> I've never understood car makers obsession with proximity unlock.
And in Tesla's case, it saves money. There is no cylinder on the steering column, no cylinder in the door, no steel key to manufacture, no rod going to a physical unlock switch, and no physical unlock switch. So we've saved 500 grams in the car and probably a good $20 too, no to mention the room in the door for the rod and the physical switch, which add engineering work.
There is a long tail of removing grams and dollars from the car manufacturing process, and 500 grams and $20 is significant. This long tail is why e.g. the Model 3 uses a touch screen for most controls, why the rear glass extends far into the roof, and many other seemingly-"premium" features of the Model 3. It's actually cheaper to manufacture them this way.
You may just as well require a click on the key fob or phone, the cost savings would be exactly the same.
This is precisely what I mean by "brain dead". You'll forgive the hostility, but this is exactly what I'm talking about!
Nothing about this list of things REQUIRES proximity unlock. You can still require the user to push a button on their key fob to explicitly unlock the door.
I get the convenience factor, I do. If that's a feature you enjoy, then great! All the happiness for you. But give me the chance to opt out of something that is deeply broken from a security perspective.
Let me press a fscking button to unlock my car, instead of my car deciding I probably want it to unlock.
Customers "pushing for convenience" are unaware of the possible security implications of it (to put it in a polite way). And it is absolutely the duty of manufacturers to shut them away from stupid crap like that.
Ask any consumer if they want a Pony and they will say yes.
Presumably because the feature is well liked. I rarely every use the buttons on my keyfob but always use proximity lock/unlock because it's just much more convenient in practice.
Also teslas dont force proximity unlock, its up to you to set it up.
I live in a safe region and don't mind having my car unlocked when I'm near it. If it was manual I wouldn't lock it anyway.
I agree that it should be configurable, which on Teslas I believe it is.
But imagine working for a company that is very excited about their AI firewall, that intelligently OPENS ports based on a machine learning algorithm.
"No! That's a terrible idea!" You exclaim, pulling out tufts of hair. "That has more security holes than a slice of swiss cheese!"
"Yeah, but all our focus groups really liked the feature, and when customers hear AI and algorithms they're more likely to buy... Come on, you'd have to basically have a PhD to exploit an algorithm...."
Let's put it this way: I use biometrics for my phone as convenience, but I have it time out in an hour, and require a pattern. (Or, if I put the phone in lockdown.) The security biometrics offer is too weak to trust.
But imagine if the only option you had was face id, and all other options were removed.
Operations like unlocking the door must be explicit, not implicit. I'd accept configurability, but it would be permanently disabled if I could.
Bluetooth has always sucked, but even if Bluetooth is improved, proximity unlock is brain dead for security.