Cell Phones Disable Keys for High-End Cars

Geoffrey.landis writes "Turns out if you have a top-end Nissan car, your cellphone may erase your car key. '"We discovered that if the I-Key touches a cellphone, outgoing or incoming calls have the potential to alter the electronic code inside the I-Key," Nissan spokesman Kyle Bazemore said. "The car won't start and the I-Key cannot be reprogrammed."'"

Comments

That's a crying shame...

[__aaclcg7560]

I miss the days when you could open the car door with a coat hanger and hot wire the ignition.

Re:That's a crying shame...

[maxume]

I would only ever do that if I had one pocket. Cell phones are usually made out of soft, easily scratched plastic. Keys are made out of metal. Not a good combination(I mean, obviously, but people really put their keys and cell phone in the same pocket?).

Re:That's a crying shame...

[rizzo420]

actually, i'd be willing to bet that nissan will have to fix these and possibly recall the keys. cell phones are all over. if this happens as easily as it sounds, nissan should be changing their technology and replacing the keys and/or ignition system.

Re:That's a crying shame...

[Anonymous Coward]

I miss the days when you could open the car door with a coat hanger and hot wire the ignition.

Are you old enough to remember the billboards advertising VW bugs which said, "Do you remember when you could tune a car with a screwdriver instead of a committee?"

Re:That's a crying shame...

[zippthorne]

The leatherman should be in it's provide leather holster on your belt.

Re:That's a crying shame...

[jlarocco]

Yeah... But that's a false dichotomy. Could just as easily take the key or hide it. No need to be an asshole and erase it.

Re:That's a crying shame...

[CastrTroy]

With all the junk I have to carry, I've just broken down and got a man purse. Works great for those times when you don't want to carry around a back pack, but don't have enough room in your pockets, or happen to be wearing pants without pockets. I don't really care if some people think it looks feminine. It gets the job done, and I don't have to walk around with my pockets crammed full of stuff.

Re:That's a crying shame...

[maxume]

As a crass, over-consuming American, I just don't see any reason to scratch my $30, 2 year old phone when it is so easily avoided. I mean, I have my phone to communicate and not to show it also, but it still bugs me if it is getting scratched in a way that is perfectly avoidable.

Stupid New Cars

[phantomcircuit]

The amount of electronics in modern cars is ridiculous, especially when you think about how often electronics break and how easily they're broken.

My mom has a ford escape, there have been two wiring recalls and the wiring has failed on two separate occasions. They had to completely replace the main board!

I can understand that putting electronics in cars seems like a good idea, but it's not.

It's DANGEROUS!

Re:Stupid New Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's the electronics per se, but rather the attitude creeping in from the computer industry. I've noticed it in other industries as well, such as television and phone service. Faults that wouldn't have been tolerated ten years ago are suddenly cropping up everywhere. People have become desensitised to failure with electronics because of computers. Sloppy QA because of the training/expertise/staff overlap with computers.

And at the same time, another problem is preventing this from being solved. People put up with it. The way capitalism is supposed to work is that if somebody fucks up, you can go with a competitor. But now it's trendy to complain and then forget about it until next time something goes wrong. Shitty mobile phone reception? Moan about it, but don't ask for your money back. Crashing computer? Complain to your neighbourhood geek, but don't demand a refund. Evil dictator in charge of your country? Re-elect the fucker! When there's no consequences to providing a shitty service, that's exactly what people will give you.

Re:Stupid New Cars

[couchslug]

No, crappy engineering (Ford cruise control switches, having large areas of harness "hot" even with the vehicle not running...) is dangerous.

The public want blingful features, the public are no longer mechanically literate, and the public will not vocally insist on reliable vehicles. This creates tremendous pressure on makers to offer stupid shite at a competitive price.

Even good features like electronically controlled automatic transmissions are often poorly engineered and are brutally expensive to replace when they fail.

As an aside, tool prices have remained quite low, and if you are the sort of person who isn't afraid to learn you can save many thousands of dollars by doing your own work. The money you save easliy buys good equipment you can use for a lifetime.
Never has an auto repair course at the local community college been a better value. You can free yourself from ever having to buy a new car, free yourself from being at the mercy of undertrained or unethical automobile repair outfits, and know the person who worked on your car gave a shit.
If you can understand computers, it isn't a great leap to understand other technology, and as usual the internet can help.

Re:Stupid New Cars

[Anonymous Coward]

Electronic controls do not give anything that a well engineered engine does not

What about better mileage, less emissions, and more reliable mechanics?

If you move away from the engine you've got things like anti-lock brakes which are an electronically-controlled aspect of a primary safety system. (Though, while I don't know for sure, I suspect a failure in the ABS controller would likely not keep the brakes from operating normally.)

Re:Stupid New Cars

[Hamster Of Death]

You interact with critical systems every day that rely on electronics. You probably just never sat down to think about it since they are implemented well and tested to hell and back. How often do traffic lights fail? Elevators? Medical equipment? These all have a drastically lower rate of failure than consumer electronics. The problem here isn't with electronics in cars, it's with poorly implemented electronics in cars. Manufacturers need to give their quality control teams a kick in the butt and the means for them to implement the correct solutions. However, as long as marketing runs the show we will continue to have the users as a testbed instead of technicians testing these systems before the users and time and effort will go into areas that have a bigger payoff like 'styling'.

Re:Stupid New Cars

[zitch]

Is it really electronics that increase complexity in an engine, or is it what is being asked out of an engine that's increasing the complexity?

