Electric vehicles love pets. Tesla has Dog Mode, Rivian has Camp Mode, even Ford designed a similar system. Climate-controlling the interior of a vehicle uses an absolutely trivial amount of power compared to actually moving one — keeping your dogs cool while you shop on a hot day is almost free functionality in terms of power usage. At least, until Tesla pushed an update that entirely broke Dog Mode without warning.
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A dog-owning, Model Y–driving Redditor discovered the issue last week the hard way: An alert on their phone warning that Dog Mode had failed while their dog sat inside the rapidly-heating car. A drive later in the day showed more issues with the air conditioning, leading the poster to reach out to Tesla.
Tesla, according to the user, replied that Dog Mode’s issues were a “known characteristic of current firmware,” that the latest OTA update did spark “a firmware issue with dog mode” and that owners should “please refrain from using dog mode for the time being.”
The user who spotted the issues claimed to be running firmware version 2024.20.1, which is no longer the latest Tesla firmware — the more recent 2024.20.3 does claim updates to the HVAC, but the release notes don’t specify changes to Dog Mode. Tesla states “the A/C cools the cabin down faster” than prior firmware releases, but it remains to be seen whether that’s a proper fix for Dog Mode.
If you have a Tesla Model Y, maybe wait for these reports to go away before you go trusting Dog Mode with your pup’s wellbeing. Just keep them by your side for the time being. It’ll build your bond more anyway.
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