Apparently Deserts Aren’t Great Places To Be Without You’re Tesla Keys

Driving a Tesla can make other, more-conventional driving experiences seem like a distant memory. But at some point, you need to stick to the fundamentals.

That means don’t forget your damn key. The real key — not the one floating around inside your phone. Ryan Negri, a Las Vegas investor, entrepreneur and Tesla owner, learned this lesson the hard way.

Ryan and his wife Amy got stranded six miles from home near Red Rock Canyon, Nevada, because Negri left his key fob behind, opting to use the service-dependent ignition service through the Tesla mobile app, according to Mashable. You can probably guess what happened next.

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Stranded 6 miles from home, 2 miles from cell service; our Saturday morning. The thought was to go for a quick drive to take some photos of the freshly-fallen mountain snow. Having only my phone in my pocket, I unlocked and started the car with it, and we left. 6 miles down the road we decided to turn back, but before that, had to adjust Mozy & Millie's car bed, so I exited the vehicle…bad idea. Need to restart the car now, but, with no cell service, my phone can't connect to the car to unlock it. Even with cell service, the car would also need cell service to receive the signal to unlock. @amymnegri, the hero she is, started running to reach cell service height. After about 2 miles she reached signal and called a friend for a ride to the house to grab the key fob. The key that will always be with me (now) when I drive that car.

A post shared by Ryan Negri (@ryannegri) on Jan 14, 2017 at 12:03pm PST

That’s right, due to the unforeseen phenomenon of deserts providing questionable cellular service, the two got stuck outside the vehicle. Thankfully, Amy ran two miles until she found service and was able to call for help.

Through messages with Mashable, Negri suggested that Tesla should add a password-protected way to start the vehicle through the app, in case of poor signal. He might have a point.