct, but you may need to fish around for the settings a bit.
EDIT 3: As of tesla app version 4.0.0-644 (on iOS) which I was able to download on 08/15/2021, secondary users have roadside assistance in the tesla app now!
EDIT 4: As with many things Tesla, the workflow for this has changed. You now add additional users in the Tesla App, vs. the above instructions which were for previous versions of the Tesla Website. If you access the tesla website now, it will direct you to the app for additional users.
Because of the many changes to the workflow, I no longer feel this is "sticky thread" material. The decision making process is the same on whether or not you want to add users, but the number of changes has made this less relevant. I will be removing the "sticky" status from this thread and let it rise or fall on its own.
PROBLEM STATEMENT / GOAL
I would like to have other users to have access to my Tesla, via the Tesla app, on their own smartphone. How do I do this and is there anything I need to know?
Why yes, there are a few things you would want to know, and you also want to clearly define what it is you are trying to accomplish.
If the goal is to have someone else simply drive your car a couple of times, its easier to simply loan them the keycard. They can drive the car just fine with the keycard, but do not have access to the tesla app for remote access / features. This might be, for example, what you want to do for young drivers in your home, or, a friend / neighbor etc, that you want to loan the car to briefly.
With that out of the way, now that you have determined that what you want is, to give another person access to your car via the tesla app loaded on their own smartphone, there are a couple of different ways you can go about this, along with some information you should know.
EASY WAY
Simply have them download the Tesla app on their phone, then log into it with YOUR user name and password for the Tesla app.
PROs
1. Very easy, can be done quickly
2. The person using your Tesla account has access to everything in the Tesla app, including scheduling service on the vehicle, roadside assistance, AND purchasing any upgrades available for the vehicle.
CONs
1. Less secure, you are sharing your Tesla account credentials with another person. Even if you trust them, sharing account credentials is, in general, not something to make a habit of.
2. Sometimes the app logs out automatically for various reasons, so if you log in FOR them on their phone (thus not sharing your credentials, it is highly likely that, at some point, the app will log them out. Murphy's law means that this will normally happen when it is most inconvenient for both them and you.
3. The person using your tesla account has access to everything in the tesla app, including scheduling service on the vehicle, roadside assistance, AND purchasing any upgrades available for the vehicle.
4. If you have enabled 2 factor authentication for your tesla account, this may be more difficult if (for example) you are reaching out to have a family member / friend load the tesla app to open / start your vehicle and you don't have the device with you that has the authenticator app you used with you.
OK, Reading the above, I don't want to share my tesla account credentials on another device, how can I give them access to the app without doing that?
Now that you have determined that you don't want to log into the tesla app on someone else's phone with your own tesla credentials, see below for the process for enabling them to log into the tesla app and have access to your car with their own tesla account credentials. Pro's and Con's for this approach:
PRO's
1. Not sharing your tesla account credentials with another person.
2. You still control access to whether this person has access to the vehicle or not (can revoke their access at any time if desired).
3. If app logs out, they can simply log back into it, or, even change their password without impacting you / anyone else with vehicle access
CON's
1. More steps to set up, should be done in advance
2. Secondary person needs to create a Tesla account (they may not want "yet another" log in account they have to manage)
3. Secondary accounts do not have access to the exact same things you do in the Tesla account. Specifically: SECONDARY DRIVERS DO NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO REQUEST ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE, OR PURCHASE UPGRADES THROUGH THE TESLA APP (caps and bold to call attention to this important distinction).
For point 3 above, the options to request roadside assistance, or purchase upgrades simply will not appear when they are logged into the Tesla app and accessing your vehicle.
For roadside assistance, even though they can not request it in the app, they can always CALL roadside assistance (make sure they enter the number in their phone as a contact. For the US this number is 877-798-3752, no idea what it might be in other countries, but find out and give it to them if this applies to you. For scheduling service, they should likely leave that to the primary driver (likely you). For purchasing upgrades, its doubtful you want someone else to be able to do that, so I dont consider that much of an issue.
With that out of the way, how do you do it? Here is what you need to do:
PRE-REQUISITES
1. Have person who you want to give access to, create their own tesla account before starting this. A tesla account can be created easily, without having any tesla products to put in the account. Do this BEFORE attempting to grant access. Once the person you want to give access to creates their own tesla account, have them give you the email address they used when creating that account.
2. Recommendation: Follow the steps below on a computer, instead of a phone. These instructions (below) assume accessing the tesla account from a computer / getting the computer version of the tesla website, not the version that may present on mobile devices.
WORKFLOW
1. Navigate to tesla.com website. Click TESLA ACCOUNT in upper right hand corner. Sign in to your Tesla account
2.Click the MANAGE button under the picture of your car
3. Next to the words CAR ACCESS click the little arrow that signifies there is a drop down menu
4. Click the small link that says ADD DRIVER (its in a somewhat small font)
5. Enter first name, last name and email address of the person you want to grant access to. NOTE: This should match the information used by the person previously to create their tesla account above, in PRE - REQUISITES.
6. Click SAVE
7. Now, have person you just added on the website log out of the tesla app on their phone, wait about 30 seconds to 1 minute, then log back in
They should now see your vehicle in their account. if not, it may take a bit longer for sync time to happen, so have them try logging out and back in again in a few minutes.
To revoke access, remove them as an additional driver by walking through the same workflow but removing them.
OK Thanks, but I really want them to have their own account but have everything in the app like I do, is this possible?
Like many things tesla, there does not seem to be a simple answer to this. I have contacted Tesla myself several times as I wanted my wife to have her own Tesla account, but have access to roadside assistance in the app. Each time, I have been told that they are unable to add her account as an "additional primary account".
Saying that, I believe others have had more luck than I have, in possibly getting this done. You can try contacting Tesla if this is your goal, and if successful in getting a person added as an additional primary driver, to access your vehicle, with their own tesla account, and having the missing service and roadside assistance selections in their app, please post a reply and what you did to accomplish this.
EDIT: As pointed out by @yeahthatguy below, Scheduling service now appears in the secondary users tesla account. Roadside assistance and purchasing upgrades still do not, at least as of 03/29/2021. Post edited to reflect current state.
EDIT 2: Due to tesla website redesign, the click by click instructions in this post may no longer be correct. The general idea is still correct, but you may need to fish around for the settings a bit.
EDIT 3: As of tesla app version 4.0.0-644 (on iOS) which I was able to download on 08/15/2021, secondary users have roadside assistance in the tesla app now!
EDIT 4: As with many things Tesla, the workflow for this has changed. You now add additional users in the Tesla App, vs. the above instructions which were for previous versions of the Tesla Website. If you access the tesla website now, it will direct you to the app for additional users.
Because of the many changes to the workflow, I no longer feel this is "sticky thread" material. The decision making process is the same on whether or not you want to add users, but the number of changes has made this less relevant. I will be removing the "sticky" status from this thread and let it rise or fall on its own.
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