Phone as Key Issues

[JES2]

Card on the B-pillar unlocks all doors.

I assume the B-pillar is on the passenger side, and I thought that the card reader was only available on the driver's side. Are there two card readers? I seem to remember an owner stating that the card reader on the A-pillar broke and he couldn't enter his car.

 

[robertvg]

I would think it might be awkward on a date, in which you have to go over to the driver's side and unlock the door, and then run around to the passenger side to open the door for your date

If you can't open the passenger's side door for your spouse the Model 3 will never make it to the UK Royals
Kensington Palace on Twitter

 

[nvx1977]

I assume the B-pillar is on the passenger side, and I thought that the card reader was only available on the driver's side. Are there two card readers? I seem to remember an owner stating that the card reader on the A-pillar broke and he couldn't enter his car.

Sorry I misread your original question. There is only 1 NFC sensor on the exterior, and it's on the driver's side B-pillar.

As far as pillars go, there's two of each. It really sucks that they didn't put a sensor on the passenger-side B-pillar. Walking around to lock/unlock is a pain I've already experienced multiple times.

 

[RTPEV]

I just don't want any non-owners reading this to think that it's as bad living with the car as some of you are making it out to be.

While there certainly may be some hyperbole in some of the reports, understand that the competing technology (i.e. key fob) has a comparatively high reliability record, usually only experiencing a fail once every 2 years if they battery dies. This is the standard I think people would expect.

So if there are non-owners that are EXPECTING this level of reliability and come to find out they have an issue with it "only" once every week or two, well yeah, I think it's fair that they should know what they are getting into. Otherwise it will be a most unpleasant surprise and they just might be extremely vocal about it.

So yeah, I think getting all these warts out in the open (and hopefully in front of managers at Tesla (or Elon himself) who care) is very important. People deserve to be informed up front what the risks are so they can make their informed decisions about whether having to possibly deal with this is worth it to them. If they decide not, there are still plenty of people who will. And if enough people are not willing to put up with it, eventually Tesla will be forced to do something about it.

But as much as it may be wrong to exaggerate the problems, excessively sugar coating it doesn't help anyone either.

 

[ratsbew]

Consumer Reports had an hour-long phone call with Elon Musk. Elon knows about the phone card issue and it sounds like a FOB is in the works. See video below at about 12:50.

 

[iwannam3]

Consumer Reports had an hour-long phone call with Elon Musk. Elon knows about the phone card issue and it sounds like a FOB is in the works. See video below at about 12:50.

He must have the only phone that works all the time. No mention of unreliability.

 

[jamnmon66]

While there certainly may be some hyperbole in some of the reports, understand that the competing technology (i.e. key fob) has a comparatively high reliability record, usually only experiencing a fail once every 2 years if they battery dies. This is the standard I think people would expect.

So if there are non-owners that are EXPECTING this level of reliability and come to find out they have an issue with it "only" once every week or two, well yeah, I think it's fair that they should know what they are getting into. Otherwise it will be a most unpleasant surprise and they just might be extremely vocal about it.

So yeah, I think getting all these warts out in the open (and hopefully in front of managers at Tesla (or Elon himself) who care) is very important. People deserve to be informed up front what the risks are so they can make their informed decisions about whether having to possibly deal with this is worth it to them. If they decide not, there are still plenty of people who will. And if enough people are not willing to put up with it, eventually Tesla will be forced to do something about it.

But as much as it may be wrong to exaggerate the problems, excessively sugar coating it doesn't help anyone either.

Well said. I guess I knew what I was getting into which probably contributes to why it doesn't bother me very much. But prospective owners should really read about pros and cons to decide if there are any deal breakers.

 

[JES2]

Well said. I guess I knew what I was getting into which probably contributes to why it doesn't bother me very much. But prospective owners should really read about pros and cons to decide if there are any deal breakers.

I'm not exactly sure where a prospective owner is supposed to read about the pros and cons of the "phone as a key" or the card. Well, I guess they could come to this forum and read up on it.

 

[djplong]

I got a potentially BAD situation.

