Tesla's network appeared to briefly go down, forcing some frustrated car owners to use physical keys instead of their phones

• Tesla's network experienced a brief outage Wednesday, owners said online, affecting their ability to pair their phones with cars.
• Downdetector shows a surge in reports around 11 a.m. Wednesday.
• The issues do not affect traditional keys, only the ability for drivers to use their phones as keys.

Tesla's network appeared to suffer an outage on Wednesday morning that left many owners unable to connect to their car with the company's mobile app.

The blog Electrek first reported on the issues, with editor Fred Lambert saying he was unable to access his Tesla vehicles.

—Fred Lambert (@FredericLambert) September 23, 2020

Bloomberg also confirmed the outage, with at least one Tesla owner telling the news site that he had accidentally locked his keys in his car and could not get into the vehicle.

A spike in reports on outage-tracking website Down Detector shortly after 11 a.m. confirms his suspicions, with plenty of others chiming in on Twitter to commiserate — and ask CEO Elon Musk for further information.

—Tyler Hartzheim (@thartzheim) September 23, 2020

Importantly, the outages only affected owners' ability to use their phones to control their cars' locks and other features. Physical keys assumably still worked during the network hiccups. It's not clear if any of Tesla's driver-assistance features like Autopilot were affected by the outage.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

—mikæl21 (@mikel21) September 23, 2020

Shares of Tesla have slid 15% this week, both in anticipation of and following the company's "Battery Day" presentation on Tuesday, which appeared to largely underwhelm investors.