If you’re a Tesla owner, it’s probably pretty rare that you use your vehicle’s key cards to get in and start your EV. More likely than not, you’re using your phone as a key, but it’s still probably a good idea to have that physical backup in case your phone is on the fritz, dead or the car — for whatever reason — just doesn’t want to connect to it.
All Teslas come with a couple of credit card-sized key cards that are meant to act as backups, but Tesla has apparently removed the mention of them being included with new vehicles from the owners’ manuals of both the Model 3 and Model Y following the release of the cheaper (and far worse) Standard trim levels of both vehicles. The story was first noticed by the Tesla news blog, Not A Tesla App, and has since been reported by InsideEVs. This wouldn’t be the first time Tesla quietly removed wording from an owner’s manual as a precursor to actually getting rid of a feature.
Pinch those pennies, Elon
This move is just the latest in a long line of cost-cutting measures at the Austin, Texas-based automaker. The electric vehicle market is poised for a downturn following the death of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit at the hands of President Donald Trump, and CEO Elon Musk’s politics have done little to help things, so Tesla is looking everywhere it can to pinch a penny. It probably figures if it can save a few cents on a piece of plastic on every car, why not do it?
If you are the type of Tesla buyer who doesn’t put your full faith in the phone-as-a-key system, you should still be able to purchase a key card. For $40, you’ll get two key cards and a small bifold wallet. That’s not a lot of money, but it does seem a bit steep when you consider it’s a few pieces of plastic and a couple RFID chips. Hell, at $40, it works out to be about 0.1% of the entire purchase price of a new Model Y Standard.
You’ve gotta remember, the keycards were already a bit of a cost-cutting move for Tesla (yes, I know the phone-as-a-key was always the main goal, anyway). When the Model S and Model X first launched, they had actual key fobs with buttons and everything. You can apparently still buy them on Tesla’s website, butthe link is very much broken at the moment.