Car working normally in the morning. I go home. Get back into car a few hours later. ...or try to. I can see on the screen the "Use RFID card" message. Ok, no big deal. Get card out of wallet. Attempt to unlock fails. Go to passenger side and try again - another failure. Look at app (iPhone) and it's active. I can flash lights via phone. Can't open ANYTHING on the car, however. "Remore open failed" messages.

So. Phone doesn't work. Card doesn't work. Call Tesla support. They ask questions and then transmit a remote unlock. Still need the card to get in and drive.

Get to destination. Shut car down completely. Still wants the card key - but at least it works. After one round of using key card and getting out of the car, phone key works perfectly afterwards and has been working perfectly since.

No idea how that happened.

If this were to have happened in a place where there was no cellular connectivity? ...like when my wife is going up into the mountains this coming weekend?

I programmed Tesla Support into her phone contacts - just in case.

 

[bhzmark]

He must have the only phone that works all the time.

Faulty generalization - Wikipedia

Instead of Pravda, Elon could work on a Chrome extension that just labels fallacies as they appear.

 

[arondaniel]

I got a potentially BAD situation.

Car working normally in the morning. I go home. Get back into car a few hours later. ...or try to. I can see on the screen the "Use RFID card" message. Ok, no big deal. Get card out of wallet. Attempt to unlock fails. Go to passenger side and try again - another failure. Look at app (iPhone) and it's active. I can flash lights via phone. Can't open ANYTHING on the car, however. "Remore open failed" messages.

So. Phone doesn't work. Card doesn't work. Call Tesla support. They ask questions and then transmit a remote unlock. Still need the card to get in and drive.

Get to destination. Shut car down completely. Still wants the card key - but at least it works. After one round of using key card and getting out of the car, phone key works perfectly afterwards and has been working perfectly since.

No idea how that happened.

If this were to have happened in a place where there was no cellular connectivity? ...like when my wife is going up into the mountains this coming weekend?

I programmed Tesla Support into her phone contacts - just in case.

Not sure if related but there was a message delivered to my wife about temporary Tesla app downtime. I think it was last night from 9 PST to ... ?

Also too: not sure what changed but her phone-as-key mysteriously started working again after we returned from Italy 2 days ago. This is the original Google Pixel phone.

 

[jaroque]

I don't want to jinx this but the phone key has worked 4 times in a row today. Before last night's server updates, I was getting a success rate only slightly better than Houston's 3pt percentage last night. (too soon?)

 

[JES2]

Faulty generalization - Wikipedia

Instead of Pravda, Elon could work on a Chrome extension that just labels fallacies as they appear.

Yes, that is what it is. Fallacies. All of these posters on this 44 page thread are just making up these problems to make the car seem bad. Of course, they all went out and purchased the car, so that would make no sense to do. Even Musk has come out and said that a solution is coming. It must be serious enough for him to realize that a solution is needed.

We get that you are not having any problems. Wonderful for you.

You are becoming the exact definition of the word "obtuse."

obtuse: annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand.

 

[GregRF]

Yes, it unlocks all doors. In fact, I'm not even sure the Model 3 has the concept of individual doors being locked and unlocked!

Well this morning I went to the car and phone worked fine for opening trunk, rear door and unlocking the charge port, but then try and get in the drivers seat and it says use card!

 

[bhzmark]

Yes, that is what it is. Fallacies. All of these posters on this 44 page thread are just making up these problems to make the car seem bad. Of course, they all went out and purchased the car, so that would make no sense to do. Even Musk has come out and said that a solution is coming. It must be serious enough for him to realize that a solution is needed.

We get that you are not having any problems. Wonderful for you.

You are becoming the exact definition of the word "obtuse."

obtuse: annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand.

In an earlier post I quoted endless people who report having no problems. I won't waste my time with that exercise again.

I don't deny that some people have a problem. Clearly they do. The evidence doesn't support the claim that most or even many people have a problem. There are some vocal people who do.

With the same car and a relatively limited set of phones, inquisitive intelligent people might wonder if there is an app or a setting on their phone that causes their problem when so many people with the same car and nearly same phone are reporting no problem.

Other people just like to complain instead of helping themselves.

Sharing information and encouraging people to helpthemselves is not obtuse. But claiming that Consumer's Reports who doesn't shy away from reporting on problems "must have the only phone that works all the time" is a fallacy.

