Stuck on top of a mountain... radio frequency issue? Car won't see the key..

[bonnie]

No goat? It wasn't a very big problem then.

I have the Sport model.

 

[KenN]

Yeah, well maybe on your fancy phone, but my Nokia does not have such a button, and am getting more worried that I will have to buy an old iphone 3s or something and tape it to the bottom of the car like the old magnetic key boxes for use in an emergency.

The Tesla App I have will start the car. It's in the Controls section at the very top righthand corner. This is for the iPhone App.

The android version added remote starting as of the last update a couple of months ago. Quite a bit later than the iThingy versions, but it's there.

 

[bluefuego]

Yeah, well maybe on your fancy phone, but my Nokia does not have such a button, and am getting more worried that I will have to buy an old iphone 3s or something and tape it to the bottom of the car like the old magnetic key boxes for use in an emergency.

Well then in the case of being in the car with an unrecognized key fob, a dialog on the center console similar to the phone app would be quite helpful then. But if you're locked out, well....

 

[robby]

An idea for future folks in this predicament: if you have no cell coverage, you can probably make an ad hoc wifi network on your phone, connect to it on your Tesla, and control things that way. I don't have a Tesla (yet!) but maybe someone who does can verify?

 

[islandbayy]

An idea for future folks in this predicament: if you have no cell coverage, you can probably make an ad hoc wifi network on your phone, connect to it on your Tesla, and control things that way. I don't have a Tesla (yet!) but maybe someone who does can verify?

Ive tried that. Car will need to authenticate with Tesla HQ Servers. So even if you make a ad hoc, or even if you connect both car and phone to a router thats not online, it will not authenticate and work.

 

[GoBlue88]

Don't take it too personally. You ran into what I call the "Tesla Defenders". Any post on this forum that is remotely critical of the car, much less suggests throwing it off a cliff (LOL!) is going to stir them up. Not sure what's up with them. Maybe they own too much stock? But there are some people on this forum that would defend the car if it spontaneously exploded killing all aboard plus 20 innocent bystanders.

Thanks for posting. I'm now a lot better prepared for this if it happens to me.

For the record, for me it was ultimately the suggestion that he wanted to throw his car off a cliff and sue the company. If he hadn't posted that, I'm sure the reaction would have been different. Heck, as it was, I think the reaction was pretty dang measured and not, as you say "stirred up". Certainly nobody who questioned anything here would "defend the car if it spontaneously exploded killing all aboard plus 20 innocent bystanders". That's just silly.

I'm glad the OP figured out how to start his car and made it home.

 

[doug]

I think most people should be able to tell "push this car off the cliff" was sarcasm said out of frustration with the situation. I'd bet the spontaneous explosion comment is also sarcasm. Please stay on topic.

 

[DrComputer]

So the permanent solution is to place your key fob next to the usb ports? i just wanted to clarify what works best.

That seemed to work best for the cars that had trouble detecting the fob. It still took up to two minutes for the car to recognize the fob in this location. But, everyone that just let it sit there was able to start their car and drive home.

 

[smac]

Ive tried that. Car will need to authenticate with Tesla HQ Servers. So even if you make a ad hoc, or even if you connect both car and phone to a router thats not online, it will not authenticate and work.

I tried it too

In my desperation, I set my phone's hotspot wifi SSID/security to match my home wifi and I saw the car connected to the hotspot. I had intermittent 3g/edge at the time, but I still couldn't connect using the app.

So I installed the Tesla app on my friends phone which also had intermittent 3G, again still no joy.

MAYBE this would work in the states with lower ping times to Tesla's servers, or if either of us had iPhones, but I had no luck.

 

[markb1]

An idea for future folks in this predicament: if you have no cell coverage, you can probably make an ad hoc wifi network on your phone, connect to it on your Tesla, and control things that way. I don't have a Tesla (yet!) but maybe someone who does can verify?

It's unclear what this would do. If your phone has no coverage, the car would not be able to talk to the Tesla mothership through your phone. Everything has to go through Tesla's servers, so both the car and the phone need to be connected to the internet. If the phone does has coverage, though, this might work.

 

[smac]

It's unclear what this would do. If your phone has no coverage, the car would not be able to talk to the Tesla mothership through your phone. Everything has to go through Tesla's servers, so both the car and the phone need to be connected to the internet. If the phone does has coverage, though, this might work.

I wouldn't rely on it. I had internet, but it was poor.

