When it comes to trends in the automotive industry, Tesla is among the companies leading the pack. Wasn’t Elon Musk’s company the first to ditch the traditional car key with its Model 3? The Lincoln Motor Company followed suit, and the two are currently the frontrunners where this innovation is concerned.
Over the past few years, the change from the traditional ignition key to keyless cars has been increasingly notable and CNBC reports that the new trend is safer and more convenient for drivers.
Demise of Tradition
However, the news outlet also goes on to say that with the innovation came the demise of the tradition of handing teenagers the keys to their first car and having them rev the engine, but that’s neither here nor there.
Most of the new car models on sale in the US market have push-button starters wirelessly connecting to either smartphones or plastic fobs, allowing the driver the luxury of igniting their car with just a simple button push.
Edmunds, the auto-research firm has been keeping tabs on this trend, and executive director Jessica Caldwell says that it’ll definitely continue. Chances are, she continues, that new buyers, be it of brand-new vehicles or used ones, will all be using keyless car systems.
According to data collected by Edmunds, 91% of the car models released in 2019 came with keyless ignitions. In 2014, the figure was at 72%, so you can see that Caldwell’s statement concerning the trend’s continuity is based on facts.
Wards Intelligence, an analysis company in the industry, reports that by March 2019, 68% of the year’s model vehicles that had been sold were keyless. Compared to 2014, this percentage is more than twice the keyless cars sold the entire year, with the figure being 31%.
Cox Automotive’s Karl Brauer describes the keyless technology in one word – ubiquitous. According to him, traditional ignition keys will be obsolete pretty soon. Talk of advances in technology.
As earlier stated, CNBC termed the keyless tech safer and more convenient. How though, you ask? They explain convenience by saying that you’ll forego having to go into your bag or pocket to find your car keys, and you’ve ever had to turn your bag inside out to find that ignition key, you’ll know exactly what they mean.
Increased Safety
As for safety, wasn’t there a General Motors ignition crisis a few years back? The faulty ignition systems led to multiple accidents, resulting in the deaths of more than 100 people. With the cashless tech, the lack of a physical ignition key avoids a situation where while in motion, the key shifts out of run.
Nowadays, it seems as though we use our smartphones for everything, right? With Lincoln and Tesla, you can use your phone as a substitute car key, and it could also be used to actually drive the car.
These two, as we said, are the leading innovators in the industry, so other companies are yet to fully catch up. General Motors and a few others have allowed drivers to control certain vital features using their phones, with remote locking/unlocking being the most common of them all.
Karl Brauer says that the phone should now be referred to as the fifth limb, and that he’s totally for phone-related car systems.