But we get it that you have a problem. I don't doubt that at all.

 

[N5329K]

Not sure if related but there was a message delivered to my wife about temporary Tesla app downtime. I think it was last night from 9 PST to ... ?

Also too: not sure what changed but her phone-as-key mysteriously started working again after we returned from Italy 2 days ago. This is the original Google Pixel phone.

Things that fail for no obvious reason can fix themselves for no obvious reason. The pertinent question is, does Tesla see any real advantage in making Model 3 owners to go through all that? If EM's statement to Consumer Reports is a clue, the answer is, maybe not.
As for how prevalent problems with the phone-as-key are, the poll data here suggest that it might be quite a large number of owners. It's just that some are deciding to live with it, or else they're trying to puzzle out the problem in the black box for themselves.
Robin

 

[SDKoala]

I got a potentially BAD situation.

Car working normally in the morning. I go home. Get back into car a few hours later. ...or try to. I can see on the screen the "Use RFID card" message. Ok, no big deal. Get card out of wallet. Attempt to unlock fails. Go to passenger side and try again - another failure. Look at app (iPhone) and it's active. I can flash lights via phone. Can't open ANYTHING on the car, however. "Remore open failed" messages.

So. Phone doesn't work. Card doesn't work. Call Tesla support. They ask questions and then transmit a remote unlock. Still need the card to get in and drive.

There's no card reader on the passenger's side B-pillar, so there's no reason to expect it to work. When you say "attempt to unlock fails," was it that the card just wasn't read at all and nothing happened? Or did it seem like the card was read and the car wouldn't unlock? This is the second time on these boards that I've read about the key card failing, which is a newer development. I've found that if the card isn't exactly in the right spot on the driver's B-pillar, it won't read.

When the phone key didn't work, did you do anything to reset the Bluetooth connection? Toggled Bluetooth off/on, airplane mode off/on, rebooting phone, etc? There's no way to know if it was the phone or the car without going through those steps.

It's possible the remote unlock issue had something to do with the network maintenance from Monday 9PM PDT to Tuesday 2AM PDT. Could have been something lingering in the app that needed restarting to enable it to talk to the servers correctly again.

 

[djplong]

I did a complete shutdown and reboot of the phone after toggling bluetooth off and on and not having that work.

This happened Monday - long after the scheduled downtime. As mentioned before, the funky part was that I could flash lights or honk the horn - but not open or unlock ANYTHING - and the app knew I was parked, proper range remaining and had my location down pat.

 

[jamnmon66]

I'm not exactly sure where a prospective owner is supposed to read about the pros and cons of the "phone as a key" or the card. Well, I guess they could come to this forum and read up on it.

That's what I did.

 

[amitmishra4]

I’ve had my car 5 days and so far the phone key had worked a 100% of the time. My cousins came to visit yesterday and I spoke highly about the car and explained the next gen concept of not having a key. We walked out to the car and I showed everyone how easy it was to grab the handle to open the door with one hand...and nothing. I let go and tried again, and again. Then I pulled out the phone in a save attempt explaining that the app could be used too, and I hit the unlock button and I got the dreaded error - remote unlock failed. I scurried and pulled the card out of my wallet explaining the final alternative while everyone was standing by their doors wondering why it was such an affair to get through the doors to begin with. Thankfully the key card worked and the doors finally unlocked, I got in and had to place the card by the cup holders to start driving the vehicle.

On to the reason I really wrote this post - I was able to replicate the issue again later and I figured I would see why it was happening. The Bluetooth connection seemed intact and the app was able to communicate with the vehicle since it did show the range and other information correctly. Just the security features did not work. I decided to force close and re-open the app before my last ditch plan to restart. This is where my memory fades a tiny bit, I don’t remember if I just reached for the handle after force closing (more than likely this since I looked later and I still did not have the app open in my app tray) or reopened the app and then reached, but either way, it worked like every bit the revolutionary marvel it was meant to be. Based on the fact that the app was just updated earlier in the day and that I didn’t really have to reset the car or the Bluetooth connection(s) with the car and my solution to merely force closed the app and retry worked, my preliminary assessment is that it is the app indeed and not the car. I am using an iPhone 6 for reference along with version 2018.18.13 on the car.