My situation wasn't helped because it was late in the evening. I have my car set to scheduled power saving, and I've noticed it is far more picky when in that mode. Fair chance that had tripped over.

 

[GoBlue88]

I think most people should be able to tell "push this car off the cliff" was sarcasm said out of frustration with the situation. I'd bet the spontaneous explosion comment is also sarcasm. Please stay on topic.

Sure, but asking for lawyer recommendations is not so clear. And I'm sorry if I feel the need to defend myself against a few posters that have made the wrong assumptions.

Once again, I'm happy the OP got it figured out and the information provided here is very interesting and valuable to me. Thanks.

 

[AudubonB]

It's unclear what this would do. If your phone has no coverage, the car would not be able to talk to the Tesla mothership through your phone. Everything has to go through Tesla's servers, so both the car and the phone need to be connected to the internet. If the phone does has coverage, though, this might work.

An important caveat to this, as a function of my own experience in November. I was locked out of my Model S - fob inside, on the yacht deck, with its battery evidently too weak to contact the car. I could talk to Tesla HQ via a friendly person's cell phone but, as the location was covered by Verizon's cell system BUT NOT AT&T's.....they were utterly unable to unlock the vehicle.

This specific situation is, of course, uniquely a United States one. It does represent the tip of an iceberg that can continue to grind against the hull of the Tesla ship as more vehicles are on the road, however. </metaphor>.....

 

[GoBlue88]

An important caveat to this, as a function of my own experience in November. I was locked out of my Model S - fob inside, on the yacht deck, with its battery evidently too weak to contact the car. I could talk to Tesla HQ via a friendly person's cell phone but, as the location was covered by Verizon's cell system BUT NOT AT&T's.....they were utterly unable to unlock the vehicle.

This specific situation is, of course, uniquely a United States one. It does represent the tip of an iceberg that can continue to grind against the hull of the Tesla ship as more vehicles are on the road, however. </metaphor>.....

Huh. So this is because the car's 3G signal is on AT&T's network? They are going to have to figure a work-around for that once they release the Model III.

 

[eco5280]

This is why every (other) keyless fob I've had secrets away a real key inside in case the fob can't communicate with the car.

I know Tesla does things differently but clearly there's a minor infrequent but nonetheless extant issue here.

 

[wycolo]

RF signal interference is such that only a slight movement or twist to the Key can make a big difference.

3.0 volts on the battery used to trigger dash complaints but the key kept working for a whole lot longer. Fresh batts are around 3.3v.

The rear hatch window is ideal as it fires right under the cup holders.

If I had to park on top of a mountain with TV/Cell/Radio towers I would leave the car ON and the doors or rear windows open. And park on the level so you could roll car into a different position if necessary.
--

 

[smac]

An important caveat to this, as a function of my own experience in November. I was locked out of my Model S - fob inside, on the yacht deck, with its battery evidently too weak to contact the car. I could talk to Tesla HQ via a friendly person's cell phone but, as the location was covered by Verizon's cell system BUT NOT AT&T's.....they were utterly unable to unlock the vehicle.

This specific situation is, of course, uniquely a United States one. It does represent the tip of an iceberg that can continue to grind against the hull of the Tesla ship as more vehicles are on the road, however. </metaphor>.....

Same situation here in the UK, just change the names. Our cars are on O2 (Telefonica) and it's hit and miss if it has a signal where Vodafone for example may not and vice versa. I guess they must have picked on both price and coverage by demographic/geographic hotspot. In fairness my coverage has in general been pretty good.

On the plus side at least your 3G isn't all routed via Spain Going to google.com immediately sends you off to google.es

 

[robby]

Ah, thanks for the clarification everyone.

 

[AudubonB]

If I had to park on top of a mountain with TV/Cell/Radio towers I would leave the car ON and the doors or rear windows open. And park on the level so you could roll car into a different position if necessary.
--

That is excellent advice. I'll try to engrave that on my liver.

On the plus side at least your 3G isn't all routed via Spain Going to google.com immediately sends you off to google.es

 

[smac]

This is why every (other) keyless fob I've had secrets away a real key inside in case the fob can't communicate with the car.

I know Tesla does things differently but clearly there's a minor infrequent but nonetheless extant issue here.

There's no keyholes on the Tesla though

But I get your point. The reality is there's two problems:

1) The RF issue which your physical key solves
2) The "walk away" locking issue it doesn't

I'd expected, naively maybe, if the key was anywhere inside the car and I walk away it shouldn't lock. Maybe the car's walk away feature should be automatically disabled if it has poor 3G signal ?