There many ways to unlock a Tesla Model 3 — keycard, key fob, Tesla app — and one owner found a new one with a biohack: implanting a RFID chip into her arm to unlock her Model 3 with it.

A biohacker going by “Amie DD” on Hackaday released a video (embedded below) about how she extracted the RFID chip out of her Model 3 keycard and created an implant that she injected into her arm.

While it may sound crazy to inject a piece of technology under your skin, it’s actually similar to the implants we inject pets with to identify them.

Amie already had a RFID chip implanted in her hand, and she thought she could transfer the information from her Tesla keycard to her chip, but Tesla’s security systems prevented that.

Instead, she simply dissolved a keycard that was already working with her Model 3 and salvaged the RFID chip:

After that, she packaged the chip in a smaller format and encapsulated it inside a biopolymer that can be implanted inside her arm:

She then went to a body modification expert named Pineapple to safely implant the chip into her right arm:

She hasn’t released a video of the hack working just yet, but it’s apparently coming soon.

Here’s her video summarizing the entire process:

Electrek’s Take

I get the cool “sci-fi” factor to this, but I don’t get the practicality aspect of it at all.

The Model 3’s keycard and RFID unlocking system was not designed by Tesla to be the main way to unlock and use the car.

It was designed as a backup system if your phone doesn’t work or if you need to loan your car to someone who you don’t want to give access to your Tesla account, like a valet or someone like that.

Obviously, this is not going to work if the chip is implanted in your arm.

And if you want to use it as your main way to unlock your car, it’s definitely not as convenient as using your phone, which unlocks your car as you walk up to it.

Am I missing something? Are there other advantages to this other than the cool “sci-fi” factor? Let me know in the comments section below.

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