Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by vel0city 809 days ago
I'm a bit confused about your difficulty with unlocking and driving off. The car should have unlocked itself upon approach, and all you would have needed to do to drive would be to swipe the always on part of the screen to drive. Was it not this way with the rental?

I don't own a Tesla and I'm not a fan of their extremely minimalist interior, but those two things should have at least been the easiest to do.

3 comments

How does the car know it should unlock when approached by the right person but not a stranger? It has a Bluetooth connection to the phone. For a rental, the person renting probably doesn't have the Tesla app, and it's not obvious how to use the key card.

None of this is easy for a rental. They are only easy for a person who bought the car and owns it.

On my car the fobs auto unlock the car when approached, you don't need the phone app. There is nothing similar for Teslas? Just the backup card with it's oddities and your phone? Didn't they have that little toy car remote?
They do have that remote but since it doesn't come with the car, you can bet rental companies didn't pay extra to provide customers with that fob.
They give you a key card. Without some prior knowledge, try to figure out where to use the key card.

Putting it near the B-pillar is not the first or second things I tried. In retrospect given the RF nature of how NFC works, it makes sense that behind something non-metallic makes sense. I think I may have tried things near the edge of the windshield (didn't Zipcar work like that?).

I think they only give you the card, so walkup unlock won't happen, at least before setting up a phone key.