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Tesla Fixing Dangerous Bug in Dog Mode Feature

After an urgent tip from a Tesla owner on Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that his company is “fixing” a potentially dangerous issue with its Dog Mode feature.  The feature is meant to regulate the car’s interior temperature, but the owner encountered a ‘bug’ which resulted in the AC not working properly. 

Tesla Dog Mode

It is commonplace knowledge these days that vehicles can get dangerously hot inside during the summer months.  Tesla aimed to combat this issue in order to protect those furry friends who may need to remain in the car while their human companions go about other business via Tesla’s Dog Mode, which uses the fans and AC to keep the car at a safe temperature. 

Since electric cars are so quiet and it can be nearly impossible to tell if the AC is running while there are dogs or other pets inside, Tesla took the feature a step further.  Their cars also post a message on the car’s touchscreen stating that “My owner will be back soon” as well as the car’s current internal temperature. 

It originally rolled out as an extension of Tesla’s “Cabin Overheat Protection” mode, which monitored the cabin for high temperatures and automatically started the AC and fans to cool it down.  Dog Mode is the more proactive setting of this protocol. 

The Problem

Twitter user Rahul Sood (@rahulsood) stumbled on the flaw late Wednesday.

After activating Dog Mode, Sood manually set the fans to what he thought was a better level and left his seven-month-old Boxer pup in his Tesla Model X.  Later checking his Tesla app, he discovered that the cabin’s temperature had jumped to 85° F and was continuing to rise. 

Now, it stands to reason that turning on an automated process and then manually changing its settings would turn the original automated process off.  You are essentially telling it to do a job, and then telling it not to.  So I can understand why this so-called bug is happening.  But I can also understand how a distracted owner or someone not very tech-savvy might fail to remember/understand this and inadvertently harm their pet.

Thankfully Sood quickly returned to the car to save his pup, afterward tweeting to both Musk and Tesla about the incident.  Musk responded within a minute, saying that a fix would be on the way.  When exactly that fix will roll out, however, is yet unknown.

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