Elon Musk apologises for Tesla app outage that left hundreds of drivers locked out of their cars for around FIVE HOURS

 Elon Musk has been forced to apologise after an issue with the Tesla app on Friday left hundreds of drivers temporarily stranded, unable to unlock or start their cars.

The fault, attributed to an accidental network change by Tesla staff, struck worldwide, with complaints tweeted from countries including the UK, US and Korea. 

Drivers reported being unable to connect to their vehicles in-app for around five hours until the fault — a repeat of a similar outage last year — was addressed.

Teslas can be accessed using a physical key. Yet this fact was little consolation for those drivers, having grown accustomed to the app, who did not have such to hand.

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Elon Musk (pictured) has been forced to apologise after an issue with the Tesla app on Friday left hundreds of drivers temporarily stranded, unable to unlock or start their cars

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Mr Musk directly engaged with the problem online in response to one Jaehwan Cho, a driver in South Korea who flagged the outage with the Tesla CEO via Twitter, as pictured

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The fault, attributed to an accidental network change by Tesla staff, struck worldwide, with complaints (like that pictured) tweeted from countries including the UK, US and Korea

Mr Musk directly engaged with the problem online in response to one Jaehwan Cho, a driver in South Korea who flagged the outage with the Tesla CEO. 

'I’m experiencing 500 server error to connect my @tesla Model 3 on my iOS app in Seoul, S. Korea. Seems like this is a worldwide issue. @elonmusk,' Mr Cho tweeted.

'Checking…' Mr Musk responded within three minutes of the original tweet.

'Should be coming back online now,' he added nearly five hours later.

'Looks like we may have accidentally increased verbosity of network traffic. Apologies, we will take measures to ensure this doesn’t happen again.'

The network outage followed the release of a new update to Tesla's mobile app earlier last week — including more customisation options and widget improvements, along with features for buyers — leading to speculation the events may be linked. 

'If I had my fob on me it would be one thing,' tweeted one David M (@poseyedon).

He added: 'But I'm stuck an hour away from home because I normally use my phone to start [my] car.'

Twitter user Johnny Cohen (@NINJ5), meanwhile, lamented that 'THOUSANDS of @Tesla owners are locked out of their vehicles because Tesla servers went down over two hours ago…'

'I'm one of them. They said we'd be helping the environment by owning an electric vehicle, but "walking" isn't what I had in mind,' he quipped.

'You cannot rely on the phone app to start the car because it relies on [an] internet connection (and Tesla's server,' noted twitter user Peter Thorsen. 

Other users were more forceful in their comments. 'The servers powering the Tesla app should NEVER go down @elonmusk,' said @WholeMarsBlog.

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The network outage followed the release of a new update to Tesla's mobile app (pictured within the above tweet) last week — including customisation options and widget tweaks, along with features for buyers — leading to speculation the events may be linked

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'If I had my fob on me it would be one thing,' tweeted one David M (@poseyedon). He added: 'But I'm stuck an hour away from home because I normally use my phone to start [my] car' 

'You cannot rely on the phone app to start the car because it relies on [an] internet connection (and Tesla's server,' noted twitter user Peter Thorsen 

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Teslas can be accessed using a physical key. Yet this fact was little consolation for those drivers, having grown accustomed to the app (pictured), who did not have such to hand

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'Looks like we may have accidentally increased verbosity of network traffic. Apologies, we will take measures to ensure this doesn’t happen again,' Mr Musk tweeted as an explanation

'To some extent, Tesla is a bit of a victim of its own success,' University of Birmingham economist David Bailey — whose research includes a focus on the automobile industry — told the BBC after personally experiencing Friday's outage.

Tesla, he added, 'encourages its customers to use the cutting edge technology it creates and sometimes that will go wrong.

'Although, of course, you can use a key to open the car too, the natural instinct of many Tesla drivers — who are buying one of the most high tech models in the market — is to rely on the technology.'

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'The servers powering the Tesla app should NEVER go down @elonmusk,' said @WholeMarsBlog

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Drivers reported being unable to connect to their vehicles in-app for around five hours until the fault — a repeat of a similar outage last year — was addressed. Pictured: the Tesla logo