Given the success of Tesla in the countries of northern Europe and, more broadly, in various regions where it is (still) cold in winter, ending up with a frozen door is anything but optimal.
The latest update to its app for unlocking the door remotely might not be enough.
The retracted handle freezes in the door, hello the galley
If you have a Tesla, you may have already had this unpleasant experience. Indeed, several cases of frozen handles have been reported by users, thus preventing them from accessing their vehicle. However, this is not from yesterday. The first reports date back (already) to the winter of 2018, and since then the changes have taken time to arrive.
Tesla recently released an update to its intended app to help users in these circumstances. The goal is to allow them to unlock the handle remotely. To do this, they need version 4.14.0 of the Tesla application. As for your vehicle software, version 2022.36+ is required. According to Electrekit was the owners of Model 3 and Model Y who were particularly affected, without any apparent logical reasons also encumbering those with other models of the brand.
What does remote unlocking actually change? Tesla now allows you to simply do without the physical handle. Until now, although it was possible to unlock the door via the app, you still had to open the door using the handle. Even frozen, your Tesla would therefore become accessible in theory.
What about the window?
In practice, however, a problem not solved by this update persists. The mechanical opening of the door by the handle has the effect of slightly lowering the window nested in the bodywork. However, if the window is also frozen, this update of the application does not make it possible to unfreeze it in order to allow it to lower.
This situation has already been pointed out by Electrek in 2018. In fact, Tesla has been attentive to customer feedback by quickly releasing a first update to its application that same year. Dubbed “Cold Weather Enhancements,” it notably allowed the charging port to be defrosted by the vehicle’s air conditioning system.
If it is possible to preheat a Tesla through the application, this could nevertheless still be insufficient to allow the window of the driver’s side door to thaw. And you, have you ever found yourself in this situation?
Source : Electrek
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