Apple Car Key & Google/Android Car Key

[ucokseparoh]

I heard some brands have implemented this feature on their newer vehicle. What would you think the future of locksmithing be like should all auto brands adopt this feature in the future? How likely will a person loose their phone compare to their keys?

The worst of it is, this feature doesn't necessarily negate the need for keys, vehicle still come with keys but owner just don't have to use it (they can just keep it at home for instance, and use it for emergency)

[Spiritech]

What happens with rental cars? Or cars shared by many users? What happens when a phone is lost and the 'key' is on the phone? You still need to be able to disable that lost credential.

Cars will for the foreseeable future retain their own key programming functions and discrete keys, these functions have been tried by automakers in a limited way but they return to the physical credential or still require it for full functionality(see Ford). The idea of farming out the security of their product to Google or Apple will also not appeal to most automakers.

All of this is disregarding the argument of economics, replacement keys are a fairly decent profit for automakers because their margins are so high on them.

I think we're safe for a few more years yet.

[ucokseparoh]

What happens with rental cars? Or cars shared by many users? What happens when a phone is lost and the 'key' is on the phone? You still need to be able to disable that lost credential.

What happens with rental cars? Or cars shared by many users? The keys can be shared through some kind of authentication process to as many people as possible, like JasonWebToken in web programming or like when we share a Google Drive documents.

What happens when a phone is lost and the 'key' is on the phone? Owner can simply revert back to using their actual key which they kept at home. And as long as the lost keys is not the master (in which kept by the owner and use it as a authorization to share 'slave keys' to others), the owner can simply delete the lost 'slave keys' just like we choose to whether to authorize certain people to use or not to use our Google Drive documents. Chance may be available for out skill to be used if the master is lost.

While I do agree with your argument that car keys replacement is a profitable part of auto industry, but still I feel this new tech will become a threat to locksmithing industry should automakers adopt this technology as a whole.