San Francisco, Nov 21 (IANS): Elon Musk-owned electric vehicle company Tesla's app server went down this week, leading to a worldwide app outage that left owners unable to connect to their cars.

For those who have been mostly dependent on their phones instead of their keycards, that means being locked out of their vehicles, reports Engadget.

Electrek first reported the issue after receiving complaints from Tesla owners on Friday night, and for a while, it seemed like the problem only affected drivers in North America.

But then, an owner from Seoul, South Korea tweeted at Musk about getting a server error on their app, to which the Tesla CEO replied that he is "checking" it out.

Other tweets show owners calling for roadside assistance and delaying their plans for the night.

The outage came shortly after the automaker rolled out an update to its application, which Electrek said includes a feature that Tesla had issues implementing.

Being locked out of vehicles could be an ongoing problem as automakers move to cloud services and increase reliance on smartphone apps, the report said.