Any unauthorized person can use the car during charging?

[Knightshade]

Okay, but your wife still has to lock it with the key card when you aren’t with her, right?

Sure, there's there's no phone to trigger walk away.

I’ve tested the phone/card interaction in the past. I found that for walk-away door lock to work you need to either unlock or start the car using the phone key. If you do both with the card then it doesn’t matter if you have the phone with you, it won’t lock the doors when you walk away.

A couple caveats:

1. Sometimes when unlocking with the card I could drive with the phone key, and sometimes it refused to start if I didn’t use the card. I found no way to consistently drive with the phone key when using the card to unlock (and I made sure to wait over a minute to let the unlock time out before trying to drive).
2. As with anything else Tesla, what used to work isn’t necessarily what works now or in the future...

That has not, at all, been my experience as I described previously, at any time in my ~17 months of ownership so far.

There's basically two scenarios where this is going on:


1) Wife unlocks car with key card. I'm not there (she's at work with the car). She starts it with key card, and drives to my work several minutes away.

2) She pulls to my work where I'm waiting.

Now's where 2 different things can happen-

A) She unlocks the doors with the lock button on the center screen- I get in passenger seat- she drives away.

B) She gets out of the car and gets into passenger side, I get in drivers side, we drive off (this swap takes maybe 30 seconds?)


In both cases walk away unlock works fine when we get to where we're going and I walk away from the car.

In no case does she ever have to use the keycard to lock it- even though it's what she "started" the original drive with.



The owners manual also seems to confirm this "walk away doesn't work if you used a key card to start the drive" myth is exactly that- a myth

Doors and trunk can automatically lock whenever you walk away carrying your authenticated phone or paired key fob (if ordered after approximately October 1 2019)

Nothing about caring how the car was UN-locked to start.


The only conditions it lists where this does not work are:

Door/trunk still open when you walk away

authenticated phone or fob is still detected inside the car when you walk away

You are not using an authenticated phone AT ALL and you walk away carrying ONLY a key card or unauthenticated Fob (like the old pre-oct-1 fobs that didn't do passive entry).

 

[Runt8]

The unlock timeout period is actually two minutes, not one. This might explain your varied results . You might have been confusing this with the alarm activation which is indeed only one minute.

It’s 30 seconds, according to the manual (which matches what I’ve seen as well). To be clear, I’m talking about the timeout for putting your foot on the brake before it requires you to place the card by the cup holder.

That has not, at all, been my experience as I described previously, at any time in my ~17 months of ownership so far.

There's basically two scenarios where this is going on:


1) Wife unlocks car with key card. I'm not there (she's at work with the car). She starts it with key card, and drives to my work several minutes away.

2) She pulls to my work where I'm waiting.

Now's where 2 different things can happen-

A) She unlocks the doors with the lock button on the center screen- I get in passenger seat- she drives away.

B) She gets out of the car and gets into passenger side, I get in drivers side, we drive off (this swap takes maybe 30 seconds?)


In both cases walk away unlock works fine when we get to where we're going and I walk away from the car.

In no case does she ever have to use the keycard to lock it- even though it's what she "started" the original drive with.



The owners manual also seems to confirm this "walk away doesn't work if you used a key card to start the drive" myth is exactly that- a myth.

I’m wondering if opening the door is triggering the car to connect to the phone. My testing method went like this:

1. Leave the phone in the house, out of Bluetooth range (tested by making sure the doors don’t unlock).
   
2. Use the keycard to unlock the door.
   
3. Leaving the door open, go back in the house and grab the phone.
   
4. After at least a minute, enter the car, shut the door, and put my foot on the brake.

At this point, one of two things would happen:

1. The car would start and I could drive away. When I got out and walked away the doors would lock. This happened roughly 20% of the time.
2. I would need to put my keycard by the cup holder to start the car, and then when I got out and walked away the doors wouldn’t lock.

I did this testing roughly 10 months ago, so I have no idea if I would have the same results today. I also practically never have problems with the phone key, so I don’t think it was a case of a flaky phone or Bluetooth connection.

As for the manual, it also says the doors won’t automatically lock if you aren’t using a phone key or fob. So if using the key card means your phone isn’t used as the key then it makes perfect sense for the doors not to lock. I certainly wouldn’t call it a myth as it’s behavior I’ve directly observed. There’s obviously something going on that’s causing your phone key to connect and mine not to (usually).

 

[Knightshade]

As for the manual, it also says the doors won’t automatically lock if you aren’t using a phone key or fob

What it exactly says is:

you are not using an authenticated phone or paired key fob as the key and walk away carrying the key card or unpaired key fob

I bolded the "and" to make it clear why this is listed- they mean the key card or unpaired fob don't trigger walk away lock (which should be obvious- since the car has no idea when either walks away)

But if you DO have an authenticated phone or paired (ie newer) fob- it'll lock. Since it DOES know when those walk away.

At no point does it ever suggest it cares, at all, about what device unlocked the car to begin with.

There’s obviously something going on that’s causing your phone key to connect and mine not to (usually).

Agreed- but that has nothing to do with the idea that the phone walk away won't work if you unlocked with the key card.

Which is the myth in question.

Even in your case you admit it DOES work some of the time. In mine it appears to be all of the time.

If unlocking with the key card meant you must re-lock with the key card then it'd never work with the walk-away lock for either ofus.

 

[Flatbat]

It’s 30 seconds, according to the manual (which matches what I’ve seen as well). To be clear, I’m talking about the timeout for putting your foot on the brake before it requires you to place the card by the cup holder.

Right you are, I stand corrected.

 

[Jrzapata]

I’d say do your test again But either turn off Bluetooth or turn off all phones set as keys in your house