A woman took to TikTok to complain that her Tesla EV decided to do a software update at the most inconvenient time. TikTok user Amanda De La Rosa (@amanda.de.la.rosa65) said she went to McDonald’s for food, only for her Tesla to decide that was the right time to force an update.
De La Rosa clearly felt frustrated and slightly embarrassed by what happened to her. De La Rosa was sitting in a drive-thru at a McDonald’s when she thought it was a good time to update the car.
The video included a warning to others who might be considering doing Tesla updates in random locations. “Don’t ever update your Tesla when you’re in the freaking drive-thru at McDonald’s. Don’t ever update,” said De La Rosa, very much embarrassed by what had just happened.
Much like when your computer updates itself, there is very little you can do with a Tesla while it’s updating. As De La Rosa found out to her cost, doing so can leave you in a tricky situation. Remarkably, she decided to do the update herself.
Never Update Your Tesla at a McDonald’s Drive-Thru
@amanda.de.la.rosa65Tesla tips !! for new tela owners♬ original sound – Amanda De La Rosa
“I repeat: Do not update your car, your Tesla, whenever you’re in the drive-thru. You have to be home. The car disables,” De La Rosa added in her video. She pans to the McDonald’s drive-thru window, where she’s stuck. Ironically, she already had her food, but she was now stuck in line, unable to move and backing up those behind her.
Amanda De La Rosa wasn’t forced to update the car. She decided to initiate the software update herself, presumably thinking she’d still be able to drive the car, but that wasn’t the case. In the video, we see the car’s infotainment screen is black except for the Tesla logo, indicating an update is in progress. De La Rosa continuously remarks on the inconvenience she has caused herself and others at the drive-thru.
This isn’t the first time that somebody has done this. In 2024, a woman did the same thing, but this time, by turning off the air conditioning, she was stuck in the EV on a very hot day while the car updated. Opening the door could have damaged the vehicle during the update, so all she could do was sit tight and cook slightly while it updated. It didn’t take her long to regret the decisions that she had made.
Tesla Updates Can Sometimes Go Wrong
It isn’t very often, but these Tesla updates can sometimes go quite wrong. Torque News once reported on how a huge number of Tesla Cybertruck owners found their cars to be ‘undriveable’ after a software update caused high-voltage errors to be shown on the screen.
A Tesla Model Y owner also found their car inoperable after initiating an update, with it turning out the onboard computer had basically fried itself. That failure cost at least $2,300 for the Model Y owner to repair.