Telsa Model 3 RFID Cards

Has anyone evaluated Tesla Model 3’s RFID cards are compatible with an implant?

I’m still on the hunt for someone with a key or card I can scan…

I have a reservation but delivery estimate is Apr-Jun 2018. Hopefully you will find one before then, If not you can use mine.

awesome :slight_smile: I have some people responding to a Facebook post I put up a couple days ago… the hunt is on.

Step 1) scan a Tesla key or keycard to see what chip type it is.

Step 2) see if we can clone a tesla key to one of our implantable products

Step 3) see if we can get a Tesla store (dealership/service center) to enroll a new tag with the car

Thanks :slight_smile: My hunch was that it was 13.56mhz and possibly an RFID tag that was also NFC compliant… though that really is irrelevant for Tesla’s application (first question on FAQ re RFID vs NFC).

I agree the interesting thing will be to find out if 1) we can clone an enrolled Tesla key to another card/implant, or 2) get a service center to enroll it.

I’m also curious, of course, if there is any security employed… or if it just reads the UID like a $10 lock you can buy on eBay… and if there is security, what kind of security is it? This and many more questions will be answered once we get our first key scan!

I have access to a model s. I will scan the key by tomorrow and let you know what type of chip it is.

I also have a closer, so p if you want to test further I can help out.

Sweeeeet! Ok man can’t wait!

Got a hold of a Tesla key fob and tried to read it using an android phone and using the cyberise.me multicloner. No luck with either one, nothing comes up.

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Maybe this is know all already but it is indeed a 13.56 mhz NFC system.
Uses the ST Micro ST25R3915 NFC chip. MAybe there are some clues there.
There seems to be a different module that handles the BT LE communications with the phones.

tesla 774 internal.pdf (423.6 KB)

tesla 774 manual.pdf (231.0 KB)

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Looks like it’s using the ISO 14443-3A standard…
tesla 774 test report.pdf (1.0 MB)

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Brilliant work! The ST25R3915 is a pretty decent interrogator chip. Interesting they have two… i wonder if they also have a reader at the back of the car for popping the trunk with a card?

I read in at least one place the trunk is manual on the 3…cost cutting…

ah… well i’d rather have costs cut there than remove the option of self-driving :slight_smile:

While I’m allowed to say what system Tesla is using, it’s definitely not anything resembling Mifare. So (sadly? or perhaps it’s a good thing for a 35k USD car) that rules out all current x-series implants. I can also say it won’t work with the Desfire EV1. Model 3 uses cards with much stronger cryptography (more akin to the Vivokey).

Looking forward to trying to get in touch with someone at Tesla about writing a Tesla Key java card applet for VivoKey. I’m fairly certain that Tesla key cards are actually contactless smart cards that already run a java card applet… so allowing that applet to be deployed to VivoKey shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. Any ideas who I should talk to? You can PM me if that’s more comfortable :slight_smile:

Hi, I told the person who might know more. He/she might get in touch. I’m not sure what he/she can say (or do for you) but at least they can contact you if they want. I expect pretty much any person working in Tesla R&D is fascinated by implanted transponders in some way…

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That’s great! Looking forward to any possible discussion. Willing to sign NDA as well if necessary.

@amal @CyBro was any progress made on any of this? I have a Model 3 and while I’m not interested in implanting myself, I am looking to write an article about this idea and whether it seems possible or not.

Hi, I have no word on the Javacard/Vivokey other than what’s already been said.

On the other hand, I have thought of an approach on how to make an RFID based Tesla unlocker with some additional hardware. I’m going to power up an existing keyfob with a microcontroller as soon as it recognizes my RFID implant. This makes it visible (for a certain duration) to the car. I can then drive away within a certain time frame and the keyfob will “disappear” (it gets shut down). I hope that the “keyfob not present in Tesla” will not be too annoying and that I won’t get “replace battery” notices. Otherwise I may need a way to trigger it from inside the car while driving to get rid of the message or use an accelerometer to only disable it when the car is stationary (that way it’s more likely that I left the car). I’d rather to have the keyfob disappear (and thus lock the car if I’m not driving) because I should have a reliable way to unlock it with RFID. Add to this that I have a backup key with me: I can unlock & drive through the Tesla Smartphone app with my fingerprint.

I was curious to know what you think of this approach?

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Well it depends on if we’re talking keyfob or keycard - the keyfob for Model S requires power (a battery) and I know that some people have managed to wirelessly intercept the signal for walk-up unlocking, whereas the keycard for Model 3 is just an RFID chip and thus requires no power, which I presume is what would allow it to be implanted.

The phone will be used as the main key for sure, and is more convenient than the RFID keycard (since it connects wirelessly and you don’t need to press the phone to the b-pillar or center console every time you want to unlock/drive the car, unlike you would need to do with the keycard), but kind of curious if this is possible. Have an email out to Tesla to see if they’ll tell me what kind of security or protocol it uses but Tesla takes their time to respond to emails…

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