Starting and driving without any key?

[Dale919]

Is it possible to start and drive a 2021 Tesla model 3 without having any key? Why am I asking? Recently we were out of town for more than a week, our Tesla was parked at home, and a neighbor's 16 year old daughter C was coming each day to our house to feed our cat. Upon returning home I discovered that in fact the Tesla had been driven several times while we were gone (dash cam videos). My wife and I had our iPhone keys with us out of town, and we don't have key fobs, so how could someone start and drive our car? C claims that she had not searched through our desks to find and use one of our key cards. Is there any other possibility? Do any settings/profiles make any difference to this question?
Context: Our house is in a big woods and has a long lane to it. We do lock our house and also the Tesla when it is driven away from home, but we have never locked our Tesla while it sits at home. I guess we will now!

 

[GtiMart]

The car will work if there's a (paired for key) cell phone close enough, but that shouldn't be your case as you're indicating. There is a "repeater" attack possible but the phone still needs to be relatively close as far as I know. Using a registered card will work but you're also saying that was not the case here. Key fobs work too but you said you have none.
The only other option I know of is to use the mobile application to "start" the car remotely. Doing this, the person has 2 minutes to put the car in Drive. You can also unlock the doors from the mobile app. Now, everything that can be done with the mobile app goes through the Tesla API. That means that anyone that is capable of calling REST apis and that has your credentials (username/password for Tesla account) can do this.
Tesla Techs could possibly have access to your car without any keys.

I can't think of anything else at the moment.

* You could set a "pin to drive" to prevent this type of thing from happening?

** I strongly suggest you remove your full address from your profile and just set a city, for your personal safety. Don't disclose too much information.

 

[Tam]

Is it possible to start and drive a 2021 Tesla model 3 without having any key?...

Yes.

If someone knows your credentials, they can use their phone app then click:

Control->Start

Most likely someone used your key card left at home.

 

[CKwik240]

I think under security on the car, it will provide some history of what keys were used in the vehicle. That may help you identify if someone used one of your cards.

 

[jjrandorin]

My wife and I had our iPhone keys with us out of town, and we don't have key fobs, so how could someone start and drive our car?

Occams razor applies here (paraphrased "the simplest answer is often the correct one"). Someone used your keycard to drive your car, and you also had some suspicion / expectation that might happen, or there would have been no reason for you to start going back and looking at dash cam videos when you got back.

 

[SVMike]

Just to add to this old thread. Since I just had a Tesla mobile tech do some work a few days ago...
When the tech arrives s/he does something in the mobile vehicle or on his/her phone to unlock your car and allow entry and driving.
When this happens a message pops up on the screen in the car.
Tesla should also send this message to the primary phone app

 

[father_of_6]

If you have dashcam video of "C" driving the car, why don't you ask her how she started it? You can then reward her honesty by *not* pressing charges for grand theft auto.