RFID Chip From Tesla Model 3’s Keycard Implanted Into Owner’s Arm

Unlike other cars, physical keys are not included in the package of the Model 3 of Tesla. In place of that, owners of the cars can use either their smartphone or a key fob in the shape of a car to unlock and turn them on. In the unfortunate case where their phone’s battery runs out or they just don’t own a fob, users could always use a keycard alternatively.

However, those are not all the methods users can use to replace physical keys as a creative driver has found another unusual way to always be able to unlock and turn her Tesla’s Model 3 on by implanting the keycard’s RFID chip into her arm.

That ingenious driver is Amie DD, who works as a software engineer and as she describes herself, the “maker of things”. In one of her videos, Amie shared the fact that she had had an RFID chip in her forearm for years now, which she had been using to unlock the front door of her house as well as to send to her private website browsers from her phone. In the process of preordering her Tesla’s Model 3, she thought that she probably could do the same thing with the keycard. However, when she realized she could not transfer the software from the card to the chip that was already in her arm, she resolved to take out the keycard’s chip and insert it into her forearm as well.

In order to perform that, she first used acetone to dissolve the card and went on to have the chip enclosed in biopolymer. Then, she got to have the chip, which was then around a Lego mini-figure size, inserted into her arm by a studio specialized in body modification. In another video (warning, there is blood), she displays the implantation to her viewers. Also, the whole process was documented on Hackaday.

Whereas she does not show if the chip actually works in her video (she already twitted about her swollen arm right after chip implanting), she ensured The Verge by direct message about the functionality of the chip, even though the distance between her arm and the console “isn’t the greatest”, which is around an inch (2.5 cm). She also noted that she is in hope that it will get better when the swelling improves over time. To say the least, by doing this, she would never lock herself out of the car by mistake ever again.