[Intro]
So there are a couple of unique ways to unlock a Tesla Model 3.
You have your normal key card thing that you place next to the door to unlock the vehicle.
These black cards come with the car.
They are the exact same size as a credit card.
You can also get a key fob with a button in the center that unlocks and locks the car.
These are quite a bit more expensive, around $150, instead of the $10 that it costs to
replace the small key card.
The easiest way to unlock your car though, is with the Bluetooth connection on your smartphone
and the Tesla App.
It just happens automatically when you walk up to the car.
Personally, I think the shape of this key card is quite obnoxious.
I've seen people try to awkwardly attach it to key chains.
To be honest, I don't think you actually need the whole thing.
I vote we hack into the card, see how it works, and try to physically modify it into something
else.
The embedded chrome lettering can be removed, but the adhesive is strong enough that I bet
it will be years before the letters fall out on their own.
And with how inexpensive these cards are to replace, it's a non-issue.
Cutting into the card reveals something interesting.
The card isn't just plastic, there is technology in here taking up more space than I anticipated.
All along the edge of the card is copper wiring.
This particular card is from my buddy Ben, over at Teslanomics.
I sure hope he doesn't need this back because I'm pretty sure the thing I just cut was the
antenna.
The Tesla Model 3 key card uses something called RFID to communicate with the car by
tapping it next to the pillar next to the car door.
The key card needs to be within an inch or two of the door panel, so there shouldn't
be an obstructions between the card and the car.
If an antenna theory is correct, the copper wiring should run along the entire edge of
the card, which indeed it does.
Each cut exposes a little bit of the antenna wiring.
The antenna should circle back into a little chip in the center somewhere, and since I
can see a slight indention in the card itself, it should be here in the corner.
And there the little guy is...successfully destroyed and chopped in half.
This method of tearing down the card wasn't very helpful.
Luckily, I have something that might work a bit better.
While this might look like a jar of water, it definitely is not.
Acetone is a colorless, flammable solvent.
I use it to clean metal before welding.
It's also great for dissolving plastics, rubber, and some adhesive.
But not so great for dissolving metal, glass, or body parts.
We should be able to get rid of all the exterior plastic material, while leaving the interior
metal structure inside the card intact.
RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification chips, don't need an internal power source to work.
It can power itself from the incoming radio waves from the reader.
So there won't be any batteries or power source inside the card.
It's pretty interesting stuff.
After about 40 minutes in the acetone, we get this quite fantastic, furry, frayed, freaky
looking plastic monstrosity.
It's not quite where we want it yet, so I'll put it back in to marinate for a bit longer.
After another 40 minutes, we can see the internal wire structure start to emerge from the dissolving
plastic that's sinking down to the bottom.
The copper portion we can see inside the jar is indeed the antenna.
And the chip we see is the brains of the operation holding the encrypted key information used
to unlock and start the car.
Only Tesla can copy or duplicate these cards, which is good for security.
And it's nice they have fair, cheap pricing on these cards since the technology is super
common and super cheap.
Let's see if it still works on the car without the plastic shell.
[Radio music playing]
And it even lets me drive the car.
So obviously that antenna around the chip is pretty important - all these copper wires.
We can see that it currently locks the Tesla right now.
Let's fold it in half and see what happens.
Let's give it a little fold right here.
Kind of just seeing what our options are with this thing.
So that worked.
Give it another fold.
So I've tried this multiple ways, and the antennas going around the outside of the card
are important.
The orientation of them.
If I keep on folding this over like a figure 8 and folding it in half, it works just fine.
But if it's a scrambled mess, it won't work at all.
So it does depend on how the wires are shaped when you're putting it up against the car.
Kind of interesting.
So overall I'm pretty pumped with how this turned out.
This is what's inside a Tesla Model 3 key card.
You know, who would have thought, there's a lot of copper and a little RFID chip.
It's nice that these things are super cheap, usually less than $10, which is a lot different
than modern gas powered vehicles where the key is programmed and it costs hundreds of
dollars to replace.
So Tesla wins in the cheap key category.
Plus with Tesla's, you can usually just use your phone, which everyone carries with them
anyway, so it works out pretty nice.
I'm excited to see what fun things we can do with the technology inside of this.
Now that it's not the shape of a card, we can literally bend it and shape it into whatever
we want.
We can make it into a ring, we can turn it into a bracelet.
We can sew it into the side of a wallet.
We can surgically implant it into the palm of our hand.
Thanks again to Ben of Teslanomics for suggesting this idea.
I'll leave a link to his channel so you can check it out - everything Tesla related.
If you're thinking about buying a Tesla, there are two weeks left to get 6 months of free
super charging using someone's code.
Elon Musk, the CEO of the company, decided to stop doing the referral program.
So that code is going to go away and you have two weeks left to take advantage of it.
So if you're in the market for a Tesla, 6 months of free super charging is pretty solid.
If you have any questions or any ideas on what I should do with this contraption, go
ahead and leave it down in the comments.
Thanks a ton for watching, and I'll see you around.