When it comes down to it, how much "mechanical" engineering will it take to build an engine that will get the power for the size and efficiency of a modern engine? Combine that with the fuel efficiency and emission requirements being forced on modern cars, how do you think any mechanical system will be able to determine how much air/fuel mixture is needed so that the catalytic converters can best convert any unwanted gasses that may result from the combustion process? Have you ever seen how complex a hydraulic control system for a 4- or 5-speed auto is? And it's just there to make a "current speed + how far pedal pushed down -> gear to use" calculation, too.

For an example, look at the 2003 Honda Accord I own. Computers and electronics control the air/fuel mixture, the spark ignition timing, and even the gear changing on the auto tranny. How can you replace these electronics with mechanical processes and maintain the same amount of reliability and performance? And these are only some of the parts I would consider "critical" in an engine. That is also excluding functions like ABS and airbag deployement (I.E., not only when to deploy them, but what "stage", as modern airbags have multiple stages that are used depending on severity of a crash and if the occupant is wearing a seat belt).

The real problem is not electronics, but what you alluded in your last sentence: poor engineering. If a part becomes a common point of failure on a type of car, whether it's a mechanical part or part of the electronics, it's from bad engineering at some level in designing that car. It could be that the part wasn't built to expected specs, or the part is being used in a way that it's not designed for. But in the end, it's still bad engineering. And that could be the result of any number of causes (oversight, cutting corners, etc.). Just because it's "electronics" doesn't make it any more prone to failure.

Re:Stupid New Cars

[CastrTroy]

It happened to me while driving once. Belt snapped. Luckily I was on a 2 lane highway, so I had no problem pulling off to the side. Funny coincidence is that mechanical or electrical can cause you to lose power.

All microwaves?

[DMCBOSTON]

Maybe leaving it on the microwave isn't such a good idea, either. Are they REALLY that damn sensitive? I'll take a mechanical lock anyday.

Cannot be reprogrammed?

[ushering05401]

IF the signature can be altered by a signal why could it not be re-alligned by another? Is the frequency somehow damaging the medium that holds the signature?

If you expose magnetic media to random magnetic forces you lose data... but it does not destroy the medium itself.

OTOH if you pass a Sensormatic EAS tag through an EMF it destroys the medium.

Why would you make a key like that? What's going on here? Who's running this show?

Re:Cannot be reprogrammed?

[Dun Malg]

IF the signature can be altered by a signal why could it not be re-alligned by another? Is the frequency somehow damaging the medium that holds the signature?

If you expose magnetic media to random magnetic forces you lose data... but it does not destroy the medium itself.

OTOH if you pass a Sensormatic EAS tag through an EMF it destroys the medium.

Why would you make a key like that? What's going on here? Who's running this show?
I'm just idly speculating, but it's perfectly plausible that the device is "programmed" at the time of manufacture by direct wire connection, then the device is cast into the plastic key head later. From the sound of it, the keys are the unfortunate victims of near-field radiation. Near-field effects include surprisingly strong magnetic induction, which could reasonably be expected to fustigate a badly designed transponder circuit such as one would find in a key like this.

who thought this was a good idea?

[compro01]

seriously, these chipped keys are nothing but problems and it makes the keys stupidly expensive. to get another key for the ford van we have will run you $50, and that's just for the blank! cutting it is another $15. then another $5 to get it programmed if you can't do it yourself (doing it yourself requires 2 already programmed keys)

why can't we just use a bit of properly carved metal to start the vehicle without throwing in a bunch of junk?

Re:who thought this was a good idea?

[localman]

I have keyless entry and ignition on my car (2004 Prius) and I gotta say, I do like it a lot. When I rent cars nowadays and have to use a physical key, or even a pushbutton to unlock, it feels positively archaic and a bit annoying. I'd most likely get the feature again on my next car. They put a lot of thought into the behavior, and it basically does what you expect without you even
thinking about it. Eventually it feels like the car just knows you.

Sometimes it can be confusing, like if you get out of the car while it's running to let a friend borrow it. It gives a beep to let you know -- but if you don't remember to take the key out of your pocket and give it to your friend, they can drive away but won't be able to start the car once they turn it off. That's never actually happened to me, but it's just something annoying that could happen with the system.

But it's still one of the nicest little conveniences I've seen added to a car in quite a while.

Re:who thought this was a good idea?

[maxume]

In the U.S., the most popular stolen cars are stolen to be parted out. It could just be the relative size of the vehicle markets that makes it so that most of the cars stolen in Sweden are stolen for a joy ride or whatever.

Re:This is precisely why...

[TrappedByMyself]

People got along for more than 100 years in cars without GPS systems telling them (in some cases incorrectly) to "turn right in 300 yards".

Perspective

People got along for thousands of years without cars, so maybe you should consider getting rid of yours.

Re:Except they do...

[LWATCDR]

Actually about twice the HP of your car. Oh and EU emission standards are lower the US standards. The US has some of the highest emission standards in the world and CA and a few other states are the at the very top. Most cars are 50 state cars so they meet those high standards.
The US is very different from the UK. The UK isn't much bigger then a good number of states. In some places in the US distances are vast and the population is low. Ever wonder why people in the US and Australia tend to drive the same types of cars?
Oh and my car? One is a Mazda 3 and the other a Dodge Intrepid. Both get pretty good milage. And my commute is only 14 miles each way and I carpool with my wife. I would say that you are the one that needs to get off your high horse. The US is different from the UK. I happen to like European style cars but I can tell you that they are not ideally suited to the US.

Re:Ah but then you can lock them with wifi .....

[Anonymous Coward]

Nissan, Toyota... What I want to know is where are those high end cars that the article blurb promised to talk about? A rice cooker with fancy electronics is still a rice cooker.